The Funeral Makers (22 page)

Sarah pulled the car off the side road that fishermen used to drive down to the river. The goldenrod was still yellow along the road but the berries were dead on the bushes, and some of the leaves, after hanging on so long, had finally let go.

“The leaves will soon be gone,” thought Sarah. “I wonder if the trees start worrying at this time of year? The way a man worries about getting old and losing his hair?”

It had been a busy day. She had hardly given much thought to the fact that the sign reading WELCOME TO MATTAGASH, POPULATION 456 was no longer true. Marge McKinnon was dead. So was Chester Lee Gifford. But the sign was already wrong. Martha's grandson had been born in August. And Tim Morse and the wife he met in the Army had just had their first baby. That meant the sign was right again. Two born. Two died. “Poor Marge McKinnon. What a long, lonely life. And Chester Lee. What a short, miserable one,” thought Sarah, realizing now that Chester Lee had suffered all his life from the exclusion, just as she would soon be suffering. For Sarah, it was as if she'd been a member of a wonderful club for years until, one day, a notice arrives in the mail that her membership has been canceled.

Sarah cried in her car by the road that led to the river, by the dead berries and falling yellow leaves, cried for every soul who had come and gone through Mattagash unhappy. Finally, her eyes swollen, she started the engine and drove slowly home. Violet's car was gone. On the front step Sarah found the key to Room 3 wrapped inside the note that the committee had written, asking Violet La Forge to leave. “They may as well have written one for me that same night,” Sarah thought.

Inside, she put some water on to boil. A nice cup of tea would help calm her a bit as she tried to sort the day's mess out in her mind, as one sorts dirty laundry.

Sipping on her tea in the comfortable old chair that sat by the oil heater, Sarah thought of Eleanor Roosevelt and how lucky she had been that Lucy Mercer was a shy woman.

“Met Marcus Doyle today and I felt like my heart would sprout wings and leave me, like my soul leaving my body. Like an angel fluttering up to heaven.”

—Marge McKinnon's diary, 1923

The subject of the will began as an accident. Sicily and Pearl were having coffee in Marge's kitchen. It had been decided that Pearl and the girls would move over to Marge's with Thelma and the menfolk. Pearl could keep an eye on things until the funeral was over and a decision could be made about closing up the old homestead.

Marvin Sr. and Junior had driven to Watertown to check out the local undertaker, size up his wares, see if he was capable of embalming with the big boys. Sicily and Pearl were deciding whether to wake Marge at her own house or at Sicily's. Pearl was telling Sicily how people in Portland would think it barbaric to wake a loved one at home.

“Well, I can't imagine anyone in Mattagash doing any different even if we did have a funeral home. I know if it was me that had departed, I wouldn't want my body to be passed around among strangers,” said Sicily. “A loved one should be in their own home, among family and friends, even if they didn't get along before.”

“It'll change up here too,” said Pearl. “You have to give in to change when it comes.”

“I don't think that'll happen in Mattagash. Look at old Mrs. Bell. She died from a ruptured appendix because she wouldn't let the doctor lift up her dress and examine her. She said God and her husband were the only two men who belonged under there. Do you think for one minute she'd let the undertakers strip her?”

“
Funeral
directors
,” said Pearl, and put a hand to her forehead. There was a headache coming on, she could tell.

“I'm sorry,” said Sicily. “But even being of a younger generation I couldn't tolerate sleeping in a strange funeral home, with men I don't even know.”

“Sicily, do you think funeral directors are rakes or something? Do you think they get dead women down in the basement to take advantage of them?”

Sicily knew she had pushed too far. She kept forgetting that Pearl was associated with that profession by marriage. When Marvin Sr. and Junior left the house, taking their funerary smell with them, she thought of Pearl as just another housewife.

“Do you remember,” Sicily said, hoping to iron out the waves she had created by mentioning undertakers, “do you remember when old Mary McMahon waked her husband Ben?”

“God, yes!” said Pearl. “I'd forgotten that.”

“We were just little kids. Remember how Daddy dragged us along? And remember how dark it was that night? And we went running on down the road ahead of Daddy?”

“Oh, yes,” said Pearl. “And Mary had Ben propped up in his casket right in the window for everybody to see?”

“Just like the coffin was a flower box or something!”

“And she had a gas lamp flickering at each end of the coffin! He was all lit up from head to foot. Palmer Mack called him the
Titanic
. Do you remember old Palmer with only one leg? He used to tell people he lost it in The Big One so they'd buy him free drinks, but a tree fell on it and smashed it.” Pearl was glad to remember some things about Mattagash with humor. It had taken years to let go of the feeling she had in regards to her old hometown, a feeling of anger and resentment.

