The Funeral Dress

by Susan Gregg Gilmore

  The trailer was bled dry from a lifetime of rough living, its aluminum skin turned chalky and pocked with rusted sores. Her gaze was steady as Leona remembered seeing the trailer for the first time. It was shiny and new and she was so young, her hair black and her skin smooth. But what once gleamed brightly in the late afternoon sun stood dying, a metal carcass left to rot on a frame of cinderblocks. Through the years, Leona had grown accustomed to the trailer’s slow and subtle deterioration much as she had the ever-deepening lines around her eyes and mouth. She frowned and furrowed her brow, worried how it might appear to Emmalee.

  Leona tugged on her sweater, stretching it further across her body. The temperature in the valley had dropped fast since lunch, and it was already a good five degrees colder up here. Curtis said they might even see the season’s first snowflakes by morning. A redbird rapped at the trailer’s far window, but it flitted off before Leona could blow a kiss and wish for something better. “Maybe,” she whispered, “something better is already on its way.”

  A strong wind gusted against her back, and leaves swirled and danced about her body, reminding Leona there was other work to be done. She shifted the paper sack holding a box of cornflakes to her left hand and walked on to the trailer door, scraping her canvas loafer across the metal threshold and letting the door slam shut behind her.

  Low-hanging clouds had kept the trailer dark most of the week. But the sun, hovering just above the mountain’s crest, at last carved a slim path through the drifting cover. An orange glow spilled through the wide window set by the trailer’s only door, and Leona welcomed the traces of warm light cutting across the floor. The trailer rocked to and fro like an anxious mother trying to soothe a fussing baby as a cold front swept fast from the west. Leona planted her feet square beneath her shoulders and surrendered to the subtle pitch and sway of her home. Some said the wind blew backward on Old Lick, but Leona knew that wasn’t so. There was nothing peculiar or magical about the living there.

  She closed her eyes and reached for a crib once shoved tight below the window, where a wooden table stood laden with fabrics of different textures and colors, including the pieces of three damask slipcovers needing to be finished by morning. She smiled as her hand fell through the air grasping nothing but memories. She pictured her body, full and round, squeezing past the baby’s bed standing ready to cradle her newborn. She scooted on toward a young Curtis with his tanned face and broad shoulders. He pulled her into his arms and rubbed his calloused hand across her belly.

  The narrow trailer had never allowed for any missteps. Yet it felt so much bigger then—back when Curtis worked in the coal mines and brought home a steady paycheck and she lounged on the sofa for hours in the evenings, resting up for the birth of their first child. She hand stitched nearly a dozen day gowns, cut from Curtis’s old shirts, and embroidered little bunnies along the hems. But even Leona’s most treasured memories had grown fragile, and so she stood a moment longer, straining to hear the sound of a baby cooing and crying in the trailer. In her mind, there was no prettier melody than that.

  Leona reached for the lamp on her sewing table. The room, which she usually kept tidy, was strewn with unfolded laundry in need of mending, glasses half-filled with day-old soda, and two stacks of outdated copies of the TV Guide Leona had intended to burn days ago. Thin green carpeting worn bare in places, fake wood paneling bowed from the walls, and deep cracks spidering across the ceiling looked even worse in the warm lamplight. But Leona had accepted the trailer’s tired condition long ago. She ran her fingers through her wiry gray curls, desperate to cast off the remnants of another exhausting day.

  The windows rattled as the wind seeped past their metal frames, and Leona tugged harder on her sweater. She had fought a chill most of the afternoon, but there was no time to take sick. Too much needlework had left her hands stiff, and a fresh blister was brewing on the tip of her index finger. She grimaced as she twisted and pushed the sweater’s buttons into place. She held the sore to her lips. She knew better than to keep touching it, that it would never heal if she did.

  “Damn,” Leona said as she tripped on the table’s thick square leg. She dropped her navy purse and the paper bag on the floor, then slipped her foot from her canvas loafer and bent to massage her toe. She stared at the pieces of damask stacked high on her sewing table. Her finger throbbed harder.

