Home Another Way (28 page)
He put his seat belt on. I tried to, but my hands shook too much, so I just held the armrest as Doc swerved sharply around the corners.
“Is she breathing?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Pulse?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know.”
I tried to get out of the truck before it stopped in front of the house, forgetting the passenger door didn’t open from the inside. I crawled out the driver’s side, wriggling past Doc, and ran back to Memory. Doc found me on the floor, grabbing at the front of her shirt, shaking her. “Sarah,” he said, hand on my shoulder.
“Why are you just standing there? Get down here. Do something.”
“Sarah, stop.”
“Do something,” I pleaded.
“She’s gone.”
“No.”
No. No. No.
“Please,” I whispered. To whom, I didn’t know.
Doc crouched beside me, and I fell into him, sobbing. I mashed my face against his shoulder, vaguely aware of his arms moving around me, his hands resting on my head, my hair. My body shook, and I cried until I coughed up mouthfuls of snot, and my throat tasted raw. I felt Doc wipe my face with something rough, a paper towel I think he took from his back pocket. He lifted me to my feet, sat me in a chair, and I watched him examine Robert, checking his heart, his temperature and blood pressure, his incision. “He’s dehydrated. I need to feed him.”
I nodded. My vision blurred with pain. Everything in the room looked distorted, fuzzy. Except Memory. Her pale face shone against a blue and purple rag rug, the moon in Van Gogh’s midnight sky. Doc noticed me staring, transfixed. He gently covered her face with the blanket.
“I need to make some phone calls. Are you okay here? I’m just going down the road a bit to the neighbor’s. I won’t be long. Twenty, thirty minutes.”
I managed to nod. I heard the truck spray pebbles across the pavement as it pulled away. And then my chin fell into my chest and I closed my eyes. A low hum filled my head, rising to the top of my skull, swimming, digging, whirling like a dentist’s drill. I wrapped my arms over my knees and sat there, motionless, listening to the noise in my brain. Focusing on it, really, so that no other thought could worm its way inside, until Doc returned with Iris Finn. She would stay with Robert tonight, and wait for the coroner.
Doc grabbed my elbow, propelled me out the door. I staggered to the truck, zombie-like, booted feet scraping across the soft earth, lacerating it with each step. My hand wandered to my neck, and I pulled at my skin, pinched it, kneaded it. But I felt nothing. Doc helped me into the passenger seat and buckled my belt for me. Then he slid behind the wheel, squeezed it with both hands.
“Sarah—”
“I knew she was dead,” I said, voice flat.
“You shouldn’t be alone. Let me take you to the inn.”
“I want to be alone.”
He didn’t argue. He drove me to the cabin, saying something about returning my truck later.
I fell into the couch without removing my boots or coat, and clamped my forearm down over my eyes. I wanted to sleep but soon grew hot. My head began to clear, the white noise dissipating, and snippets of conversations I’d had with Memory fidgeted around in there, urging me to reminisce. I needed to do something, anything, to make it stop.
Flinging off my coat, I turned on the light in the kitchen and scoured the cabinets. Flour, sugar, cocoa powder. I found measuring cups and spoons, a chipped Pyrex bowl, a cake pan. Memory’s hot water cake recipe was taped to the refrigerator. I grabbed it, along with a couple of eggs, breaking them into the bowl, fishing out a broken shell. Then I measured the flour without scraping the top to level it. Just dumped it in, along with the sugar and cocoa. And poured in the water.
I didn’t have an electric mixer but found a whisk at the back of the utensil drawer. I stuck it in the batter without rinsing off the dust and twisted it around the soupy chocolate with short, hysterical strokes.
“How could you leave me?” I threw the whisk against the wall, and swept my arm across the counter, knocking the bowl to the floor. It shattered, spraying glass and batter over my toes, the tile, everywhere.
I collapsed in the puddle, glass crunching under my knees, batter soaking into my pants. Sobbing, I wiped my eyes and nose with the back of my wrist, smearing chocolate on my face. The dense, churlish smell made me retch, and I vomited bile onto my hair, between my fingers.
I stayed there until my knees ached and my feet went numb, and the batter dried and cracked on my skin, cocoa lizard scales. After showering, I dug through the cold remedies I’d bought when I first decided to stay in Jonah, almost six months ago. I found the nighttime cough medicine and guzzled half the syrup straight from the bottle, leaving the rest of it on the coffee table, right next to the couch, in case I woke during the night.
