Pop hasn’t moved from his spot on the lawn, though Tim and his family drove away some time ago.
“Let’s get inside,” I tell him, touching a shoulder to get his attention.
We track more snow inside.
“We may be in trouble,” he says.
He has used we, which means our business.
“There’s nothing we haven’t come through before,” I say, our habit of optimism, though I feel the distance my words have created, as if pushing his sadness out of view.
“How long before the visitation?” he asks, still distracted.
“About forty-five minutes,” I say, finding the cleanest suit in the closet and handing it to him. “You might want to spruce up.”
He moves so slowly up the stairs, bent with grief he brought on himself. I wonder, if he could only let one of his many girlfriends meet the man he tries so hard to hide, would his relationships work out better?
I turn for the basement as snow melts into my scalp and streams down my face. My hands, still red from the cold, itch as they warm to the temperature of the house. For all the sorrow today, I’m glad to have this time with Doris. I bring her under the light and open the tackle box filled with hair and makeup supplies. Plug in hot rollers. Then gently brush her hair, untangling the brittle and bent strands that want to reach in different directions.
Once her hair’s set in curlers, I dress her without my father’s help. Her body is so slight I can lift her easily. I hardly notice my tears except when they land on the ivory foundation I’ve chosen to cover the gray as well as the invisible threads and wax fillers. Next: eyeliner, eye shadow, blush, mascara, lipstick. And still a sadness shows through, the lines of anguish I saw in the family photo and even as she danced in the dark wearing her red scarf.
I spend longer than usual styling her hair, knowing the shame she feels about it. But she would like this, I think, how full it looks with these curls.
I finish with her feet. No one will see them, but I scrub and massage her crooked toes then paint them with Strawberry Ice. After they’ve dried and I’ve slipped on her shoes, Pop shuffles through the swinging doors in his rumpled suit.
“Do you need any more time to get yourself ready?” I ask him.
“No. I’m fine,” he says. “Can I help you with Mrs. Golden?”
Doris lies on the metal table, fully dressed and wearing high heels.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so dressed up,” Pop says.
He means it as a mild criticism.
“She wanted me to make her pretty,” I say, remembering a few last details.
I dab perfume at her wrists, add jewelry she shouldn’t have saved for a special occasion—a sapphire bracelet and a gold pin that once said Mother. Last, I slip the red scarf behind her neck and let the faux silk fall across her scar.
We lift Doris from the table to the casket, adjusting her head on the pillow, crossing her hands at her waist. I don’t take a button from her dress. I don’t want to harm her outfit in any way. And then we push, and I’m aware that we are walking through the still-wet footprints Martha left, the last trace of her here.
I wait for my father to help me guide the casket up the ramp that connects the basement to the parlor. His hands are in position but his gaze far away.
“Pop?”
He begins to push with lumbering steps. If only he knew how to cry. If only I knew how to hold him.
“The flowers didn’t arrive,” I say as we enter the parlor and center the casket under the pink light.
“I figured that might be the case,” he says.
I set up what I can: guest book, prayer cards, CD player, a platter of miniature chocolate bars. Pop dims the overhead lights while I watch snow fall on the other side of the window.
“Did you read the obituary I wrote?” he asks.
“I did,” I say to the snow. “I liked how you talked about her paintings.”
His write-up was very traditional. Noncontroversial. He mentioned the grain elevator accident but in matter-of-fact terms, describing Doris as a woman who led a quiet life without vices.
“Robert was supposed to drop off some items for the service,” I say.
“Maybe that paper bag by the front door?” he asks.
I hurry to the foyer.
“He must have dropped them off during the basketball game,” I call out.
I walk back into the parlor, lifting two bottles of wine and a CD from the bag. When I find the framed photo at the bottom, Pop steps close and touches the edge of it. I hear an intake of breath.
You cannot look at this photo without feeling the enormity of that day. A mother in shock, trying to smile. A young man with a beard who doesn’t look the least bit alive. And a boy—a boy—who won’t receive a scrap of sympathy.
