chapter seven
Henry and Elva arrived just after dark. The last of the town ladies had gone home and, at the pastor’s behest, the undertaker’s men had come and taken Albert away, still wrapped in the blanket from our bed. They told me that I could come to the mortuary later, when I was prepared to discuss the funeral arrangements. Not too late, though. Seeing as how it was Sunday, tomorrow would be best. They didn’t mention how much it would cost, and I didn’t think to ask. We would manage somehow.
I had already said my good-byes by then, and Eddie had taken Georgie out into the backyard to play with his ball so that he wouldn’t have to see his father taken away. I stayed calm when the undertaker’s men carried his body down the hall on the stretcher. Even so, one of the men had suggested I might want the doctor to come back and give me something to calm me down. Maybe that was something he always suggested to the grieving relatives. Most new widows welcomed something to help them sleep, he said. But I told him no. Medicine was for when you were sick in body, not to encourage spiritual weakness. If the Lord had sent this trial to me, I would bear it alone.
Deputy Falcon Wallace was the last to leave, and although I had been glad to see him, I was every bit as glad when he left. Now it was just me and Eddie and George. I thought that finally we could spend the evening in peace. I thought I would read them a happy story to help them sleep. There had been enough sorrow for them that day.
I was in the kitchen, spooning up a plate of cold food for Georgie, but he had been eating pie for most of the afternoon, and wasn’t hungry. A hot supper of pancakes with syrup and two scrambled eggs would have been comforting for us. It was a favorite meal of Eddie’s, and I would have welcomed the chance to prepare a hot supper from scratch to distract us from our grief. Instead, though, we would eat the cold food that the day’s visitors had brought. I had been raised not to let good food go to waste, even though serving food brought by near strangers came too close to charity for my liking. But now practicality had to take place over sentiment. Without an icebox to store it in, the food would spoil quickly. Albert had been saving up to buy us a refrigerator, but time ran out before we could afford one. I guess we’ll never have one now.
I loaded each plate with cold ham, potato salad, a deviled egg, and a biscuit. The boys knew the rule: if they ate all of the first helping, they could have more. For their sake, I had to be frugal. Every meal I could make with the food brought by the well-wishers stretched our provisions even further. I knew I had to make what little money we had left from savings last for as long as I could. A sinkhole had opened up underneath our secure and peaceful future. Now I felt I couldn’t see any further than the next sunset. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and try not to think.
Just as I was about to spoon helpings of food onto the fourth plate, I remembered about Albert. Habit. I couldn’t trust it anymore. Now every move would have to be thought out until I got used to our new life. After I wiped my eyes, I rinsed the plate and put it back in the cupboard. The fourth place setting of flatware went back in the drawer beside the sink. My hands were shaking.
Three plates, I told myself. From now on.
It was full dark outside when we sat down in silence to eat the supper that none of us wanted.
“Eddie, you may say grace.”
He looked up, surprised. His father had always said the blessing before meals. Now the responsibility was his.
Neither one of us had any more of an appetite than Georgie did, but we dutifully picked at our food. We had to make the effort to get our lives back to normal. I didn’t yet know what normal would turn out to be, but the one sure thing about it was that I had to get past the debility of grief—soon, for the sake of the boys, who needed me to be calm and steady to keep them from being afraid. Sorrow aside, the practical obligations of a death in the family would occupy me in the days to come. Suddenly I had to decide where Albert’s final resting place should be, see about arranging the funeral, and at the same time sort through the bills and the bank book to see what there was left to live on.
When I got past all that, I would have to decide what came next. People said that when Queen Victoria’s Albert died, she shut herself right away for a couple of years and then stayed in mourning for the rest of her life. I never heard of any woman—even a queen with a houseful of servants—who could find the leisure to keep mourning year after year. The queen had a country to run and nine or ten children: What had she done about them? I couldn’t decide whether I envied Victoria for being able to indulge that steadfast grief or if I thought her selfish for wallowing in her own sorrow and neglecting everything else. That was a choice I did not have. Besides, it wouldn’t have done any good for me to fast and weep over my own Albert; he wouldn’t have wanted me to carry on that way. He would have considered it an embarrassment, not a tribute.
He suffered the loss of both his parents without once giving way to mourning. According to him, an excess of grief was undignified—less a measure of the mourner’s sorrow than a self-indulgent display of emotion. He would have wondered what such transports of sorrow really meant—a guilty conscience perhaps. If I had seen fit to carry on that way, it would have made him cringe.
The three of us ate our meal in silence: me because I was too exhausted to think of anything to say to the boys, and I reckon Eddie was quiet because he was afraid he might say the wrong thing and make me cry. Georgie set his moods by watching what his elders were doing. He stared down at his plate, knowing that our silence meant trouble.
When the front door opened and closed, Eddie and I stiffened and looked at each other, but before we could make a move Henry and Elva appeared in the hall, peering into the kitchen, as if to make sure that no company was present. They were in no mood to be sociable with strangers either, I suppose.
Henry looked more ill at ease than grief-stricken, but when he saw that there was no one present except his brother’s widow and their boys, his scowl relaxed into a tight-lipped stare.