I would still be asleep if Beth hadn’t come to bring me to the service. She lifted all the shades and started the shower for me, then hauled me into a sitting position. “You need to get ready,” she said.
“I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are, and I’ll drag you into the shower with your clothes on if you don’t get up now. Don’t think I can’t.”
I ignored her. So she grabbed my ankles and pulled until my hips slid off the cushions, my legs suspended in the air, a bridge across the coffee table.
“Fine,” I said, and she dropped my feet. The back of my heels slammed onto the table. “Ouch.”
“There’s a dress for you in the bathroom, hanging on the hook behind the door.”
I washed and dried my hair, and shaved my legs because the dress Beth brought, a simple navy cotton with white embroidery at the collar and cuffs, hung only midcalf. A new package of pantyhose lay next to the sink.
I found Beth in the kitchen, washing cake batter off the walls, floor already clean. A plate of scrambled eggs sat on the counter. “I didn’t know if you were hungry,” she said. “You don’t have much to eat around here.”
“I’m not.”
Beth covered the plate with a napkin and put it in the refrigerator. She looked lovely in the same dress she wore at the Christmas recital and her pearls around her neck, her face rouged with that fabled pregnant glow, tummy still flat. “Do you need shoes?” she asked, pulling several pairs from a plastic grocery bag.
“I have some,” I said, and I rummaged through the closet until I found my Mary Janes.
“Listen, Sarah. Mom thought you might want to play something to—”
“No.” I zipped on my coat. “Are we going?”
My truck was back in the driveway. Beth asked if I wanted to ride with her or go by myself. I chose alone, and followed her to the Grange, trying my best to ignore the cheerful weather.
Death should never come on sunny days.
I remembered my grandmother driving past a cemetery one Saturday while taking me to violin lessons. The rain poured down, mourners huddling under a small, white canopy, their smart black shoes coated with freshly turned earth. “What terrible weather for a funeral,” she had said, and I thought,
No, what perfect weather for a funeral.
But today, the sun blazed with springtime. Only a few wispy clouds stretched over the sky, and I noticed, for the first time, the young red tree branches spotted with buds. Despite this, a foot of snow hid the ground in some places along the sides of the roads, where the plows had piled it during the winter months.
There wouldn’t be an actual funeral this morning. The ground was still frozen, and it cost too much to call in a bulldozer to dig a Memory-sized hole. Instead, she was stuffed in the morgue icebox until June, and we’d have some sort of memorial service—a celebration of a life, Maggie called it.
What bull.
It had been three days since I’d found the body. I spent Monday and Tuesday in an over-the-counter medicinal stupor. People—Doc, Maggie, Beth—came by to check on me. I’d forgotten to lock the door, so they walked in and poked at me until they were satisfied I still breathed. I managed a few strangled grunts from beneath my pillow. Jack had come, too. Every few hours, it seemed. Or perhaps I had dreamed him, sitting on the coffee table, stroking my hair and whispering beautiful, unintelligible things.
Jack approached me as soon as I walked into the Grange. He looked at me as if I would crumble at the slightest touch, and jammed his hands into his pockets. But his eyes pored over me. “How are you?” he asked, then shook his head with an embarrassed sniff. “Sorry. Dumb question.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“We were waiting for you; didn’t want to start without you.”
I looked around, the hall filled with almost as many people as during the pageant. At the front of the building, a small card table held a vase of yellow flowers and a framed picture of Memory—both perched on a rag rug of gold, scarlet, and purple.
Beth sat close to the front, with Maggie and Dominic; she saved a seat for me. My legs moved down the aisle as if on their own accord. I tripped over Dominic’s work boots as I shimmied past him and to the empty metal folding chair, noticing the cold, hollow
thunk
as I slumped into it. At the piano, Patty played a few measures and everyone began singing. Maggie gave me a hymnal, opened to page 103—“Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.” I didn’t pretend to follow along.
The song ended, and Jack walked to the podium. “Amen,” he said, garnering a chorus of “Praise Jesus” and “Hallelujah” from the crowd.