“He never did say what war,” Pearl went on. “Someone would say, ‘Palmer, what war did you lose that leg of yours in?' and Palmer would lean back and spit out some tobacco juice wherever he could get away with it and he'd look real sad and say ‘The Big One, boys, I lost it in the Big One.'”

Pearl was full of the past now. The days before adolescence came and brought the message that something was terribly wrong. The days when playing in the fields or along the river was enough for any child and at night, if you walked to the store on an errand, you could listen for a minute or two to the men who had gathered around the big Warm Morning stove to spit and talk, and you took all the time you could filling the grocery list. You would have taken forever if you could. You would have stayed with your back to that stove, over in the corner by the shelf that held the spools of thread and buttons, as the back of your legs grew warm, and the men were so near you could smell the sweat of their day's work, and outside the snow coming down in thick white gusts that threatened to bury you there, inside that store, with those shelves and shelves of lovely things you might buy someday if you saved your money. And then those men told the stories of horses pulling logs in the moonlight and whose team was best, and who cut the most logs and who drowned in 1873 on a log drive and who could stop blood and who crossed the river once while the ice was breakin' up, and the warmth moved up your legs and spread over your arms until you were drowned in it and you wanted to shout “Yes!” to the snow coming down. “Yes! Yes! Bury me here. Let me stay in this minute forever!”

If you were a
girl
, you picked out your items quickly and went home. It wouldn't look good any other way. Even if you were only ten or eleven. If you were a
good
girl you took your things and went on home, maybe once or twice looking back in envy to catch the face of some boy in your class sitting by the stove, listening with rapture, knowing he'd grow up some day and be a part of it all, would inherit the old stories, then become a story himself. So you left them there, gathered around the heat, their red and black jackets hanging from nails along the wall and mittens thrown down to dry. You left them sitting beneath the mushroom cloud of smoke from their pipes and rolled cigarettes like it was an umbrella. Like no rain would ever fall on them. Because they were men. If you were a girl, you went home.

“There were some good times,” Pearl said softly. “Some good memories of the old days.”

“That was the only dead person I ever saw,” said Sicily, now no longer enjoying the merriment. “I just stay out in the kitchen where the food is. I never go in where the body is being waked. I don't think I ever got over seeing Ben McMahon like that. I don't think I'll even be able to go in and see Marge when they bring her home.”

“That's OK, Sissy,” said Pearl. “Just remember her the way she was in life.”

Amy Joy came into the kitchen and took some things from the refrigerator to make a sandwich. She'd been crying all afternoon over Chester Gifford. For once, Sicily was glad to see her interested in food again. Before long Chester Lee would be just a childhood memory, lost among the birthdays and Christmases and puppy loves that were still to come.

“I suppose we should wake her here in her own house. I think that's what she'd want,” said Sicily.

Amy Joy piled a slice of bread on top of a trapped tomato, piece of ham, and some cheese and slapped the sandwich twice to make it hold together.

“I thought Aunt Marge didn't want to be waked,” she said and took a bite of the sandwich.

“For heaven's sake, child. Where did you get an idea like that?” Sicily was being very careful how she handled Amy Joy. There had been a slight confrontation between them as to whether or not Amy Joy could go to Chester Lee's funeral. It wouldn't help any at all, Sicily told her. If she kept away, the gossip would eventually die down and things could get back to normal. Besides, her father would never hear of it. But if Amy Joy wanted to ask him herself, she could certainly do so. This had put a damper on Amy Joy's funeral plans.

“Where did you hear that?” Sicily asked her again, noticing that Amy Joy's eyes were puffy.

“That's what she put in her will,” said Amy Joy and left the kitchen with what remained of the sandwich. Sicily and Pearl looked at each other.

“Amy Joy!” Sicily shouted toward the living room. “Get back in here!”

Standing at the kitchen door, Amy Joy wiped a ring of milk from her mouth.

“What will?” asked Sicily.

“The one the lawyer wrote for her,” said Amy Joy.

“What lawyer?” asked Pearl, sensing trouble.

“Aunt Marge's lawyer.”

“Marge had a lawyer?” Pearl asked Sicily.

“I never heard of one,” said Sicily. “Amy Joy, is this another one of your
True
Confessions
stories?”

“He came to Aunt Marge's one day last year and they did her will. I came in from school and asked her what they were doing and she said drawing up her will and not to tell anyone and she would leave me her television set.”

“I don't believe it,” said Sicily. “A will! What's this world coming to? The living dividing up their treasures for when they're dead!”

