Such Good People

by Martha Whitmore Hickman

  “The doctor will see you as soon as possible,” the nurse said. She eyed the stale coffee in the pot. “Would you like some fresh coffee? Or a soft drink?” They shook their heads no, then sat down—Trace and Laura together on a bench, the boys in separate chairs close by.

  They waited. From where they sat, they could see the admitting desk, the nurse bent over her papers. White-clad figures came and went in the hallway. Carts rolled by. The sounds of voices filled the air. Bart picked up a magazine, put it down. The elderly couple exchanged a few words with each other. Laura noticed that Philip’s foot was wound around the chair leg, like a child too long at school.

  She turned to Trace. “Can’t we go to her? Surely—”

  He gripped her hand. “I’ll ask.”

  He went to the desk. His words carried back to her. “May we see our daughter? My wife and I…”

  The nurse shook her head, said something.

  Trace came back. His voice weary, strained—“It’s best not to now. The doctors are working with her.” He sat down. A shudder went through his body and he reached for Laura’s hand. She took it, and for a moment they clung to each other, then let go.

  She looked at her watch. They’d been here an hour. Where was Annie? Down what corridor, behind what door? What could possibly be taking so long? Surely someone could tell them something.

  She glanced at Trace again—his hands knotted, white-knuckled, in his lap, his shoulders bent forward, head bowed. He is praying, she thought. We are all praying in our own fashion.

  She thought of the song lyric Annie sang, “I live one day at a time,” and she was glad with a fierce gladness that Annie strode into her life with such determination and courage. She remembered how Annie fed herself so young, holding the spoon in an infant’s overhand grip, raising it deftly to her mouth—and not yet one year old.

  She thought of the lines from another song Annie sang: “Had I a golden thread, and needle so fine… And I would sing the courage of women giving birth.” Once, she had said to Laura, “I don’t know if I want to have children or not—I don’t know if I’d be a good mother.” She had thought of Annie, mothering her dolls, fussing over her brothers when they were sick, and thought, You? If there is such a thing as a born mother, you are one. She thought again of her own motherhood and of Annie, an infant in her arms, and her chest contracted with pain and again she leaned over and put her head on her knees. When she sat up again, she was aware that the muscles of her womb were moving in rhythmic contractions. She felt no pain, only astonishment, and then no astonishment, but as though it would be expected that at this moment of Annie’s extremity she should be reenacting her birth. And she thought, If she is being born into death, let it be without pain. She thought Annie must be dying, and her shoulders arced forward over her empty body, surrounding that which she did not hold in her arms, not now, not ever.

  A nurse came in. “Will you come this way? The doctor will speak with you.”

  They stood—Trace, Laura, Bart, Philip. Fear dragged like chains from their ankles, their elbows, their shoulders; fear pushed against their chests as they forced their way through it.

  They followed the nurse down a corridor and into a small chapel—a simple wooden altar, candles, two windows of pale stained glass. The room was carpeted. Facing the altar were a few stationary benches, an open area with upholstered chairs. They sat down.

  A man came in—medium height, thinning brown hair. He wore a tweed sport jacket.

  “I’m Dr. Winslow. I have bad news. I am sorry to tell you that Anne has already died.”

  There were guttural sounds, intakes of breath. They did not move. They were creatures of stone, children flung into the air in a game of statue. But they had known it.

  “It was a massive injury to the brain. We have done monitorings. She never regained consciousness. There has been no blood to the brain. The heart is still pumping. It is just a question of time.”

  Laura watched his face. Who was he to be telling them this? Not even a doctor’s coat.

  He went on. “I wanted to ask you—would you have any interest in having her heart used for a transplant?”

  Laura and Trace looked at each other. Yes, of course. Laura looked at the boys. “You?”

  They nodded. Anything—kidneys, heart, whatever could be used.

  “I don’t know if we can do it,” he said. “We’d have to get her body to Denver. But we’ll try. I’ll be back in several minutes.”

