Gerald knocks as Nancy is trying on the last of her black dresses, each of them fitting less well than the one before. Oh, Gerald, she says, almost in tears, what am I going to do? What am I going to wear? He pushes open the door and looks at her critically. It’s fine, Mother, he says, really. I can’t zip it all the way up, she says frantically, her voice rising. I can’t go to my son’s funeral with an unzipped dress! He motions for her to lift her arm. It’s hardly noticeable, he says. Don’t you have a cardigan or something that can cover it up? She turns back to the mirror and holds her arm firmly down at her side, covering the zipper. I suppose, she says. But just my luck, the whole thing will split wide open, right there in that garish church.
Gerald starts to laugh, wiping tears from his eyes as he sits on her bed. Oh, Mother, he says. You need to let this go. I know, she says. I’m just getting it all out of my system now. So I can behave tomorrow. When they start swinging that ridiculous incense. Good for you, he says. Then he looks her in the face, and he’s happy and she can’t understand it. Something’s coming, although she doesn’t know what, so she sits down next to him on the bed, the dress tightening around her middle. She reaches over and unzips it all the way. The phone, he says. I just got off the phone. He’s grinning. You won’t believe who’s going to be here tomorrow. Who just arrived in Boston. Who? Nancy asks, running through her sisters and their husbands and their children in her head. Everyone has been accounted for.
Bea, he says simply. Bea, she thinks, and she remembers that morning, so long ago, Beatrix standing alone on the dock, in that red dress with the white collar, her thin little legs poking into heavy black boots. Will we recognize her? she asks, and Gerald laughs. How she loves that sound. Mother, he says, of course. How could we not? She supposes he’s right. She sees that dear face in her dreams.