  Leona reached for a large piece of fabric and held it out in front of her. She examined the seam along the zipper’s edge and picked at a loose thread with her fingernail. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Curtis still struggling to quiet the truck. She shook her head and picked at another thread. Curtis had always called Leona a miracle worker. He said the way she handled fabric was like watching the Lord turn water into wine. He believed her sewing was a gift, a gift from God. But Leona never came to think of it that way.

  She had planned to finish these slipcovers for a large sofa and two club chairs by early evening. Mrs. Brooks had come from Chattanooga and was adamant that all three pieces be ironed and folded and sitting in a cardboard box outside the trailer door early the next morning. Leona should have finished them yesterday, but the fabric was thick and difficult to manage.

  Her old machine struggled to keep pace as she pushed her foot harder and harder against the floor pedal. She had been forced to do much of the work by hand, and she had been preoccupied all week cleaning and tidying the extra room for Emmalee and her newborn daughter. They would come tomorrow, but Leona wished Emmalee was already there. She could have used her young eyes with the tedious hand stitching. Even Leona had to admit that the girl’s pickstitch was now almost as good as her own.

  Leona had tried to explain to Mrs. Brooks that another fabric would be easier to handle and might drape her furniture more smoothly. But the young woman, outfitted in her neatly ironed dress and fine pearl necklace, refused to listen. She held her palm up toward Leona’s face, indicating Leona was to hush.

  “The only reason I’ve come this distance at all is because I hear you do fine work at a fair price,” Mrs. Brooks said as she handed the bolt of fabric to Leona. “Considering this cost more than sixty dollars a yard, and I’ve driven all this way to find you, I hope I’m not disappointed.” Mrs. Brooks cocked her head to the right and tried to steal a peek into the trailer, although she refused to come inside, even when Leona offered her a cold glass of lemonade and a piece of fresh cake. She preferred to handle her transaction standing on the wooden stoop, slipping Leona no more than twenty dollars folded and tucked neat inside the palm of her gloved hand.

  “I’ll leave the rest in an envelope when I pick everything up Thursday morning.” Mrs. Brooks’s speech slowed and an exaggerated smile had stretched across her face. “You know my mother-in-law prefers I use her woman down in Saint Elmo. I’d hate to prove her right.”

  Leona rubbed her tongue across her blistered spot and glanced at the clock on the wall. She spent too much time this week sewing baby gowns, flannel blankets, and bibs for Kelly Faye. She had fallen behind in all her chores, but today she blamed Curtis for her running late. He forgot the cornflakes, and he knew damn well she could not make her hash brown casserole for Wednesday-night church supper without them. He had offered to run to the store five miles down the road, leaving her to finish her sewing. But she was too mad to be reasoned with and insisted on riding along for no other purpose than to remind him every mile of the way that his error had cost her valuable time. Her heart raced and her sore finger throbbed in perfect rhythm with every beat.

  Outside the trailer, the pickup spit a final hacking cough. Leona glanced out the window to find Curtis standing with his head buried underneath the truck’s hood. She picked up another piece of the red damask with pinned seams. She had no choice but to finish the slipcovers after church supper. She always had done most of her sewing late at night, after the dishes were cleaned and put away. But she was tired, more tired than she had been in years, and the thought of staying up late into the night left her
both weepy and cross.

  With the arch of her foot, Leona pushed a bucket of potatoes and two large sacks of birdseed against the refrigerator’s side and stepped into the kitchen. November’s cold percolated through the holes in the dingy linoleum, and she shivered thinking of the winter months to come.

  “Damn,” she repeated, loose birdseed sticking to the bottom of her thin wool socks. A wave of cold air rushed into the trailer, and Leona turned to see Curtis at the door.

  “Shut the damn door,” she said and turned to the morning dishes sitting dirty in the sink.