I was startled to see him. Even though we had been here more than a year, this was the first time they had come to our house. Albert and I would go to see them when we paid a visit home. We usually made the trip as a daylong excursion in good weather, planned to coincide with a special event at their old church: revival, homecoming, Easter. The rest of the time we stayed in town and attended services there, but it wasn’t the same.
I wondered if Henry had any trouble finding the house. He knew about Albert’s new job, though; perhaps they had stopped at the sheriff’s office to ask for directions. Anyhow, it was a small town; you couldn’t get lost for long. Or maybe Albert had told his brother where we lived. He often invited them to visit us, and though Henry always promised he’d come soon, he never did.
Looking at Henry now, it was hard to remember the winsome little boy he had been back when Albert and I were first married. There were frown lines at the corners of his mouth and he was already running to fat, with a fringe of thinning hair high on his forehead. It was as if he had turned forty fifteen years too early, and would just keep on looking that way for decades to come. I suppose he can’t help what he looks like, but he’s soured on life, too. Maybe it’s because times are so hard for farmers right now, or maybe being married to Elva was as bad as I figured it would be, but he always seemed to be in a bad mood. I don’t know what he had to be angry about. He never wanted to do anything except marry Elva and tend that farm, and he got his wish. I wonder if he regretted not wishing for something else instead.
Elva stood beside him, holding the strap of her purse with both hands, as if she was afraid the town was such a dangerous place that there might be robbers lurking in our kitchen. You could look at her for a week and never see one sign of the sweet, quiet girl she had seemed at seventeen. Her hair was crinkled into brassy waves, and she always seemed to have a faint sneer on her face. She was still quiet, but it was because she was always watchi
ng things, like a cat at a mouse hole, waiting to pounce.
She was looking around the room, not at us, probably comparing it to what she had back on the farm. Her faint sneer meant she thought she had won. I suppose that was because after they put in electricity Henry had bought her a refrigerator to replace the old icebox. I don’t think she gave him much choice in that. Any other time I might have minded that sneer, but what did it matter now?
They must have heard the news, or else they wouldn’t have come, but neither of them was dressed for a formal call, even by family standards. Henry wore his old suit jacket over the khaki pants and one of the shirts I remember him putting on when he did farm chores. His shoes were clean and free of mud, though. Under her blue winter coat Elva had on a faded print housedress that lacked only an apron to make her look as if she was ready to start a day’s baking or canning. Henry must have heard the news and insisted on leaving at once, otherwise Elva would have put on her Sunday suit, silk stockings, and high heels. She’d have dabbed on red lipstick and rouged her cheeks. Now, though, Elva, with her unadorned face like a boiled potato, looked dowdy. Well, what of it, though? I don’t suppose I looked any better myself. For most of the week I’d hardly slept. There hadn’t ever been time for a full bath, so I did what I could with lye soap and a washcloth. I changed my dress if I happened to think of it, which was seldom. I have no doubt that my hair was unkempt and my clothing rumpled, but I couldn’t worry about that. Everything else seemed to matter more right now.
With scarcely a glance toward me, Henry stepped forward and held out his hand to Eddie. “You’re sprouting up like a locust tree, Eddie. Pretty soon you’ll be as tall as your daddy was.”
Eddie was still solemn, but I could see the comparison pleased him. “I hope so, Uncle Henry.”
“You’re well on your way, son. And those blue eyes of yours. They’re the spitting image of your daddy’s.”
Eddie turned away, blinking back tears.
After Henry had patted Georgie’s head and presented him with a stick of penny candy from his coat pocket, he turned his attention to me. “Well, Ellendor, we came as soon as we heard,” he said, giving his excuse for their informal attire. “The minute we got the news from Willis Blevins, we put out the lights and walked straight out the front door. Left our dinner right there on the kitchen table.”
I nodded toward the plates of food on the kitchen counter. “Do you want me to fix you a plate?”
He went right on talking as if I hadn’t spoken. “As soon as Willis heard the news, he drove right up the mountain and over to the farm to let us know. I admit I thought people were fools for going to the trouble of putting in a telephone, but I’ll allow that the contraption would have been a blessing today, or in case of an emergency. Now I’m thinking about getting one myself. On a farm you never know when there’ll be an accident, and being able to summon the doctor in a hurry might save a life one day.”
I nodded. “I expect it would be worth it for you to get one, when they get around to stringing the wires up the mountain, that is. But of course I knew you weren’t on the telephone. That’s why we asked Willis to drive up and get word to you.”
Henry looked pale and shaken, but his voice was grim. “But why didn’t you send for us before he passed, Ellendor, instead of after?”
I tried not to show it, but I sighed. As if the day had not been long enough already—now this. Of all the day’s visitors, only our own relatives had not offered us any sympathy. It made me wonder if Henry was one of those people who always wanted to find someone else to blame for any misfortune, even if it was an act of God.
