The Funeral Dress

by Susan Gregg Gilmore

  A large photograph hung on the opposite wall. A tiny baby wrapped in a white blanket and wearing a white bonnet trimmed with blue satin ribbon lay asleep on a satin sheet. Leona sat next to him. Her hand cradled the baby’s head. Curtis stood tall behind them both, with his eyes fixed on the newborn.

  Leona looked at this photograph every time she walked down the hall, even when she was rushing from one end of the trailer to the other. Sometimes she saw herself in the young mother with dark curls falling against her neck, and sometimes she was certain she was staring at a stranger. Either way, the photo was her most treasured possession. Today she stopped and straightened it. She kissed her son’s cheek, leaving a damp smudge on the glass.

  “I ain’t replacing you, baby. I can’t ever do that,” she whispered. She wiped the glass clean with the dishtowel hanging across her shoulder. “This girl needs a little help is all. She ain’t got no one else.”

  Leona had tried hard to ignore Emmalee when she first came to Tennewa, knowing if she started a conversation, it would surely lead to something more and possibly slow her work. But from looking at Emmalee’s sad eyes and scrawny legs, Leona knew from the start that Emmalee needed mothering as much as she needed a job, and the young girl was bound to her for good now.

  Leona slid into her room and slumped onto the foot of the bed.

  “Ona,” Curtis called from the other end of the trailer, “I’m going to drag myself out of this chair and head out to the truck. Let it warm up a bit. Don’t want you catching a chill tonight.”

  Leona dusted her face with a fresh coat of powder and smeared some lipstick across her mouth. It was a small improvement. She lifted her chin and ran her fingers down her neck. She tugged on the skin around her eyes. She had the energy, she told herself, to care for a newborn. Besides, it was what she had always wanted. Leona rubbed some lotion on her hands and pulled a brush through her hair.

  The oven timer buzzed. Leona tossed the brush on the bed and went into the kitchen, skating along beside the wall as she fought to regain her balance. She pulled the oven door open far enough to see that the cornflakes sprinkled on top had turned a crisp golden brown and the cheddar cheese was bubbling around the edges. Leona clapped her hands, relieved that in her rush she had not burned the topping, some would argue the very best part of the hash brown casserole. She turned off the oven and left the door open so the heat would spill into the trailer.

  Leona forced her tired feet into a pair of low-heeled navy pumps. Her feet wobbled in the only dressy shoes she owned as she hurried out the trailer door, the basket holding the casserole secure in her arms, her navy purse swinging on her wrist.

  Curtis sat ready in the truck. A fresh, mint-flavored toothpick appeared glued to his lower lip. He reached across the seat and opened the door wide enough for Leona to wedge her shoulder and round hips inside the pickup. She handed Curtis the basket and pulled herself onto the seat patched with odd-shaped pieces of a vinyl tablecloth she had stitched secure with thick nylon thread. As they headed out toward the main road, Curtis smiled at Leona and shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.

  “Them potatoes sure do smell good, Ona,” he said.

  Leona sank against the seat, the first time she had stopped to relax all day. She rolled the window down an inch or two and turned her face toward the stinging cold. She felt better, knowing she was on her way. Leona looked at her watch, tapping the crystal with her blistered finger. The preacher was probably standing in front of Sally Greer’s china platter loaded with fresh buttermilk biscuits and her own pineapple-glazed ham. He was surely asking everyone to bow their heads and thank the Lord for the meal they were about to receive. Leona hated walking into the fellowship hall once the preacher had begun to pray. No matter how deep or shallow her faith, she thought it rude to interrupt.

  Curtis moved both hands higher on the wheel and maneuvered the truck down the dirt drive pitted with ruts and holes left by last week’s heavy rains. He groaned as he turned the wheel to the right.

  “Too old to be chopping wood,” he said and grinned wide.

  Leona smiled back at him. “How about I rub them shoulders with some Ben-Gay when we get home?”

  Curtis raised his right brow and steered sharp into the first hairpin turn. The pickup eased down the mountain road, coughing and spitting as it had earlier in the day. “Come on, old girl,” he said and rubbed his hand across the truck’s dash. Curtis glanced into the valley, studded with a sprinkling of lights.

