CHAPTER
six

The night of Norm’s funeral, I slept in fits and starts, my sleep shallow at best. The house seemed to make too many noises, and I found myself jolting upright out of a dream more than a couple of times. It was a cool night, and I couldn’t seem to get warm no matter how many blankets I pulled on top of myself.

When I looked at Norm’s old alarm clock, I saw that it was eleven o’clock. Then midnight. Then twelve forty. I rolled from one side to the other. No matter which way I lay I couldn’t get comfortable. Every position hurt. The pillow was too flat. The sheets too itchy.

Finally, I shivered and rolled over just to find the other side of the bed empty where Norman should have been. I curled my spine and pulled the covers closer. It still didn’t manage to warm me.

I pulled his pillow to my chest, his smell still there.

It was a horrible night, but—as much as I doubted it would—the sun rose in the morning just like it did any other day. And, just like every day, I got up with it.

A beam of light broke through a tiny separation between my curtains, resting in a line at the foot of my bed. Leaning forward, the covers still gathered on my lap, I tried to touch the light, knowing that it would only disappear in the shadow of my hand.

“It’s just as well,” I whispered to myself, throwing the blankets off me and swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

Sunday morning had come, and I would go to church just like I had every Sunday since I was fourteen years old. Besides, it was my week in the nursery, and I’d completely forgotten to look for a replacement.

I had been preoccupied, I supposed.

I’d never been fond of rocking babies at church, and if I were to be honest, those babies weren’t too fond of me either. They’d cry themselves into a frenzy, spit up whatever I managed to feed them from their bottles, and make an unholy mess of their diapers just before their mothers were to come get them.

Because of all that, the church ladies only asked me to help out in the nursery once a year and always on Mother’s Day. Years ago I was told it was so I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable when the older children handed out carnations to their mothers at the end of the service.

They’d meant well, but it just added more ache to a day that had always felt like a hot poker to my heart.

I dressed and put on my face, careful to cover up the purple bags under my eyes. In my best dress, heels, and pearls I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee and poach an egg for my breakfast. But I only managed to spill the coffee grounds on the floor and overcook the egg.

“That’s all right, Betty,” I murmured. “Chin up.”

I got the broom out to sweep up the floor. Since I had the floor swept, I decided to mop. Putting the mop and bucket back into the broom closet, I saw the vacuum and lugged that out to clean the carpets, both upstairs and down.

Then the feather duster came out, then the Windex. I polished and scrubbed and tidied and washed. As long as I worked at a chore, I could switch off my mind. I could stop thinking about the sorrow that threatened to choke me if I sat down.

I could not think of a time in my life when I’d gotten so much cleaning accomplished in one morning without my thoughts wandering to a daydream. It was more than a little bit shocking.

It wasn’t until all of that was done that I checked the clock, worried that I’d worked my way into being late for church.

It was eight thirty in the morning, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

With a half an hour until Sunday school started, I’d make it in time. I’d be early, even.

I gathered all the trash into a bag and took it out the back door, the last thing to do before leaving.

Across the yard, laundry still hung on the line from the day my Norman died. Sighing, I dropped the trash into the garbage can and went directly back inside.

I simply did not have it in me to take the clothes down yet. Such a ridiculous thing, leaving them to hang there. If someone had asked me why I left them, I wouldn’t have been able to put words to it. There was just a feeling around those clothes. A feeling I wasn’t yet ready for.

So instead I grabbed my car keys and handbag and opened the door to the garage, taking in a good breath to bolster me to face the world.

But then I saw Norman’s black Impala parked beside my Bel Air and something switched inside me like a light turning off. I sat on the concrete steps and cried, grateful that the automatic door was still closed so the neighbors wouldn’t see.

The rest of my morning was spent curled up on the couch in the living room, my head on a cushion and my feet hanging off the side so my shoes wouldn’t dirty the upholstery.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I should kick them off.

Doing my uttermost to avoid looking at Norm’s chair, I fixed my eyes on the carpet. Unfortunately, the spot I’d picked was precisely where the slightly off-color stain from the ginger ale and bouillon that I’d spilled just a few days before was. Getting down on my knees, I crawled to it, feeling of the stiff carpet with my hands, trying to think what could clean it. Worried that it was too late.

I looked up at the television. In the screen I could just barely see a reflection of myself. A small Betty Sweet kneeling on the floor, fretting over a stain. Even from a few feet away I could see that my carefully coiffed hair was flat from where I’d laid it on the cushion. I was sure that if I looked closely enough I’d find that my makeup had smudged down my face from all my sobbing.

“What a mess you are, Betty,” I scolded.

Then I returned to the couch, where I lay down once again and rolled so my face pressed into the back of the cushions.

What a mess, indeed.

I woke to the sound of the doorbell. It rang once followed by a gentle rapping on the screen door. It took more than a little doing to get myself up off the couch to see who was there. Every vertebra in my spine ached when I stood, and it wouldn’t have shocked me if my hips creaked with every step.

Middle-aged women were not meant to sleep on sofas.

Halfway to the door I realized that I only had one shoe on.

I tried to smooth the front of my dress, but it was of no use. The poor fabric was hopelessly crumpled. I wondered how long I’d been asleep. It couldn’t have been too long, it was still light outside. When I opened the door, I squinted at the brightness of whatever time of day it was.

Funny. The sun seemed to be in the wrong part of the sky.

Albert stood on my porch, a laundry basket in his hands. When he saw the state I was in, his eyes grew large and a blush crept into his cheeks.

That poor man. He looked nearly the same as when I’d first met him more than twenty-five years before. He was still gangly and awkward. The only discernible changes in him were that his brown hair had turned salt and pepper and the frames of his glasses had gone from wire to plastic.

“Oh, hi there, Albert,” I said, my voice gravelly. “Can I do something for you?”

“I suppose I should have called first.” He lowered his eyes.

“I must look a fright.” I touched the pearls at my neck, rolling them out of the divots they’d pressed into my flesh.

“No, not at all,” he answered before clearing his throat. He lifted the basket an inch. “I thought I’d bring these to you. I took the liberty of taking them down yesterday afternoon. But there was no answer when I knocked.”

“Oh,” I said, confused and trying to think of how I might have missed a knock on the door the day before. And having a clear recollection of seeing the Wranglers and shirts on the line just that morning. To say I was flummoxed would have been an understatement. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was no trouble.”

I pushed open the screen door, and he passed me the basket. He’d even gone to the trouble of rewashing and folding everything; I tried to find a way to tell him again that he didn’t have to do that, but a lump in my throat prevented me.

“Well, I ought to . . .” Albert turned his head and nodded at the bakery delivery truck parked out in the street. “I need to get back to work.”

“Work?” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t tell me you’re working today.”

“Um, of course,” he said. “Have a good morning, Betty.”

“Why, Albie.” I shrugged. “It’s Sunday afternoon.”

He met my eyes, a look of bewilderment on his face.

“Isn’t it?” I asked.

“It’s just after eight o’clock,” he answered, looking at his wristwatch. “In the morning.”

“What day is it?”

“Monday.” He lowered his eyebrows. “Are you all right?”

My mouth dropped open. I’d slept nearly twenty hours. No wonder I felt so out of sorts.

“You should get on your way,” I said, stepping back and pulling the screen door closed. “Thank you again. Oh, and thank you too for the hyacinth. It’s lovely.”

I shut the door and leaned back against it, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the other side of the vestibule.

My mousy hair stuck up all over my head like I was some sort of wild woman, and mascara darkened my eyes in black smudges like I wore a raccoon mask. I even had angry-looking red lines on my left cheek from the seam of the cushion I’d slept on.

Good grief.