  He left and they moved into a circle, their arms around one another, heads bowed close. Panic rippled the muscles along their shoulders. They were leaning over a whirlpool. It was voracious. It would suck them in. Their sobs were random, without form, the cries of children waiting for someone to come and comfort them.

  The doctor returned. “We couldn’t do it. We couldn’t keep her heart beating.” Their faces, stunned, reflected additional pain. Not even that. Still, it was one less thing.

  He motioned them to sit. “You drove out here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone will have to fly, to accompany the body home.” They looked to one another. It was a new affront. Now? When they needed each other? It was unthinkable.

  Laura began, “I’ve wondered…” Her hands were shaking and she clamped them together. “We could have her body cremated…like we did with my father.” She saw again the small white urn lowering into the ground. “We could have them ship”—her voice broke, she bit her lip but forced herself to say it—“her ashes…home.”

  “Good,” Trace said. “Then we can drive home together.” He looked around the circle. The boys nodded their agreement. A gram of calm descended on them all. They had made a good decision.

  The doctor leaned forward, eager now. They had touched some moment of his own life. “I had a young doctor friend who died of cancer. When he knew he was dying, he asked that his body be cremated and his ashes scattered over these mountains he loved.” He paused, and for a minute his eyes were bright. “You might want to do that—leave her out here where you brought her.”

  No, Laura thought, we can’t leave her here. We need her with us. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s an idea.”

  “We can decide later,” Trace said. A look of relief crossed Philip’s face, and Bart’s.

  “The coroner will come.” The doctor’s voice was professional again. “He’s also a mortician. You can talk with him.” He stood. “Would you like to see the X rays?”

  They followed him into another room. He picked up a pointer and showed against a brightly lit screen a series of pictures, outlines of a skull, gray, with deeper gray lines running through. “You can see there is no blood moving in the brain. It happened immediately. You wouldn’t have wanted her to live.”

  They murmured their agreement, desperate to convince themselves he was right. “Look”—Laura pointed to one of the pictures—“her wisdom tooth, not even descended yet.”

  * * *

  The coroner came—sandy-haired, smelling of aftershave. He was kind. He had seen the body. Yes, he would take care of it. Trace explained that they wanted cremation—no casket, no embalming. They would decide later, when they got back to Tennessee, what to do about the ashes—bury them, scatter them somewhere.

  “Do you want to take the ashes with you?” the coroner asked. “Or would you prefer I ship them?”

  They pondered it—the specter of Annie’s ashes in the car? Philip said, “I’d feel kind of funny having them in the car.” They agreed. “Ship them.”

  “I’ll need the name of a funeral director in your town.”

  “Not ship them to us?” Laura asked.

  “It’s the law,” he said.

  They shrugged. They had no knowledge of these laws. They gave him the name of a Woodbridge funeral home.

  “Would you want to see the body yourselves?” the coroner asked.

  They looked at one another. “I think so,” Trace said. “Yes.”

  Bart and Philip agreed. Laura wa
s not sure. To remember her like that—the skull fractured, a broken jaw. “I don’t know.”

  “I think it’s important that we see her,” Trace said. He turned to Laura, put a hand on her arm. “It’s up to you. But I want to. If we don’t”—tears brimmed his eyes—“we won’t believe it.”

  “I’ll go,” she said. “But I may not look.”

  The coroner handed Trace a card. “Here’s my address. Give me an hour and a half.” He gave directions to the funeral home and left.

  Trace turned to the doctor. “We need to make some calls. Is there a phone we can use?”

  “Of course.” The doctor led them across a hall, opened the door to a consulting room. “In here. You’ll have privacy. No one will bother you.”

  He stood at the door. “I’m going to leave now.” He extended his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” One by one, they shook his hand.

  Laura watched him go. Panic dug at her chest. How can he go? How can he leave us?

  Trace called the lodge. When he hung up, he said, “I couldn’t reach Roger. They’ll let him know.” He called his parents in Maryland, his brother in Connecticut.