  Curtis’s eye cut in Leona’s direction. He did not like to hear any woman talking with a foul mouth. In all their years of marriage, the only times he raised his voice to Leona was when her tongue got ugly, but she was too mad to be concerned with his opinion or reprimand. She thrust her hands on her hips and tossed him a mean look. Curtis’s expression turned soft, and he scooted farther inside the trailer. He placed his hat on a peg fastened to the trailer’s wall and shook his body as if he was casting off the cold. His frame was lean and his arms muscular, but his pace had slowed in the past few months, leaving him to look much older than his fifty-two years. Curtis held his hand in front of the living room window.

  “I better head down to the hardware store first thing in the morning after dropping you at the factory and get some more plastic sheeting to tape outside here. What do you think, Ona?” he asked, pushing the curtain to the side. Leona had made the curtains years ago with cheap cotton fabric bought at the five and dime in Pikeville. She hadn’t bothered to line them then because she had believed they were only temporary. Now the curtains hung limp, long faded like her dreams of a different life. “I really think it helps keep the cold out, don’t you?”

  Leona ignored him. She hated the thick plastic obscuring what little view she had. She stacked the dirty dishes on the counter, slapping the plates one against the other. With the edge of her hand, Leona swept the crumbs into the sink and tossed a dishtowel over her shoulder.

  “Sweetie, you got time,” Curtis said in a soothing voice. “Nobody’s going to put a bit of food on their plate till you get there anyways.”

  “I can’t work magic,” she said. “Hell, Curtis, you passed the store twice today coming and going. You couldn’t think to stop and get one box of cereal?” Leona did not like to rush, especially when it came to making her hash brown casserole, the same dish she had prepared for Wednesday-night church suppers since she had officially joined the Cullen Church of Christ two days after she married. Although her attendance had never wavered, Leona’s opinion about God and church had grown angry through the years.

  “Don’t worry, Ona girl. Like I said, church supper ain’t going to start without you.” Curtis plucked a white handkerchief from deep within his hip pocket. “Everybody knows you’re bringing the very best dish. Even the preacher’s convinced your hash brown casserole draws more people to the Lord than his Sunday preaching.” Curtis rubbed his nose with the cloth and folded it into a perfect square. “You could make that casserole in ten minutes flat if need be,” he said, tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket.

  “I know good and well what time it is, old man, and I know good and well how much time we got. And it ain’t enough.” She pointed to the clock and turned the oven on high.

  Leona bent low from the waist and reached for the bucket of potatoes on the kitchen floor, holding her forehead in her left hand as she dipped forward. Her neck had been hurting off and on since leaving the factory that afternoon and now the pain radiated behind her eyes. She dumped the potatoes under the running water and pulled herself up on her toes. She reached for the yellow mixing bowl stored high on top of the refrigerator.

  Curtis flipped on the television set and lowered his hips into the reclining chair. The sound of the evening news mingled with his exaggerated groans as he fell the last few inches into the worn cushioned seat that held his body’s impression even when he wasn’t in it. He stared at Leona, busy yanking ingredients from deep within the refrigerator, while the weatherman talked about relative humidity and atmospheric pressure.

  Leona didn’t need an official explanation for what she felt in her bones. Although her joints already tightened and ached, she was ready for a respite from the sweltering heat inside the Tennewa sewing room. She knew to be extra careful this time of year not to let her fingers, drawn with arthritis, slip underneath the needle as she released a finished collar and began working on the next, never slowing the fast-spinning motor or breaking a thread as she moved from one piece to the other.

  “Lord, Curtis, I can’t barely hear myself think,” Leona said as she stepped in front of the television and turned a small knob set underneath the picture. “My head’s about to split wide open as it is.” She leaned forward and patted Curtis on the knee. “Don’t go falling asleep on me. We’ll be leaving sooner than you think.”

  Leona’s tone spun softer. She felt guilty she had talked so harsh to Curtis since he picked her up at the factory. Truth be told, she’d noticed Curtis acting more forgetful lately, and she was ashamed to admit she found his declining memory more frustrating than worrisome. Her days were tiring enough as they were, and she could not bear to think what her life would be like if Curtis lost his mind to hardening of the arteries like Burnett Daws, who wandered out from his house in the middle of the night. His wife found him the next morning facedown in a pond about a quarter mile from the road wearing nothing but his underclothes. Surely Curtis was too young for that, she reassured herself and turned the oven down to three hundred and seventy-five degrees.