No one in his family or in town could have prepared for the impact of what hit us that day. No one knew how to do this, how to lose so much at once. I wonder if Pop is remembering the kernels in his pockets, the compassion he withheld.
I place the photo on the table beside the guest book, and he doesn’t interfere. What a night this might be, a night of truth telling, of healing, of returning to an old trauma with the benefit of time, a chance to understand it differently.
My father and I are dressed for the visitation, and we adjust items in the room as we wait for guests to arrive. The phone rings, and Pop disappears to answer it.
I look out the window again and see Robert coming up the snowy walkway, but there are no others in sight. When I open the door, he does not come inside. He just stands there in the cold, wearing a dress shirt and tie with his leather jacket over top. His hair sprouts in all directions as if nervous fingers had raked through it. He can’t seem to walk inside. Snow blows through the open door, and he just stands there.
“Guests will come before long,” I say, and I pull my cardigan tighter around me.
He tucks in his lips and says nothing.
Wet flakes settle on my eyelashes, heavy, lopsided, and I blink to shake them loose. Any warmth my body had held seems to have escaped out the open door. I begin to shiver uncontrollably when Robert surprises me by opening his jacket. I pause, then my heartbeat speeds as I take a step closer and lean in. He wraps all that will reach around my arms.
“This won’t win you any favors with the town,” he says into my hair, his body tense.
“I know,” I say and feel his unshaven chin against my forehead, his mess of curls tickling my cheek.
Our chests are touching. The toes of our shoes are touching. He holds me as if he’s holding that little girl who walked home from the pool and sat at the window with her pinned fingers. I hold him as if he is the boy who was cut down from the harness, landing hard on his hands and knees.
A two-step begins in the parlor. My father must have put on the CD. I think of Doris tethered to that long tube of oxygen, dancing. I look over Robert’s shoulder for anyone who might come to say their regards to his mother. The streets are silent, empty, glistening with snow. I’m cold and my back hurts from leaning in, but I know if I move, this moment is gone.
“Let’s save on the heat,” my father says, coming to the door.
Robert releases me, the jacket slipping off my arms and the chill moving in.
We step into the parlor and Robert takes his first steps toward Doris. His wet curls hang against the back of his jacket. How did I not notice until now that he’s wearing dress pants, the cuffs wet and bunched over his snow boots. He bows his head. His mouth stretches in grotesque shapes as if he is trying very hard to hold back a swell of emotion.
“Ma,” he whispers.
Pop and I move to the kitchen to give him some privacy. I can’t look at my father, knowing how he disapproves of Robert, knowing how quickly his gaze will make me feel like a child and not a woman who’s finally making choices that feel right. But he may understand how we have both chosen to love people we are not supposed to love.
“That was Lundy on the phone,” Pop says. “Dug the hole this afternoon in case the weather gives us problems tomorrow.”
“That should make things easy,” I say.
“The trick might be finding where he did his digging,” Pop says, looking to the front door and then his watch.
There are still no guests, and it doesn’t appear there will be. Robert has taken a seat up front. Pop walks back into the parlor and opens a bottle of wine. He finds the plastic cups and pours into three of them.
“It’s that kind of day,” he says, handing one to each of us, and we take seats beside Robert.
I misjudged how unforgiving the town would be. I had hoped people would rise beyond their old resentments.
My father paces the parlor and the hallway, looking out various windows, sitting, then pacing again. We have all but given up believing anyone would come when the door opens and boots thump against the welcome mat. I take a sip of wine and watch Fritz enter the parlor. Soon after, the widow, the pastor, Slim, and a few teachers, including Kay Gundersen, arrive.
Pop finds his seat beside me again and stays put, as if approaching our guests might chase them away. I know he was publicly shamed tonight, but I was touched to see his heart exposed.
Gradually, the room grows warm with neighbors lingering in back until, finally, Mrs. Purvis walks down the aisle toward Doris. Slim follows, waits for her, then helps her back between the chairs, where she sits in the last row and whispers into her folded hands.
Another family walks to the casket and kneels in prayer. The teenager with them drifts over to the dish of chocolates and scoops up a handful, his eye spotting the photo. He calls his younger sibling over, and they are joined by the parents. Then more gather round.
