B000FCJYE6 EBOK (14 page)

In a box, under a sagging pile of lilies, lies your husband. He stares straight up at carefully, pointlessly quilted satin and a pile of lilies.

No. He cannot stare. He has no head.

I bent my own and pressed my lips onto the top of Kate’s skull.

I wanted to leave, but it seemed the minutes were passing without my permission, and they only went in one direction, and you could only walk into the church once, and then out only once, and Kate was on my lap, and Oma and Opa were blocking my way out of the pew, so no matter what I did, this was going to happen, like when I was giving birth, that first contraction when suddenly it’s not an idea anymore, it’s going to happen, like that, exactly like that, they were going to bury him.

And I felt that if I moved at all, I would become detached from Kate, and then I would die.

Kate turned toward me, her face twisted into a knot, and refused to watch. There was nothing to watch. She pressed her body against mine, wrapped her legs around my waist, laid her face between my breasts, whimpering. She pressed her small skull bones into the soft flesh hard enough to hurt, nudging and shifting, trying to find a place she liked.

She found it, the spot she’d always used when she was falling asleep, milk drunk, after I’d nursed her. She settled in and tucked a curled fist under the breast she faced. Her breathing slowed slightly. The light through the stained-glass windows shone on her cheek so that she looked like a painted harlequin doll. I closed my eyes.

The service began. I realized at some point that I was looking out a stained-glass window on which St. Christopher held up his hand in blessing—
safe journeys,
was that him?—and turned my head forward so as to seem to be paying attention. My attention was on Kate’s breath. She breathed into my neck, shallow breaths, tiny, as she had when she was a baby, dreaming. I remembered watching her, in this kind of stillness, wondering what she dreamed. Looking up at Esau, then just six and still as cheerful a child as they come, gloating in my luck, terrified by the fragility of their bones.

There is no protecting a child, my mother told me once, waving her hand at me as if to wave me away. She’d leaned back, I remember the purple velvet settee, the tattered luxury I’d grown up with, the kind that seems to say, “We are above new things.” I’d brought only a few dresses for my visit, all carefully chosen, all wrong. I could see it in her face, they were all wrong, the fabric cheap and small town.

I was trying to repair something with her. I was telling her about the children; I’d brought pictures. See, I wanted to say, look at how perfect and strange they are. Look at what strange, perfect things I have made. Impulsively, I told her about the terror, the terror that took hold of me when I woke in the morning and as I sat up late at night, unable to sleep. I can’t even remember the last time I wasn’t afraid, I said, laughing, sounding afraid even then, even to myself, half hysterical in her presence, as I always was. Embarrassed by myself, tall and excitable and lacking in grace, nothing like her. Like your father, she always said, with disgust so thinly disguised it was barely a sheen on the surface. The children came, I said, laughing inappropriately, and I’ve been afraid ever since.

“Oh, God, Claire,” she drawled. She looked me over. “There’s no protecting a child.”

I realized the funeral was nearing its end. Kate seemed to sense it too, and, as if in protest, repositioned her head against my breast and tucked herself into me as far as she could. I winced, breathed deep to make a hollow of my rib cage, and drew her in.

They picked up my husband and carried him down the aisle.

It was a warm day, icicles dripping from the eaves of the church as we stepped out into the blinding sunlight, thick piles of wet snow falling from slick branches. From the steps I watched them put the coffin in a gun-colored hearse. The minister stopped and said something to me. I stared at him over Kate’s body. I wanted the sun to go away. I wanted a thunderstorm to roll in and crack open the sky and cause a flood. I blinked at the minister, who took his hand off my shoulder at last.

I put on a pair of sunglasses as we rode over in the car, and felt hidden. I wanted Kate to say something.

“Katie,” I whispered into her neck. She made no response. I squeezed her so tightly she pushed at my arm with one hand, very nicely, and tucked her hand back into my chest. I felt better. I could feel Opa in the front seat trying to think of something to say. He opened his mouth and took a deep breath several times, glancing at us in the rearview mirror, and then stopped. Finally he let out a slow sigh and drove.