  “I never tire of looking at that. How about you, Ona?” he asked, patting his wife’s knee.

  But Leona had already observed the truck loaded with fresh-cut logs coming up the other side. She watched as it eased into their lane. She didn’t think much of it at first. The road was particularly narrow there at the top. The driver would surely realize he was drifting and pull his rig back to the right.

  The truck’s lights only grew closer, brighter. Leona lifted her left hand out in front of her face and shielded her eyes from the blinding white light. She pulled the basket tight against her stomach. Curtis clapped both hands firm around the steering wheel. The truck strayed farther into their lane. Leona thrust both feet against the floorboard.

  “Lord, Curtis, you think he sees us?” she gasped, pushing her feet harder against the floor of the truck.

  Curtis did not answer. He threw his hand on the horn.

  The truck eased back into the other lane. Leona exhaled. They were safe, she thought, and dropped her chin to her chest as if she was lost deep in prayer. But Curtis had worked the pickup too far to the edge of the road. Their old truck, with four balding tires, skidded through some gravel and spun to the right. Leona stared at Curtis with bulging eyes as he fought with the wheel, navigating into the turn as best he could. The toothpick, which had been held firmly between his teeth, fell to his lap.

  “Oh God!” Curtis cried as the tires left the rough asphalt road. Every loose thing in the truck slid in one direction. And then everything fell quiet. The sky was clear, and the evening’s early moon hung low and full and perfect above the horizon, like it might burst open, explode like a firecracker, spilling stars all over Sequatchie Valley. But in seconds the world had grown too quiet, too perfect. Leona arched her back and screamed. The hash brown casserole fell away. Leona reached for Curtis.

  A tree snapped.

  Somewhere down in the holler, a baby was crying for her mother.

  EMMALEE

  RED CHERT

  Deep in the holler, the baby wailed. Emmalee held her hands to her ears, unsure if she was trapped in another bad dream or just in the tiny bedroom she shared with Kelly Faye. She spied the dark beyond the window and pulled the bedcovers snug against her chin, careful not to smother the newborn tucked close to her side. Her father snored loud in the other room, his labored breathing leaving her anxious and jumpy. She had gone to bed early hoping morning would break sooner that way, but it was still hours before Leona was to come for her.

  Emmalee twisted the end of her shirt between her fingers. She needed to pee but refused to confront the cold that had settled inside the house wrapped in plywood and pieces of tar paper. In the winter, it grew so bitter sometimes, a glass of water left by the bedside froze solid by morning, even when the stove burned hot in the other room. In the summer, the house was stifling, until a rain swept through the valley and offered a rest from the heat and humidity. Emmalee tried to think of summer.

  She rolled onto her side and lifted her knees to her chest. In the dim light offered by a clock radio set next to her bed, Emmalee studied her baby girl. Kelly had fidgeted off and on for the last hour, and her tiny arms grew rigid and flailed in the air. Her fists clenched tight and her cheeks reddened as she whimpered for her mama’s attention. Emmalee could see she was gathering strength for a more vicious yell.

  “Hush girl. Hush up,” Emmalee begged. She thrust her nipple into her baby’s mouth, trying to squelch Kelly’s shrill cries. Emmalee flinched as the baby la
tched on to her tender breast, cracked and sore from the constant feedings. There was no money for bottles and formula, and she shuddered every time her baby grew hungry.

  The nurses at the hospital had promised mothering would come natural. The way they talked, Emmalee had expected it to blow into the holler on the tail of a thunderstorm. Instead, she gritted her teeth as the baby’s tongue pressed again and again against her raw skin. Only when her milk began to flow did her body relax some. Emmalee had tried to be a good mama with what little she knew about mothering, but she hadn’t wanted this child. And now she felt tethered to her like a dog staked to the ground, not knowing which way to run to free herself of it. But things were about to change.