  “I’d like to call Paula,” Bart said. “She’s at her mother’s in Ohio.”

  “Of course.”

  He came from the phone, tears streaming down his face. “Paula sends her love. She’ll come down as soon as we get home.”

  Laura called Lillian’s. “I have very bad news.” Then she told her. Lillian’s voice rose in a hysterical cry. “I’ll get Mother.” Rachel came to the phone. “Darling!” They talked. They would talk again tomorrow.

  She called Howard’s. No answer.

  “What about Gordon?” Philip asked.

  They didn’t have his number. It would be in Annie’s things. They would call him later.

  Trace said, “I want to call Matt. Tomorrow’s Sunday. I want them to know.”

  Tomorrow Sunday? Laura saw the small congregation—singing, talking, going on about their business, not knowing. Matt—she had talked with him when her father died.

  He called. “Matt? Trace Randall.” He talked, then handed the phone to Laura.

  “Matt…”

  “Laura, I’m so sorry.”

  Her breath caught. All afternoon, like a buzzing gnat, her mind had been searching, batting against windows, bouncing off. Had there been clues, indications? Matt was a minister, acquainted with the borders of the known world. “I want to tell you something.” She told how Annie had said to her last spring, “I wouldn’t mind dying young. I wouldn’t be afraid at all.” Even now, she remembered her astonishment. “Just last week, we were sitting around the table and Annie looked down at me and said—out of a clear blue sky, Matt”—Laura’s voice was puzzled and she wanted to believe it meant something and she wanted Matt to believe it, too—“she said, ‘I’ve had a full life already’—for no reason, Matt.”

  “Oh, Laura. Thank you. I’m glad you told me.” His voice was heavy with his own grief for Annie. “We’ll all be waiting, when you get home.”

  “Yes, when we get home.” Home… A wave of revulsion moved toward her. How can we go home? She saw the door of Annie’s room swinging open.

  *

  A slow drizzle fell as they left the hospital. The air was cold. Across the highway, lights from a McDonald’s blazed and blinked.

  “Maybe we should eat something,” Laura said.

  “I’m not hungry,” Bart said.

  Philip agreed. “Me, either.”

  Trace demurred, too. “I wouldn’t have thought of food.”

  She persisted, “I think we should eat something.” It was her primal task, seeing to it that her family was fed.

  They drove across the road and got milk shakes and hamburgers. The cold of the milk shakes and the air made Laura shiver. She couldn’t stop trembling. Trace put an arm around her, and after a while the trembling eased.

  They found the funeral home, pulled into a curved driveway between banks of evergreens. They got out of the car and went in.

  The director greeted them. He indicated an archway to a room. They saw a long table covered with a white sheet mounding slightly in the center. “This way,” he said.

  Annie’s body was lying beneath the sheet, which was drawn up under her chin. Only her head was visible. They walked toward the table, staying close to one another.

  At first, Laura looked with her peripheral vision only. The face was swollen along the jaw. The mortician had put a dark lipstick on Annie’s mouth. She never wore that color. Her hair was parted in the middle. It should be on the side.

  She wondered, Shall I touch her? She stepped forward and laid her hand on the ridge of leg beneath the sheet, felt the bone. Inexplicably, it was a relief that she had done it. She turned her palm up, looked at it. See? Death was terrible, but the body was not terrible—she had felt it, as of old. The feel of it was on her hand. A sudden pain surged in her throat and with a cry she pressed her hand against her cheek. Bart, beside her, put his arm around her. She felt his sob against the crush of her blue raincoat.

  The others stepped forward, touched the body, and stepped back. After a time, they murmured their consent and, together, they turned away, moved out into the hall.

  Trace went to talk with the funeral director. He came back and once more they went to the doorway and looked again at the body on the long white table, the dark hair framing her face.

