I knock at the opening of my father’s office. He doesn’t lift his gaze from the spread of bills.
“I wanted to let you know the Goldens are making other arrangements for Doris’s service,” I say. “They’re planning it together, so the original plans you worked out won’t be needed.”
I practiced all morning how I’d say this, how I could get it out of my mouth without starting an argument or chickening out.
“If you want to cancel the arrangements,” he says, “then you’ll have to do it.”
“I figured,” I say. “Can you give me a list of the people I need to talk to?”
He writes on a piece of paper.
“Wouldn’t you rather try changing Robert’s mind one more time?” he asks as he hands it to me.
“No, Pop. This is the right thing to do. It’s just no fun to do it.”
“Who else is he going to choose to help with the service?” Pop asks. “And does he think any of those people will say yes?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t seen his plans yet.”
He sighs, annoyed. “Well, go get it done, then.”
I know Pop doesn’t want me to upset the people on this list, but he probably realizes it will put the argument between us to rest. At least that might be a relief. As I wrap my scarf and zip my parka, Pop leans his head into the hallway.
“Before I forget,” he says. “Do you know where my suits have gone? I know at least one of them needs cleaning.”
“I’ll find them when I get back,” I say. “Let me get to this list while I still have the nerve.”
As I set out for the first house, an ominous cloud hovers so close, Petroleum feels smaller. Darker. At the end of our driveway, just behind my van, I find a cigarette butt. I kick it into the road, wanting it off our property.
I look at the list. I’ll start with the easiest—those who agreed to be casket bearers—surely they’ll welcome a chance to get out of any heavy lifting.
“Here it comes,” Fritz calls to me.
He stands at the edge of his lawn, motioning down the block.
“That dog’s been barking since dawn,” he says. “Just barking at the sky. Can’t settle himself down. Do you hear it?”
Now that he’s pointed it out, all I hear is barking.
“It means a blizzard’s on the way,” he says.
We both look up to the sky.
“There’s another sign,” he says. “Right above us. You see?”
Hawks and a snow bunting glide in circles in the dark, morning sky.
“Air pressure’s changed,” he says. “See how high they are? We’ve probably got two days, maybe three, before it hits.”
“My father taught me that one,” I say, crossing the street to him. “When they fly low, it’ll be here.”
I remove the list from my bag as if I need it.
“I’m running errands this morning,” I say. “You’re actually my first stop.”
“I don’t want to buy a plot until I need one,” Fritz says.
“I’m not selling anything, don’t worry,” I say. “A long while back my father had asked you to be a casket bearer for Doris Golden.”
“When the time comes,” he says. “Good God, she’s still painting. I can see her right now.”
“No. I mean, you’re right. This is just . . . Well . . . There’s been a change in plans,” I say. “We won’t need you to. We don’t want you to hurt your hip.”
“The fellow with the hair has decided this, hasn’t he?”
“He made some changes, yes.”
“He’s been trouble since he came back,” Fritz says. “You could just look at him and know it.”
“Well, I don’t know if . . .”
“Go on, get on your way,” he tells me. “I see you’ve got a whole list of people to upset before the storm hits.”
I figure this is what I’m in for today. On the next street, Mr. Vinter shakes sand on the steps of his grocery while trucks park in front and for almost a block beyond it.
“Storm’s coming,” he says. “I was up on the rims this morning, looking at the ranches. And all the livestock had their heads turned to the sky. You should go see for yourself.”
“I wish I had time,” I say.
All the casket bearers I visit show immediate relief that they might avoid lifting in the cold. But that doesn’t stop their rage at Robert or their pity for Doris.
The Sweet Adelines are my next stop. I’ve saved the hardest for last.
One of the singers lives quite a ways out of town, and Pop wasn’t sure which of several women replaced Doris at baritone. But the other two live nearby. I look at my list again, but all I’m really doing is stalling in front of Minnie Dent’s house.
Until I have an idea. It’s so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I find a hard surface and write a heartfelt note, explaining everything to Minnie, and asking her to relay the message to the others. I don’t sign my name. I sign, Crampton Funeral Home, so they might assume the note is from my father.
I bend down in front of Minnie’s to prop the note inside the storm door when it opens.
“Now what is this you’re delivering?” she asks.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news about Doris,” I say, standing.
“Oh, dear, has she passed?” Minnie asks. “Here, come inside.”
I stand just in the doorway, holding my note.