Fields and more white fields. Sugar beet and corn, soybean, sunflower, cattle land, roiling under the frozen ground beneath feet of snow. I loved the split-wood fences at property lines and the telephone poles that stayed up God knows how, a procession of tilted crosses that ran north-south along the county roads.

The first time we drove this way, I was in charge of the radio, and country music played on every station except one, on which a Lutheran minister droned. It was summer and the sunflowers craned their necks to face south.

“Is it all this flat?”

“Yep,” he’d said with a satisfied smile. “Here to the Rockies, not counting the Black Hills.”

I whistled through my teeth, impressed.

Another field rolled by. “What’s that?” I asked.

“Sugar beet.”

“What’s that?”

“What it sounds like.”

I grinned out the open window.

I felt him look at me. “You like it?”

I nodded.

“Think you could stay here awhile?”

I laughed and held up my hand. “Where’m I going?”

That is a graveyard,
I thought.

We were parked.

Cemetery
was a nicer word. But there were gravestones, gray ones, others black with age, the names so old they’d worn off. Some had lichen, moss. Esau had learned about lichen. Do not pull up lichen; it takes them a hundred years to grow. Also, bears like lichen, so leave them for the bears. No, there are no bears in town. There were graves with flowers and graves with dead flowers and graves with nothing at all.

Time did not pass for a little while as the four of us sat there listening to the car tick. Then Opa said, “All right now.”

Still no one moved. At the edge of the graveyard, there was a gathering of people in dark coats and hats, looking toward the car, the men with their hats removed. There was a minister. There was a grave, and a box. All of it meant for us. Like a birthday party, I thought.

I looked down at Kate. She was gazing steadily out the window at the very same place.

“All right,” Opa said, quite certain this time, and he got out of the car. He came around the other side and helped Oma out, making sure her shoes were steady on the ice, and then opened my door. It was good that he did, because I found I couldn’t move.

He went to take Kate, whose whole body seized as she let out a chilling scream. I closed my eyes. Please don’t let it be like this, I thought. Opa lifted his hands away as if burned. “It’s all right,” he said in a low voice, to her, me, himself. “All right.”

Stop saying that, I wanted to yell. We will stay here in the car, I wanted to say. It isn’t all right right now. We are all right where we are. We are not all right.

In my confusion I suddenly got out of the car and found myself walking up the hill. Faces came into focus and I wanted to spit at them. I stared at people. They looked away in sympathy, which was worse. Kate’s body was clenched so tightly around me that my eyes widened in pain and my whole body shook. I kept going, unable to stop, my legs pumping with blood. I wanted to carry Kate home. Donna caught my arm and pulled me to her side, and that was all right. That was all right. I stopped. Then I was standing there staring at a hole in the ground.

Before I could stop myself, I cried, “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

It was gauche. It was wrong. People stared and tried not to stare, but it was either stare at us or stare at the hole, wasn’t it? Donna wrapped her arm around my shoulder and held me up. We were falling. Kate and I were falling and there was a hole and I needed to keep my child away from the hole.

I backed away from the edge of the grave, turning to look at Donna. “It’s sunny,” I whispered, panicked.

“You have your sunglasses on, honey. It’s almost over.” She squeezed my arms, staring straight into my face. “Almost done.”

I nodded at her because she was nodding at me.

The minister started talking. I kept an eye on the clouds that had gathered themselves up, thick clouds, snow clouds. Snow tonight, I thought.

The minister stopped talking. In the void his voice left, there was only the deep breathing of the pallbearers as they bent—
on three?—
and lifted the casket. Kate’s head swiveled slowly.

“Are they putting him in the ground?” she whispered.

I nodded against her neck.

“He’s in the box.”

I nodded again. “He’s in heaven.”

She turned suddenly, a wild look in her eyes.

“Is he in the box?”

“Yes, and his spirit is in heaven.” I needed her to stop asking. I was trembling and wanted to run and get her away from the hole.

“But what’s in the box?” Her tiny, shrill voice soared above the silence. The pallbearers paused.

“Sweetheart, Daddy’s in the box.” I forced the words out and heard the hysteria in them. “Stop, now.”