“My God.”
“All these years, I wondered.”
“Oh, poor Doris.”
“I can’t believe he’s throwing that awful time in our faces.”
One woman races over to my father. “Allen, what’s this about?”
“It was the family’s wishes,” he says.
The woman backs away from his breath. I can smell it, too—he must have refilled his cup with whiskey.
“We’ve always supported our local businesses,” she says. “But this service tonight is a slap to our town.”
The family storms out. Soon, however, more come to our house, mostly teenagers, responding to that first teen, who made calls on our kitchen phone.
“We should start the service,” my father tells me.
But there is no real plan, other than drinking wine and listening to music, as if that alone might recapture the closeness we shared with Doris the other night. I was too optimistic.
And then a surprise. Kay Gundersen, her teeth purple from wine, stands over Doris and begins to sing, just a whisper at first, like singing a lullaby at a child’s bedside. “How Great Thou Art.” Her warbly hymn grows louder, and those who remain, even the teenagers, join in.
When the song ends, many file out, eased just a little bit. A hand touches my shoulder, and I turn to see Bernice, Pop’s girlfriend from long ago. Her new family waits in the hallway. She smiles with older eyes that dip at the corners, lines that show years of kindness and concern she gave to these other people. This visit must confirm all the reasons that made her leave us in the first place. She squeezes my shoulder and turns, leaving before I can find words. When she rejoins her family, she turns once more, and I raise my hand the way I used to in school—tentative, halfway.
“Robert,” Pop says, when I return to my seat, “would you like to say anything on your mother’s behalf?”
Robert has not budged in his chair, watching only what’s in front of him, what he can see without turning his head. Neighbors sign the guest book, touch Doris’s hand, our front door opening and closing, until all of them have left.
“Robert,” Pop tries again.
“Sure,” he says, dazed, looking around the room. “I guess, since it’s just us.”
He stands, then changes his mind and begins to sit again.
“Go on,” Pop says. “Take the floor.”
And Robert stands in front of the table, pushing his hands deep into his pockets.
“This is the story of my parents’ first date,” he says. “I only learned of it this month.”
Damp hair falls in his eyes, and he leaves it there.
“They’d gone on a drive to the Breaks,” he says, the area out-of-towners call the badlands. “I’m not sure why. It’s a funny place for a first date.”
“Maybe because it’s nearby,” Pop says. “And private.”
Robert nods as if to say, Maybe.
“Pop, quiet,” I whisper.
“So while they’re driving,” Robert says, “Ma suddenly shouted, ‘Pull over!’ My dad was scared he’d offended her somehow but the reason she wanted him to stop was because she’d seen a single flower on a cactus.”
He takes another sip of wine.
“The two of them got out to see it up close,” he says.
And I can imagine them walking over the dried, rugged clay to look at those tiny, yellow petals, soft like tissue and protected by hairlike needles. In these parts, such flowers usually go an entire life cycle unseen by humans.
“Ma was in awe of this little flower. It was the only one they’d seen for miles—he wouldn’t have noticed it at all,” Robert says. “And she told him this flower would become the prickly pear fruit, and if she still knew him when it ripened, she would use the fruit to make him a batch of her homemade jelly.”
“That’s sweet,” I say.
But Pop, shifting in his chair, looks as if he’s thinking, Is there a point to this story?
“They shared their first kiss beside that tiny flower,” Robert says. “And later that year, she brought him a bright red fruit and pretended it was from that same plant.”
I’ve made this jelly before. I imagine a much stronger Doris holding that fruit with its pesky spines piercing her rubber gloves as she scrubbed and cut it. I imagine her setting the pieces in a pot to boil, along with sugar and a lemon peel, until it became a seedy pulp, the color of ripe watermelon.
“I wish I’d known my parents when they were still in love,” Robert says.
He takes another sip of wine. Pop stands to look at the framed picture again, and moving closer to Robert, puts a hand on his shoulder.
I look at them both and think, Please understand why I love this man.