  Outside, it was still raining. Cars swished by against the wet pavement. Trace drove. They left the city and drove into the mountains, through dark valleys and deeply shadowed roads. They reached the town of Estes Park and drove along the main street—past the darkened clinic, past the drugstore, where security lights revealed the shelves of sundries and magazines and pink plush animals and remedies for all those ailments the flesh is heir to, save this which carried them slowly by in a car, where in the backseat a space wider than the world cried out for its missing occupant and two brothers stared into darkness.

  By the time they reached the lodge, it was past midnight and only the lobby and a few random lights were still lit. The surrounding cabins had disappeared into darkness.

  They drove up the hill to their cabin and turned into the parking space. The car lights played over a figure huddled on the steps.

  They stepped from the car as the figure came toward them, a dark silhouette against the moonlight.

  Trace recognized him first. “Roger,” he said.

  At her daughter Lillian’s house in Michigan, Rachel Taylor stared out the window. There were still lights on upstairs in the Thompsons’ house, though the rest of the street was dark. Barbara Thompson had been over for coffee—was it yesterday? It seemed a very long time ago, another world.

  Noise came from the other room—a couple of the children still up. Probably none of them could sleep, though maybe the little one could.

  During supper, they’d all sat there—Lillian, Richard, the three girls, and Timmy. She’d picked at her bluefish and baked potato, drunk some tea. The others didn’t do much better. Richard tried to fill in the silence, describing at length his difficulties finding a parking place so he could buy an evening paper.

  It was all she could do to look at the girls. Elsa was audibly sobbing. She and Annie had been inseparable at the reunion, doing everything together. Then Christine and Jennie. Jennie started to talk about a Brownie meeting. “We’re going on a campout, out by the horse farm,” she said.

  “Shut up, Jennie,” Christine said. “Not now. ”

  “It’s all right if she wants to tell about Brownies,” Richard said, putting down his forkful of green beans.

  “See? We are too going!” Jennie turned to her sister, taunting.

  “So what do I care?” Christine retorted. She swallowed a sob.

  Finally, Elsa said, “At least she died doing something she liked to do.” Lillian shook her head, her mouth tight.

  It was all right. There was nothing to say, or nothi
ng not to say, either.

  Timmy was five, a sensitive child. When he’d come in this afternoon, his hands covered with mud from playing in the yard, Lillian had said, “Wash your hands, Timmy. Then I have to tell you something.”

  He didn’t balk, which he usually did about washing his hands. Something in his mother’s voice, Rachel suspected.

  When he came out of the bathroom, Lillian took him on her lap. “Something very sad happened,” she said, stroking his hair.

  She told him. He was wide-eyed, incredulous. “Our cousin Annie? That we just saw? Last week?”

  “Yes,” Lillian said. “Aunt Laura and Uncle Trace’s little girl.” She corrected herself. “Not so little,” she said.

  Timmy slipped from his mother’s lap, went over to Rachel, in the kitchen rocking chair. “Grandma.” She took him up, and they rocked and rocked. He slipped down to watch the last of Sesame Street.

  At supper, he looked up from his glass, a milk mustache across his lip. No one was saying anything. “I’m sure the horse didn’t mean to,” he’d said, wanting everyone forgiven so they could be happy again.

  Lillian came into the living room, turned up the light by the desk. The dark parchment shade glowed red and blue like stained glass. “Thank you. That’s better,” Rachel said.

  Lillian came and smoothed Rachel’s rose-colored shawl. “The children are watching TV. It would take your mind off it for a while. Do you want to join them?”

  “No.” She stroked Lillian’s hand. “Maybe I’ll read.” She picked up a book from the table by her chair, turned it over, laid it back down.

  “Anything I can get you, Mother? You want to talk?”

  “I was just thinking”—she hadn’t meant to say it—“you have three daughters. She had only one.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t mind my saying that?”

  “Of course not. It’s so awful!” Lillian’s eyes darted to the bay window, here and there, frantic. “Someday, I’ve got to shorten those curtains. I don’t know what to do about anything!” She strode to the window and came back. “I think I’ll get a book and come out here and read with you.”