She pushed away from me violently, scrambled down as if I was a tree she had climbed that was bending under her weight. She took my skirt in her fists and twisted it, yanking with all her strength. Her head thrown back to look up at me, she screamed, “Where is he? Is he going in the ground?
You said they would put him in the ground!”

“Darling, stop,” I pleaded. I bent, reaching for her, but she flung herself away, kicking. I lurched toward her where she lay sobbing in the snow, her hair dangling into the grave. I leaned toward her, reaching, sick at the thought of all those eyes on our rawest parts. I felt the furor behind us, Oma and Opa and Donna, voices rising, and I wanted to turn and lash out, but I could not take my eyes off Kate, who choked and howled, her small hands reaching for something to cling to, finding only the edge of the hole.
Look away,
I wanted to scream at all of them,
look away, let us alone.

I grabbed Kate’s foot. She kicked and sobbed herself out. When she spoke, it was another voice, not hers, an old and angry voice, betrayed.

“What’s in the box?” she said, her eyes closed. “Daddy’s body.” “Where’s the Daddy of him?” She lay there in the snow, utterly still. “Sweetheart, he’s gone.” I took my hand off her foot and put my palm to her wet face. A flood of heat.

She stared up at me, lost.

I bathed Kate slowly, with scented bubbles. She was very serious as she played with the soap. She held still and did not complain. She stood shivering in her giant bath towel while I helped her get dry. I put her into her flannel nightgown. She wanted to wear socks to bed, so I put socks on her feet. For a minute I sat on the bed next to her. Then I got up, put on my own flannel nightgown and socks, got into bed, and turned out the light.

Together we lay there in the dark, listening to the funeral party.

Suddenly she said, “Do you ever think about what if the roof flew off?”

We stared at the ceiling.

“Of course,” I said. “Everybody thinks about that, don’t they?”

She giggled. “Yeah. I bet.”

She put her socked foot on my knee and rubbed it. “I like socks on in bed, don’t you?”

“Very warm.”

“Yeah. Safe.”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes I feel like my feet are flying away.”

This took me a minute. “How do you figure?”

“I don’t know. Like they’re escaping.”

“What do you do then?”

“Sit on ’em.” She giggled again. “What do you see when the roof flies off?”

“A thunderstorm. A big one, with lots of lightning. And trees waving their arms.” I stretched my arms toward the ceiling to show her.

“Oooh, yeah! Except we don’t get wet.”

“Right.”

She was quiet. I turned my head on the pillow to look at her. “What do you see?”

“Daddy,” she said tentatively, almost asking the question.

“Yes.”

“Up in heaven.” More certain this time.

I realized I was holding my breath, and let it out slowly. Out in the living room, the funeral party was in full swing; something broke and there was a roar of laughter and a bluster of men.

“What’s he doing?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

“Not telling.” In the dark I saw her grin.

“Pretty please?”

“Sneaking a nip.”

“What?”

“Sneaking a nip before dinner. He’s looking to make sure you can’t see. He’s making funny faces at me.”

I laughed so hard I worried the funeral party would hear. “Oh, lordy. You’re right. That’s exactly what he’s up to, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” she crowed, rubbing her feet madly on my knees.

I tickled her until she begged me to stop.

“He likes heaven,” she said.

“Really?”

“Doesn’t he?” Her voice was anxious.

“Well, sure. What’s not to like? It’s heaven!”

“Right!” She sighed with relief. “And he can go fishing.”

Okay. “All kinds of fish in heaven.”

“That’s what Esau says.”

I looked at her. “Is that so?”

She nodded. Apparently they’d discussed it between themselves.

She took my hand. I squeezed. We took a long breath. I said, “We’re going to be fine.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said solemnly. “Me and Davey think we’re going to be sad for a long time.” She looked at me.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She looked back up at the ceiling. “Yeah.”

I stood in the kitchen with the light from the refrigerator shining on my socked feet. It seemed necessary to eat. I couldn’t tell whether I was hungry or about to throw up again, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I peeled the aluminum foil back from a casserole dish and found sweet potatoes.