  “You hear me? I mean it. Don’t go falling asleep. We’re going to need to be on the road here soon.”

  “I’m just resting. I cut near a half cord of wood today.”

  “I saw that. You got a buyer?”

  “Most of it promised to the preacher,” Curtis said.

  Leona rolled her eyes, knowing Curtis’s day’s work would not earn him one dollar, only another jewel in that damn heavenly crown he talked about all the time.

  “Bring me a glass of water, girl. Not sure I can get out of this chair right yet.” Curtis pushed the recliner back farther and released a deep sigh.

  “Don’t have no ice. Or any chilled for that matter.” Leona held up the empty jug. “You know you can fill this and put it in the refrigerator as good as I can. It sure ain’t going to fill itself. You’d think I was the only one on earth that knows how to work this faucet.”

  “Don’t matter. Tap water’ll be fine. Too cold for ice today anyway.”

  Leona handed Curtis a glass of water filled from the kitchen sink.

  “Is that all? Water? No sugar?” Curtis feigned an exaggerated frown.

  Leona couldn’t help but laugh. Curtis had always been able to do that, to make her laugh when she felt more like crying. She did love that about him. She really did. She took a step back toward her husband and kissed his bald head. He’d do anything to make her happy, even if it meant agreeing to let a young unmarried collar maker and her baby come and live with them for a while. It had all happened so fast, and maybe Leona had made the decision in haste. But for the first time in years, she found herself looking forward to something, not back. Leona leaned down and kissed his head again.

  “That’s more like it,” he said and grinned, his blue eyes bright after all these years. Leona laughed and held her blistered finger to her mouth. She turned back to the kitchen, her foot gliding across the thin metal strip separating the green carpeting from the kitchen’s linoleum floor. She chose a sharp paring knife from a drawer, and with the confidence of a master sculptor approaching a block of stone, she whisked away the potatoes’ dirty skins.

  Mayonnaise, creamed chicken soup, onion, salt, and grated cheddar cheese—she measured the ingredients by sight and tossed them into the large yellow bowl. She spooned the mixture into a Pyrex dish greased with a thick layer of Crisco and admired her work before sprinkling the top with the entire box of co
rnflakes, well bathed in a stick of melted margarine. Leona set the casserole in the hot oven.

  “See, Ona, I knew you could do it,” Curtis announced. “You could make them potatoes with your eyes shut.”

  She smiled, knowing that indeed she could.

  Leona turned to the sink filled with the brown peelings. She reached for the counter and stared into the thick stand of white oaks, maples, and pines insulating their property from the main road. A mockingbird darted across the field, pecking at the remnants of her summer garden, a few stalks of withered corn fluttering in the evening’s breeze. She spied another redbird and puckered her lips. She was certain this time her kiss caught its tail as it flew across the clearing.

  Leona suddenly felt as though the room was spinning around her. She clutched the edge of the kitchen counter and dropped her head. She got like this when she raced too fast from one task to the other. The dizzy spell would pass as quickly as it came on. But right now she felt weak and alone, even though Curtis sat no more than three feet away. She reached for the refrigerator handle and stood a little straighter, then walked to the reclining chair, tapping Curtis on the shoulder as she passed him by. He did not bother to open his eyes.

  She maneuvered past her sewing table and into the tight hallway leading to the trailer’s two bedrooms and only bath. The wall to the right displayed a collection of miniature spoons from faraway places like Niagara Falls and Yellowstone Park. Leona bought them at flea markets and yard sales for no more than a quarter each. Curtis had laughed whenever she added another piece of silverware to her collection and asked what she was going to do with such little spoons.

  “You’ll starve to death if you intend to feed yourself with them things,” he warned her.

  She thought they were pretty. That was reason enough. Curtis crafted a curio box for her collection and gave it to her on her forty-third birthday. Now all of her spoons were encased in glass and nailed to the wall.