  Emmalee had spent most of the day readying herself and the baby, first washing soiled diapers in a tin pail beside the house. She left a half dozen of the dirtiest ones to soak in water with a bit of bleach and hung the others to dry on a line held between two oaks. Then she hauled a couple more buckets of water from the outdoor spigot to warm on the stove so she could wash her own body and wipe the baby clean.

  Nolan had stayed away from early morning till night, but Emmalee hurried, not knowing when her father might return. She threw what little belonged to Kelly Faye in a brown paper sack: a couple of gowns; a pair of socks; a thick sweater and matching hat Uncle Runt and his wife, Mettie, had brought to the hospital; and a pink crocheted blanket, a gift from Leona.

  Leona had told Emmalee not to worry with bringing much of her own. When she got to the trailer, the two of them would make new clothes. They would shop for the fabrics together, maybe even drive to Chattanooga, where the selection was best. Leona admitted she did that if she was making something extra special. Emmalee rubbed her hand up and down her arm, imagining what a new dress would feel like. She smiled as she placed an old blue sweater that had belonged to her mama on top of her baby’s things. She tucked the wooden cross she had pulled from the tree trunk inside the sweater’s sleeve.

  Leona had warned Emmalee her home wasn’t much, but she promised her that she and Kelly Faye would have a room of their own without anybody having to sleep on the couch. They would be safe and comfortable, and Emmalee would have two people there to help care for the baby. Leona said she even had a real crib, not one made of cardboard.

  Emmalee didn’t fully understand why Leona had taken to her and made such a generous offer. She was a private woman and kept most of the details of her life quiet, but Emmalee had felt drawn to Leona from the first and had come to count on her perfect attendance at Tennewa as the backdrop for her days. It was a constant in her life she had never known growing up with her father. Leona’s presence was as predictable as the sun rising in the east over the top of Pine Mountain or an easy spring rain that left the land smelling clean and new. It was as regular as the season’s change or the nuthatch, outfitted in his slate-gray feathered coat, hammering his beak at a walnut wedged into the bark of a nearby tree.

  From seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, Emmalee had listened to the hum of Leona’s machine as she threaded one collar and then another underneath the presser foot. It was as if a practiced melody permeated the air, surrounding and soothing her, before being swallowed by less fluid tunes spewed from the hundreds of other machines crowding the room.

  Emmalee had ached for that sound in the few weeks since the baby came, and last night she could barely sleep for imagining her new life on top of Old Lick. Leona said it was beautiful up there even when the fog lay thick on the ground. But on a clear morning, she could see for miles. “Curtis’ll tell you that you can see all the way to Kentucky, but don’t you go believing him,” she warned Emmalee. “When we first married, it took me two whole years to figure out he was pulling my leg.” Leona laughed out loud when she told Emmalee this. “I was a silly thing then.”

  Emmalee clapped her hands. “Kentucky,” she said, repeating the word in a long, slow breath. She had once felt comforted there on her father’s piece of land where Pine Mountain stood big and gentle behind her. She had loved to roam the woods near the house as a child, nesting under a tangle of mountain laurel, knowing Nolan could not find her there. But things were different now, and Emmalee longed to escape and stretch her arms open wide.

  Kelly suckled hard for her mama’s milk. Her tiny body stiffened as she worked for another sip. “You ain’t filled your tummy yet? Lord knows I’m about to run dry,” Emmalee said as she guided the baby to her other breast. She gasped as Kelly took hold. “Damn, you’re a mean thing when you’re hungry,” she said and raised her head, listening for the familiar sounds drifting from the front room where Nolan slept.

  When Nolan moved in his sleep, the cot squeaked and whined as if it, too, was wincing in pain. When he was awake, the thick soles of his work boots rubbed against the raw wood floor worn smooth with age. Floorboards were so warped in places, Emmalee spied the dirt ground a few inches below her feet. She never went to sleep without looking underneath her covers first, making sure a chicken snake or a field mouse hadn’t nested in her bed. She fingered the baby’s fine hair, knowing this would be the last morning she would wake in the back of her father’s house.

  A harsh, jarring knock came at the door. The baby pulled from Emmalee’s breast and started to whimper.

