Some Came Running (143 page)

And that was how Edith found her in the morning: lying sideways on her face, the top of her gray head toward the door.

She had gotten up early to fix breakfast. She had waked John so he wouldn’t be late for work, and then had cooked bacon and eggs. She had been glad Janie was sleeping late for once. But after John had finished eating and was getting ready to leave, and Janie still had not appeared, she had thought she’d better call her, and went to her room.

The moment she opened the door and saw her in that odd wrenched position, she had known nothing would really be any use. But she had made herself walk forward and lift the muscled arm and try to raise her. The arm fell back down slackly. There was something—something obscene, about touching another person’s dead body. Instinctively, you knew they wouldn’t have liked it. It had never hapened to Edith before. She stepped back to the door and stood looking at her for a dull moment.

Clearly, Janie had fought hard. And neither one of them had waked up and come to her. Maybe they could have helped her. At least, they could have
been
there. Edith called for John, her voice high and squawky.

“Daddy! Daddy! Come here quick!”

With his slow, dull walk, John appeared behind her, carrying his work jacket over one arm, his cap already on his head. Edith put her hands up over her mouth and turned to him, tears—as she realized the finality of it—beginning to spurt from her eyes and make John appear to shimmer. He looked placidly past her through the door.

“Well, I guess there ain’t nothin we can do,” he said slowly. “I guess she’s gone.”

Edith wanted suddenly to slap his face. Damn him! Didn’t he ever feel anything?

“I guess you better call the doctor, hadn’t you?” John said, after a moment.

Edith got control of herself. Still crying, she called Doc Cost. Then, at his suggestion, also called the coroner.

She hung up the phone, weeping uncontrollably. John came and put his heavy calloused hand awkwardly on her shoulder.

“Don’t cry, Edith honey,” he said. “It had to happen some time.” Edith put her own hand up on his. “She’s been purty sick for a long time,” he said.

“Oh, God,” Edith said, thinking of Old Janie, lying in there and dying all alone, not even anybody there to hold her hand. “What are we going to do?” she said.

“Well,” John said, misunderstanding what she meant. “I reckon I better go on to work. There ain’t nothing much I can do here. But I don’t think you better try to go to the store today, upset like you are, Edith honey. Why don’t you call the store and tell them?”

“Yes,” Edith said. “All right. I will.”

“You sure you be all right here alone? till the doctor comes?” John said.

“Yes,” Edith said. “You go on. I’m all right.”

After he left, Edith stared after him almost calmly; then suddenly, like a sneeze, was struck by another fit of uncontrollable weeping. Then she called the store. And that was the way it went: She would be all right, and go about whatever had to be done; then, suddenly, she would remember something about Janie, and another uncontrollable seizure of weeping would take her like a sudden gust of wind shaking a tree.

It was while she was sitting with her in the room waiting for the doctor and the coroner to arrive, that she noticed for the first time the worn old sanitary belt Jane was still wearing, under the sheet, and did not understand it. Later on, after the undertaker came and took her away, she and Doc Cost talked about it.

Doc Cost took her out in the kitchen and sat down with her. He had only made a brief examination of her when he first came, and had told Edith then: “It looks like it was an internal hemorrhage.”

“But there’s no blood!” she had said.

“There was some,” Doc Cost said gently. Later, after he and the coroner had examined her together, and then the undertaker had taken her away, sitting at the kitchen table, awkwardly, with all of the sympathy and understanding that Edith had wanted John to have but which John hadn’t, Doc Cost reconstructed for her what he thought had happened.

“I rather expect we’ll find it’s a diverticulosis of the lower bowel,” he said.

“What’s a diverticulosis?” Edith said. She was dry-eyed now, and coolly in possession of herself.

“Well, it’s a kind of a pocket,” Doc said. “A fistula. She’s probably had it for several years, and finally it ruptured.”

“Fistula!” Edith said. “Janie?” And then: “That’s what’s caused her to lose all that weight and go downhill like she did?”

Doc Cost nodded, gently. “Diverticulitis is a false pocket, in the large intestine. Fecal matter lodges in this pocket and causes an abscess. Sometimes, if it doesn’t heal by itself, it breaks through and adheres to the bladder or the uterus, and forms a fistula— Look, Edith,” he said awkwardly. “Do you want to know this stuff? There’s no need to go into all of the details of it with you.”