“It's true. When I left I heard her telling him I could have her television set and to be sure and write it down. Do we have any doughnuts?”

“Do you know the lawyer's name?” asked Sicily.

“He's that same man from Watertown that Daddy talks to about school stuff.”

“That's a Mr. Levine. He just moved to Watertown about five years ago. From Portland, I think, Pearl. Or somewhere down in your neck of the woods,” said Sicily.

“Can you just imagine what Marge and a Jew lawyer from the city must have cooked up?” said Pearl.

“Why wasn't I told about this?” Sicily asked, more of Marge's ghost than of those still among the living.

“There's a letter all written to the family members in the bottom drawer of her dresser telling about her lawyer and all,” Amy Joy said.

“Well, how was we supposed to know that?” asked Sicily. “Why didn't she just tell us about it? Does she think we can read minds?”

“Oh, Sicily, come on,” said Pearl. “I know Marge McKinnon well enough to know she'd expect the whole damn world to go to hell in a basket before she'd really believe she was going to die. Sacrificing for the missionary cause, my foot. Marge always did what she could to get attention. Like a cat walking on your newspaper while you're reading it. She just carried this little charade too far. Yes, sir, this is just one little stunt that backfired on her.”

“I'll call up that lawyer right now,” said Sicily, picking up the phone book on Marge's rosewood desk. “Amy Joy, go get that letter. Why do you suppose she never let us know about it?” Sicily asked Pearl.

“She said the first place Aunt Pearl would look the minute she was dead would be among her personal papers,” said Amy Joy, thinking that Marge was referring to Pearl's business qualities and not her weaknesses.

“Doesn't that sound like her tongue?” asked Pearl. “Even in death it's still wagging.”

“Now, Pearly, she liked picking at you more because you were like her oldest daughter. It's 433-2769,” said Sicily and began to dial.

“What about me?” asked Amy Joy. “I'm your oldest daughter and we get along OK.”

“Amy Joy, wake up and dream something else,” said Sicily who hung up the receiver. “It's busy,” she said.

“A Jew's phone is always busy,” said Pearl.

“Imagine that. A will,” said Sicily.

“I got a good mind to go right down to the morgue and let her have a piece of my mind,” said Pearl.

“Pearl McKinnon Ivy, don't you dare talk about your deceased sister that way. You ask God to forgive you tonight when you say your prayers and don't you forget,” said Sicily.

“I'm sorry,” Pearl said and patted Sicily's arm. “I won't say no more. And I'll talk to God tonight.”

“Thanks, Pearl,” Sicily said and took the letter from Amy Joy. She opened it carefully, as if it were an ancient manuscript that might crumble when exposed to air, and read it silently.

“Well, that old bat,” she said and handed the letter to Pearl.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” said Pearl, going down the letter. “Boy, don't this sound like Marge drawing water from a Jew's well? Listen to this: ‘Funerals are too expensive and a waste of money. There will be none. Instead of flowers, mourners are asked to contribute to the Widows of Missionary Brothers fund.' Mourners all right. She'll be lucky if a minister shows up. What in hell is the Widows of Missionary Brothers fund?”

“Marge probably meant to form it before she died,” said Sicily.

“That's what WOMB is,” said Amy Joy.

“WOMB?” said Sicily, twisting Amy Joy's plump wrist until she dropped her handful of mints from the candy tray.

“I heard her talking a lot of times to someone on the phone about WOMB. That must be it, see? Widows of Missionary Brothers. WOMB.”

“You tell me if that's not an example of an unsound mind,” said Pearl. “Who in their sound mind would want to give money to something called WOMB? She'll be leaving the house to Madalyn O'Hair next.”

“Was she in
Gone
with
the
Wind
?” asked Amy Joy.

“It says here,” Pearl went on, “that WOMB has five members and is headquartered in Bangor. Now don't that sound like a good place for it? This address is probably at the mental institute.”

“Bangor?” asked Sicily. “Who does Marge know in Bangor?”

“Number 287 Pine Street,” said Pearl, handing her sister the letter. “Right in the heart of crazytown.”

“I just don't understand,” Sicily said, running a finger up and down the letter as though it were a map.

“Why would anyone even
want
to die if they ain't going to have a funeral?”

“She just did this to upset us. Trust me, Sicily,” said Pearl. “Have you ever known me to be wrong?” Sicily stopped reading and looked at Pearl.

“Didn't you want to turn the spare room of the funeral home into a snack bar or something?” she asked her sister.

“A
beauty
salon
, Sicily,” said Pearl. The headache that announced itself earlier had fully arrived. “I wanted to open a
beauty
salon
.”