  “Nolan, it’s me, Basil,” a voice called from the yard, followed by a deep, wet cough. The town’s only funeral home director worked a wad of phlegm into his mouth and spit it onto the ground. The noise rang so clear, Emmalee thought Mr. Fulton might as well have been standing by her bedside, hawking his crud right onto the floor.

  Mr. Fulton knocked harder, and Emmalee understood someone in Cullen was dead.

  She knew the sound of death, its tone and rhythm, as well as she did that of a popular song played over and over on the radio. At her father’s house, death never acted hesitant or shy. It came barreling out of nowhere, walking straight up to the front door and announcing itself with a bold and repetitive rap.

  More experienced in the protocol of dying than her nineteen years would suggest, Emmalee was convinced the precise moment of a life’s passing was determined long ago, probably before the life itself ever took root in fertile soil. And she had come to believe nothing was sadder than someone dying without warning, with no family or friends standing vigil or singing their loved one over to the other side.

  Her mama had promised there was nothing sad about going on to heaven. She had talked about a place above the clouds where the streets were lined with gold and gates were crusted with pearls. She said Jesus died hanging on a cross so we all could go there someday. “Dying ain’t nothing to fear,” she told Emmalee. “We all got a beautiful room in a beautiful house waiting for us up there.”

  Emmalee never fully understood her mama’s stories. They sounded more like fairy tales told to soothe a child at bedtime or the desperate ramblings of a dying woman, muttered to ease her own fears about the unknown. But after her mama passed, Emmalee spotted these crosses everywhere. She found them strung on chains around people’s necks and perched on top of the church roofs in Cullen. She saw one tattooed on a man’s forearm and another painted on the rocky face of Pine Mountain. She fixated on these crosses. She wrote them on paper and drew them in the mud long before she made her first one out of twigs. Back then, she hoped they might be some sort of key to that house where her mama had gone to live.

  Still Emmalee believed a death was more intimidating in the dark, when the world stood quiet and defenseless and the funeral home director came looking for her father. Mr. Fulton called on Nolan when that sort of thing happened, when someone slid out of this world unnoticed in the deep of night and his passing needed to be officially confirmed and properly noted. A man who had been weakened by an early stroke, Mr. Fulton had come to count on Nolan to do the heavy lifting for him whenever a body needed to be hauled up out of its predicament and carried back to town.

  “Nolan,” Mr. Fulton said, calling from outside, “wake up
, sir. There’s work to be done. You hear me? You leave me out here in the cold much longer, and you might have another body to contend with.”

  Emmalee placed the baby against her thighs and pulled her knees a little closer to her chest, wrapping Kelly in a leggy cocoon. The baby’s wet diaper chilled Emmalee’s skin.

  “Nolan!” Emmalee hollered her father’s first name, both of them agreeing years ago anything more would not suit him well. “Open the damn door! Let the poor man in.”

  Nolan was once a good-looking man with a shock of dark hair slicked back against his head. His smile was as honeyed as his talk, and Emmalee imagined he had conned many men into hiring him and women into loving him, including her own mama. But his charm had run thin like his hair.

  Another knock echoed at the door.

  “You hear me, Nolan Bullard, I’m not paying you twenty-five dollars a call to stand out here in the freezing cold. I can do that on my own dime.”

  “Hold on,” Nolan said, shouting back as he fumbled across the floor. “I was dead asleep. What the hell time is it anyways?”

  Emmalee glanced at the clock radio by her bed. It read seventeen minutes past two. Then again, it always did. Pulled from one of the garbage cans behind the Ridgeview Trail Apartments, the radio was a rare gift from her father, handed to her on her sixteenth birthday.

  “Here,” he said and jumped into his truck and sped down the dirt drive winding its way out of the holler.

  Nolan searched through other people’s garbage like a miner panning for gold, but Emmalee always considered the clock radio one of his better acquisitions. It picked up a couple of stations from Jasper and one from Chattanooga if the weather was good, and it always glowed bright enough so she could see her hands out in front of her even when the moon hid behind a dark sky. Besides, keeping time didn’t really mean much to her anymore. In that way, she believed she was no different from the dead her father drove about town.