“I want to know everything about it,” Edith said firmly.

Doc Cost nodded, slowly. “Well, it’s been my experience with rectal-vesical fistula like this that it is often mistaken by the patient for a venereal disease.” He paused.

“Oh,
no!”
Edith said, her eyes widening. She put her hand up to her mouth.

Doc Cost nodded again, reluctantly. “I expect that’s what happened here,” he said. “Of course, if it’s caught soon enough, diverticulitis can usually be remedied by surgery.”

“But why wouldn’t she ever go to a doctor with it? She knew she was sick!”

“Well, I’ve known Janie for a number of years,” Doc Cost said, awkwardly. “I think I know her pretty well. Did you notice that—ahh—she was wearing a sanitary belt?”

“Yes,” Edith said. “I wondered about it at the time.”

“Well,” Doc said, painfully, “well, with diverticulitis of this type there is a certain amount of vaginal discharge in the later stages. Particularly, if the fistula has adhered to the bladder, there is frequency of urination, burning, and a pus discharge.” He paused, then shrugged. “In short, all the usual symptoms connected with gonorrhea. Of course, you know Janie probably better than anyone else, Edith,” he said apologetically. “But I know her pretty well. I’ve kidded with her a lot. She was a very sensitive woman, although a stranger wouldn’t have thought it, just to look at her. And now I—ahh—well, I expect she thought maybe she had contracted gonorrhea, or some other social disease like that, and that was why she wouldn’t go to a doctor. She was too embarrassed.” He looked Edith in the eyes, apologetically, hating to have to say what he had to say.

Edith, as the implication dawned on her, put her hands up to her face. “Oh no!” she whispered. “Oh no! Oh no!”

“She was very sensitive about her reputation in town,” Doc Cost said with a sad smile. “She kidded about it. But it bothered her, too, just the same.”

“Doc—” Edith said haltingly, “Then— then it was
me!
I caused it! I— I called her an old whore once, when I was mad at her over something. And I used to try to shame her out of going out with those old duffers—just—just because it embarrassed
me!”

“Well,” Doc Cost said awkwardly, “I doubt very much if that had anything to do with it, Edith. There was a lot more to it than that. There was the whole town. You mustn’t blame yourself for it.”

“Oh, but—but I did,” Edith said. “Doc, I did. And I caused it.” Suddenly, she broke off, and dropped her head down on the table, sobbing uncontrollably. Doc Cost reached across the table and took her hand, and then when she did not stop got up and came around the table and put his arm around her shoulder.

Finally, she got control of herself again. After she did, Doc Cost tried to reassure her again that it was not her fault. To which, Edith said nothing. What was the use of weeping and wailing over your guilt? It was just something you would have to live with, that was all. And you would live with it, too, she thought; all your life. She faced him then, red-eyed from weeping, but clear-eyed, too. And when he saw the look on her face, Doc Cost stopped expostulating with her, as if he knew it was no longer any use. Quietly, he got his hat and bag and left.

At the door, he stopped and turned back. “You know, if you’d like, Edith,” he said, “we can have a postmortem performed on Janie. Then you would know exactly the cause of death. I’m reasonably sure my diagnosis is correct. And I’m
positive
there’s no—ahh—external vaginal infection. But I would suggest that you have a postmortem done.”

“You mean, an—autopsy?” Edith said.

He nodded, his face awkward and pained for her.

“No,” Edith said. “No, Doc. I don’t think I could stand that. The thought of it. It’s—it’s somehow an—an indignity to Janie, Doc; do you see what I mean?” she said anxiously. “I don’t mean anything against you, you understand. But to cut her up like that, it’s—it’s obscene. I know Janie wouldn’t like it. Let’s just let her rest in peace.” She stood, looking at him.

“Well,” Doc Cost said, “I know there are people who feel that way, Edith. Of course, to a doctor it’s purely a professional matter. I—ahh—” he paused awkwardly. “I wouldn’t make any charge for it, Edith. I suggested it because I thought it might help put your mind at rest.”

“No,” Edith said. “No, Doc. I won’t let them do that to Janie. She’s had a rough enough time as it is. And I just won’t let somebody do that to her.”