“No. No,” I say. “She’s . . . It’s . . . There’s been a change of plans.”
“What kind of change?” she asks.
I offer her the note I’ve written and realize I’d better just say it.
“Doris’s son has made changes to the service and won’t be needing”—I take a breath, feel hot—“won’t be needing the Sweet—”
“I knew it,” she says. “I tried to drop in on Doris the other day and her son just stood there at the door, telling me she needed rest. He wouldn’t even let me speak to her myself.”
“I guess she’s pretty tired.”
“He’s controlling his poor mother,” she says. “He’s keeping Doris from what she loves.”
I watch my hands.
“Come here, Mary,” she says and sits at the polished upright piano. “These are the songs we’ve practiced for so long.”
She begins to play. “It Is Well with My Soul,” “How Great Thou Art,” “Blessed Assurance.” She is obviously the soprano of the group. I hum along, leaning all my weight first on one leg, then the other.
“I’m sorry for all the work you’ve put into this,” I say when she’s finished playing. I unfold the note I’d written. “Maybe you could tell the other Adelines.”
She takes the note.
“You’ll need to tell Kay yourself,” she says. “That’s just the kind of person she is. She likes to get her information straight.”
“She was my music teacher,” I say.
“I think she was almost everyone’s music teacher,” Minnie says, smiling only briefly. “Why don’t you go talk to her at the school. She’s there now.”
Minnie shows me out, and I walk toward the school. The gray cloud that hovered earlier has darkened, casting a shadow in my path, and the old anxiety of being in that building returns. I spent years watching my feet as I walked down one hallway and another, the roar of voices echoing off the walls. It seemed I was the only person not having a conversation between classes. I open the main door and head to the office.
“Mary. Hello,” the secretary says. “Minnie called to say you were coming.”
“Hello,” I say. “I just need to drop off a note for . . .”
“I know who you’re here to see,” she says. “And you have good timing. This is Kay’s planning period.”
“I don’t want to disturb her,” I say. “I could just leave a note.”
But the secretary is already calling her over the intercom. She holds up a pointer finger.
“Kay, you have a visitor on her way down to see you,” she says. And then to me, “Go on, Mary. You know your way to the music room.”
Most of the noise seems to come from the other end of the school, where the cafeteria is, and I’m grateful for the empty hallway. It smells of Lysol and pencil shavings. I touch the tiled walls. I pass crimson pennants, a framed photo of the first students to paint the giant letter P, and a mural featuring Dead Eddie’s jersey.
I pause outside the door to the music room. Kay Gundersen was a teacher I feared because she demanded perfection and obedience. I feel the dampness in my armpits and behind my hair when I peek inside.
“Mrs. Gundersen?”
She sits at her desk, sprinkling pepper on a hard-boiled egg.
“Come sit here, Mary,” she says, nodding to the chair beside her desk. “I’ve spoken with Minnie.”
As she takes a bite of her egg, I turn toward the musical notes drawn on the chalkboard. And as she swallows the last bite, I study the back counter, covered with autoharps and bins filled with recorders, wood blocks, and shakers.
“I want to tell you a story about my friend Doris,” she says, wrapping eggshells in a napkin. “Do you know when I first got to know her?”
“No.”
“She was living alone. Her husband and her youngest son had left her, and she came here to work at the cafeteria to make a little money.”
“I was a student here when she served lunch.”
“Yes, that sounds right,” she says. “And she asked about more work opportunities so I told her she could help in the music room. She wiped down instruments and set up chairs at first. And then I discovered she was a lovely baritone.”
I put my hands in my lap as if I’m still in Mrs. Gundersen’s class.
“Do you know why the Sweet Adelines are so close?” she asks.
“You love music?”
“No,” she says. “It’s nothing special to love music. We are close because it takes work—persistence, attentiveness, and trust—to find harmony.”
I wonder if she can tell how much I’m sweating.
“I’m sorry we won’t have a chance to sing for Doris,” she says. “I feel like I may never see her again.”
“You can still come to the service,” I say.
She shakes her head no, walks me to the door.
“Other way,” she says, when I turn deeper into this wing of the school.
“Is it all right if I stop by the art room?” I ask.
“Yes, but your teacher moved on years ago.”
“Where to?” I ask. “I always wondered.”
“I’m not sure,” she says. “Petroleum is not for everyone.”
I don’t know why I need to see the art room. I just notice that this hallway is quiet right now, and it’s the direction my feet chose.