The fact was that I didn’t think it would help to have the two of them underfoot, but I gave him another answer that was equally true. “I didn’t tell you any sooner, Henry, because I didn’t think Albert was dying. Did you expect me to send for you every time one of us took sick?”
I scraped the rest of my dinner into the garbage and set the plate on the drain board beside the sink. Perhaps I ought to have insisted that Henry and Elva have something to eat. Family or not, they were still guests, and after all, they had traveled a long way and abandoned their own dinner in their haste to get to town. We still had plenty of food on hand, thanks to the kindness of the local ladies, but nothing in Henry’s forbidding expression made me think that their visit was intended to be a comfort to us.
Eddie went over and shook hands solemnly with his aunt, but neither of them said anything. Then Georgie, still sticky from pie and penny candy, ran to hug Elva. He wrapped himself around her legs and looked up at her with his sly grin. Georgie had taken to hugging every woman who came into the house. Earlier in the day, when all the strangers crowded into the parlor, one of the first ladies to arrive had given him a stick of peppermint from her purse; Georgie had been trying his luck with visitors ever since. Henry had shaken hands with him, but Elva only patted his head absentmindedly, without so much as a glance down at him. Small children made Elva nervous, perhaps because she didn’t care for them and they seemed to know it. It was either by design or else heaven’s blessing that Elva and Henry never had any of their own.
Without a word Elva pulled the fourth chair from its place at the table and dragged it farther away from us before she sat down. The strained silence went on. Eddie kept looking from one grown-up to another. I must have looked as pale and exhausted as I felt, and his uncle looked like thunder. Elva was just sitting there, jiggling her foot and staring at nothing, like somebody waiting for a train. Eddie backed away from them, and sat back down at the table. He picked up his fork and began to push the ham and potato salad around on his plate, still not eating much, but trying to look busy. He was pretending that he wasn’t listening. I wished he didn’t have to. It was dark now, and the night had come in cold, so I couldn’t send them out in the yard while we talked.
Henry reddened. “No, Ellendor, I certainly don’t expect to be notified every time one of you is taken ill, but surely you knew how serious this was. You had the doctor in to look at Albert, didn’t you? What did he tell you?”
“The doctor reckoned it was pneumonia, Henry, but Albert wasn’t old, and his constitution has always been strong. He hardly ever got more than a cold. You know that. I kept thinking he’d get better.” Maybe the doctor had said otherwise, but I couldn’t let myself believe it. Somehow I felt that making preparations for Albert’s death would seal his fate. Sending for family would have meant that I had given up and accepted that his death was inevitable. Henry and Elva wouldn’t have been any comfort anyway. Their high and mighty attitude since they showed up proved I had been right to dread their arrival.
Henry was puffed up like a Pouter pigeon with indignation. “I would have liked to have seen my brother one last time before he passed away.” He didn’t sound like he was grieving, though. He looked angry, as if he had been done out of his rights. Not for the first time I marveled at the difference between Henry and Albert.
“It would have done no good to call you, Henry. You couldn’t have told him good-bye. Albert was unconscious almost from the beginning after he took to his bed.”
“And when was that?”
“Nearly a week ago, I think.”
“Nearly a week.” His eyes narrowed into a piggy squint. “I should have been notified, Ellendor.”
I shrugged. “Maybe so, but I didn’t have time to think about anything except taking care of Albert and seeing that the boys had hot meals and clean clothes. I could have used some help, but I didn’t think I’d get it from you.”
“I’m not a nurse, Ellendor. Neither is Elva. We do have a farm to run.” Apparently, hardship did not interest Henry unless he experienced it himself. Right now he was focused on his grievance and would not be distracted from it. “Since you did not have the courtesy to let me say my good-byes while Albert lived, then I want to see my brother’s body.”
I glanced at the boys. Eddie was cut
ting a deviled egg into dozens of tiny pieces, careful not to look up, but his hand was shaking and his cheeks were red. Much more of this and he’d lose the composure that had got him through the day. Even Georgie looked alarmed. He couldn’t grasp what was going on, but he did understand tones of voice, and our raised voices and angry expressions had put him close to tears. Any moment now he would start to howl, and that would only make things worse for everybody.
“Eddie, please take Georgie to your room and put him to bed. Tell him a story if you’re up to it. He needs to be settled down.”
We waited in silence while Eddie put their plates beside the sink. With a mumbled goodnight, he led Georgie away down the hall. Elva had not said a word. She kept looking around with a bored, blank expression as if this was a movie she hadn’t particularly wanted to see.
When we heard the door close, Henry resumed the attack. “I want to see my brother, Ellendor. Is he back there in the other bedroom?”
“No. Not anymore, Henry. The undertaker’s men came and took him away late this afternoon. They said they will keep the body at the mortuary until the funeral, but I reckon it would be closed by this time of a Sunday evening.”
“I might have known, Ellendor.” He sounded like he thought I had arranged for Albert’s body to be moved not out of necessity, but simply to vex him.
“You could go first thing tomorrow, though, Henry.” In fairness I had to say it, but I hoped he wouldn’t take that to be an invitation for them to stay here at the house.
Prayers the Devil Answers Page 13