“We gather here today,” he continued, “on a day that many in the world would face with sadness. But we come full of joy, because our dear friend and sister in Christ, Memory Jones, has entered into the glory of her Lord. And anyone who knew her and loved her as we did could have no doubt that she heard His voice say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.’ ”
I gazed out the window, Jack’s voice fading to background noise. I had no use for any of that imbecilic God stuff today. All these people could delude themselves, wave to Memory up in the sky, and have themselves a good night’s sleep. The only things that kept her from rotting into oblivion were my memories of her, and I hadn’t decided if I would keep those or not.
I knew how to forget.
People got up and down, and talked. I closed my eyes and counted the number of days until I could leave. Nine. The number of steps to Memory’s house. The number of months it took for a child to leave its mother’s womb.
The number of times I wished these fools would shut up.
Patty played another hymn. Everyone stood to sing, except me. Then the chairs were pushed against the walls. The men opened several tables in the center of the floor, the women covered them with yellow paper tablecloths, foil-wrapped casseroles, plastic forks, and various desserts. Rich the Mushroom and Shelley cornered me. Too tired to fight, I stood there while they made small talk and offered to get me plates of food. I said I’d get my own, and instead went to hide in Jack’s office. I took an afghan off the back of the desk chair, curled up in the corner of his sofa, and, breathing in the musky scent of leather, dozed off.
When I woke, Jack sat at his desk, his back to me, typing on the computer. I stretched, yawned, and he turned around.
“Is it over out there?” I asked.
“Just about. There are a few folks left, and the ladies are just starting to clean up. Give it another hour, and you should be able to sneak out completely unnoticed.”
“I won’t stay that long.”
“You’re welcome to,” he said, “if you want. If not, I think I have some sort of disguise you can put on.” He dug around in his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a dark blue ski mask, the kind bank robbers wear in the movies, with the eyes and mouth cut out. “Here you go. It even matches your dress.”
I laughed a little, and Jack said, “It’s good to see you smile.” He smiled too, this tender, lopsided grin that made my palms prickle with sweat.
“Did you come sit with me the past few days? I think I remember you . . . sitting there,” I said.
“That was me. I was worried about you. I still am.”
I shrugged a little, dismissing his concern. “It’s fine. Nothing that won’t be cured next Friday.”
He raked his teeth over his lower lip, pulling off a bit of skin. “If you say so,” he said, turning back to the computer.
I looked down into my lap, eyes tracing the color pattern of the afghan, fingers stuck through the crocheted holes. “Is Iris Finn still staying with Robert?”
“No,” he said, eyes still on the monitor. “Doc’s been there, mostly. I know he’s been seeing patients there. Someone from the church will sit with Robert for a little while if he has to go out. But it’s only for a couple more days.”
“What do you mean? Then what?”
“Doc called in a favor and got Robert into a hospital a couple hours from here.”
I blinked. “You mean an institution.”
He stopped typing. “Yes.”
“No.” I shook my head, swallowing hard. I pictured Memory doting over her son, gently combing his hair and brushing his teeth. Tucking the blanket around him. Kissing him good-night. “There has to be another option. Maybe someone, someone could—”
“Most of the people around here can hardly afford to feed their own families,” Jack interrupted. “Are you going to take care of him?”
Quietly, I said, “I just meant she wouldn’t want that for him.”
In one quick, bewildering motion, Jack swiveled to face me. “No, Sarah, she wouldn’t have wanted that,” he said in a tone I’d never heard from him before, jagged, ugly, like something I would say. It troubled me, coming from him. “But life isn’t always about what we want, is it? If you stepped away from your own personal pity party for two minutes, maybe you’d see that other people have had some pretty terrible things happen to them, too. But they’re not sitting around, hating the world and everyone in it.
“Do you think Beth wanted to be burned half past recognition, or that my mother wanted Dad and Tim to die? Do you think Memory wanted an invalid for a son? Huh? Do you think I wanted to—”
He stopped, his angry cheeks turning white, as if someone had jabbed a straw in the top of his skull and sucked out all the blood.
I grabbed a cross-stitched throw pillow, clutched it to my chest and huddled deeper into the corner of the couch, crying. Not the loud, hiccupping sobs of the past few days, but shocked and silent. Jack pounded the arm of the chair with the fleshy part of his fist. Then he came over to the couch, sat down and pulled me into him. “Sarah, I’m sorry.”