“Well, all right,” Doc Cost said “We’ll just let it go then. I’ll see you, Edith.” He tipped his hat and smiled, painfully, and Edith watched him walk down the porch to his funny little MG. How could he stand it? she thought; all the pain and agony he had to wade through in his profession? God! she thought; no wonder he drank as much as he did when he got home from work in the evening. She shut the door and went back into the house and sat down and began to weep again.

And, suddenly, she knew something else that she was not going to let them do to Janie, she thought. When it came time for the funeral, she was going to insist the casket be left closed. She was not going to let all those people parade past and stare at poor old dead Janie. Staring at your dead body, that you yourself no longer had control over, it would make any one feel ashamed; it was embarrassing, and obscene, and it was barbaric. John probably wouldn’t understand, but she didn’t care. They had to take her to an undertaker, and expose her poor old body there, and that was bad enough. But they were not going to do any more than that, they were not going to expose her in her casket.

She had done enough harm to Janie in her life, Edith thought, sickly, and she was going to see that Janie had dignity in death.

Edith snuffled up her tears, and got up to go about doing the things she was going to have to do to get Janie finally away in the ground.

It was just then that Frank and Agnes drove up, to see what help they could be. From them, Edith learned that Frank had had the store closed up as a gesture of respect, and she appreciated that, deeply; and she also appreciated them coming out to help. But she did not want to be around them, either one of them, but especially Agnes. She talked with them a little while, and then she politely got them to leave. She did not cry while they were there.

Frank and Agnes were only the first, however. While they were still there, Agnes went to the door and admitted two neighbor ladies. They were women Edith hardly knew, both wives of men who worked for the Sternutol like John. They had seen the doctor’s car, and the ambulance, and they had come to see what they could do. After they had expressed almost perfunctory regrets to Edith, they went immediately to the kitchen and began cleaning it up from the breakfast cooking.

And, as if wafted aloft on the same wind that carried the copper-penny taste of Sternutol Chemical across town, the news spread swiftly, and others came. And one or another of them took over doing everything that needed to be done, such as the cleaning and evacuating of Janie’s room from which the presence of Death needed to be swept. Some brought food already cooked, others took over the kitchen and cooked more food there. And not long afterward, John came home from work. They had sent him home from work and told him not to come back until he felt like everything was done. John looked perplexed to find his house so full of people, and, upon Edith’s instruction, went to take a bath and put on his
good
clothes, as contrasted with his
work
clothes. Social usage had taken over.

Edith detested all of them, and wished only that they would all go away and leave her alone. They were not doing it for her, anyway; or for Janie. They were, she sensed, doing it for themselves. As if in some way, by helping here, they were all cocking the snook at the Death who would someday be the master and the lover of them all. She wished only that they would go away; she could have done everything herself that they were doing; and yet she was also glad that they were there. Because, she gradually realized with surprise, the mere presence of social usage: the simple fact of greeting people and accepting from them the regrets which some fierce pride in her made her want to
not
accept—all this was keeping her mind away from her own pain.

Shortly after Frank and Agnes left, Geneve Lowe drove up and came inside with her husband Al who only stood awkwardly, and Geneve wanted to know if there was anything she could do. Al had called her from the store right away; and she had gone and picked him up. Now, what could she do? Edith could not think of anything, but then she thought of something and said yes, there was something she could do: She wanted to buy Janie a whole new outfit. Would Geneve see to that for her? Geneve would; she would see to it that she had the finest outfit in the store.

“And one other thing,” Edith said, having another idea. “Wait a minute.” And she went into her own bedroom and shut the door. In the bedroom, she got out her jewelry box. From it she took her most prized pieces: the matched set of Mexican amethyst and roped silver, bracelet, ring, earrings, and the pin made in the shape of an owl; and the other pair of apple green jade earrings for which she had paid thirty dollars—the same ones they had fought over. Edith stood looking down at them for a moment. If she had only done it before, when it would really have meant something—instead of being an idle, futile gesture. Well, maybe Janie would know, somehow, maybe she was watching, somewhere. Edith felt a little silly, but it did not dilute her determination. She took the jewelry back out and handed it to Geneve Lowe, and asked her if she would leave it with the undertaker? The amethyst pieces were all to be put on her; the jade earrings could be slipped in with her somewhere, under the pillow maybe. They were things Janie had always liked, she said, and she wanted to have them with her. Then, afraid for a moment that she might break down again, she turned away. Geneve merely touched her on the shoulder, and collected Al and left—with the jewelry, and to see about the outfit.