The Blue Cotton Gown

by Patricia Harman

  A narrow cot with a flowered blue quilt is made neatly, with pillows arranged against the wall like a couch. In the corner a floor lamp stands, with a silk paisley scarf draped over the shade. There’s a bureau and a closet, a chair. That’s all, except one pink high-heeled sandal thrown on the bed.

  “This is her room,” Trish says to no one. “I can tell. This is her room.” She turns and I hold my friend while she sobs. I stare back over her shoulder at the lamp, at the paisley scarf. Then we return to the cars with the purse. That’s all we take. We leave the pink shoe.

  Down in the darkening road, Dan stands by the Blazer, smoking. The tip of his cigarette moves through the dusk. “Thanks for coming,” he says to me. “We appreciate it.” Trish blows her nose. Then we all turn as a silver 4Runner parks in the lane and Tom gets out. Somehow he’s found us. He puts his arms around Trish and gives her a hug. Dan reaches out and they shake hands the way men do, looking into each other’s eyes.

  “I was supposed to go first,” Dan says, wiping his tears. “I thought I would die first … I always thought I would die first.” Tom nods, understanding. We stand helplessly in the middle of the road. Eyes watch us from the windows of neighboring trailers.

  “Do you want us to take you home?” I ask Trish, realizing that Dan is half under the influence and she is half crazy with grief.

  “No, we’ll be okay. I’ve got to get home to Melody. The neighbor lady took her.” Her eyes are way too tight at the edges. She reaches for the keys, and Dan passively hands them to her, then we all back down the narrow lane. First the 4Runner, then the Blazer, then the Civic. I’m the last one to leave, and Pappy puts out his hand like a traffic cop. I roll down my window.

  “I did what I could,” the old man announces. “I called nine-one-one right away, but there was that pink foam coming out of her mouth.”

  “It was probably already too late,” I respond.

  “There were little green rectangled pills on the table.”

  “You mean capsules? Long capsules?”

  “No, regular pills. You got a pen and paper?” Putting the car in park, I reach into my purse, wondering why I’m still here and what difference it makes what the pills look like. Pappy puts down the fans he’s carrying, and I watch while he sketches, realizing for the first time that he’s been through a traumatic event too and needs to talk about it.

  “They were regular pills, not capsules, and they were rectangled.” He draws a triangle about three-eighths of an inch wide and hands the scrap of paper back to me. “The police took the bottle …”

  “I’m sure you did everything you could. It was a terrible thing.”

  “It was those pushers to blame. The cops been in here before asking questions. They should have put ’em in jail. She was a sweet little girl.”

  I nod, then we’re quiet.

  “Well, I’ve got to go, Pappy.” His gnarled hand rests on the open window. For a second I think of touching it, but Pappy pulls back and gently pats the roof of the Honda two times, then picks up his fans. “See ya,” he says, and walks up the hill.

  “Yeah, see ya.”

  ARAN

  The Toyota winds slowly up the narrow snake of blacktop. “It’s beautiful up here,” I say to Tom. “No wonder Trish loves it.” We follow the narrow road up Perry Mountain. In the woods graceful white trillium line the forest floor. On either side of the ridge, green pasture falls away revealing a view of more mountains and then of rolling hills toward the west. As usual, we’re running late. “Do you even know where Faith Chapel is?”

  “They told me it’s a mile past Trish’s house.” Tom’s wearing a blue shirt and a tweed sport coat and tie. He doesn’t own a regular suit. I wear black slacks and a white silk long-sleeved blouse. This is the best we could do for mourning clothes.

  “But do you know where her house is?” I get like this when I’m nervous.

  Tom gives me a look. “I was here that time we borrowed their power washer. Don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I stare at the envelope in my lap. I stayed up past midnight writing a eulogy for Aran’s funeral and I wonder if I’ll have the courage to read it. I don’t want to cry in front of an audience.

  At the top of the ridge is a small stone church with a white spire. It crosses my mind that it would be a romantic spot for a wedding, only Aran will never have a wedding. I wonder if this has occurred to Trish too.

  A tree-lined gravel drive winds up to the country chapel where pickups and SUVs are parked everywhere among the old oaks. A funeral director in an elegant black suit motions us to the rear of the church, and we find seats on a well-polished pine bench next to Celeste and Abby.

  The organist is already playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and if I stretch my neck I can just see Trish and Dan in the front pew. They’re four feet from the polished oak coffin that holds Aran’s beautiful dead body displayed like Snow White. She’s wearing a simple light blue dress, but she looks so sad. And no matter how many dwarfs cry for her or how many princes kiss her, she won’t ever wake up. Half the people in the congregation are in their late teens, young people Aran went to high school with, probably partied with. A large-breasted soloist stands up and begins “Faith of Our Fathers” in a nasal contralto. I glance again at the envelope.

  Tom elbows me. The preacher asks, “Would anyone like to say a few words about the deceased?”

  “Are you gonna do it?” Tom whispers. I shake my head no. What was I thinking? I couldn’t get halfway through my eulogy without breaking down, not just shedding a tear, but falling apart completely. I open the envelope and read to myself as the congregation begins the last hymn.

  The death of Aran has shaken all of us; partly because she was so young and beautiful and bright, and partly because we cannot understand it. Somewhere she lost her way. She fell into a place where no one could help her. Not Trish and Dan or her family or her friends or her health-care providers.

  When bad things happen I always want to learn something from the situation, maybe something that can prevent a similar circumstance from happening. That’s the trouble with Aran’s death. I don’t know what the lesson is.

  All I can say is, we should appreciate each other now, every day, because we don’t know how long we or they will be here.

  Aran left us her baby girl, Melody, and the many good memories we have of her.

  I like to think that she is now an angel guarding other young mothers and babies, holding us all in her love, as we hold her in ours.

  I’m ashamed of myself for not being able to stand up and read my eulogy. I tighten my mouth and fold the piece of paper four times. Then the congregation gets up to leave.

  We are nearly the last to greet the family on the way out. Trish stands bravely, wearing a slim black dress with a white collar, shaking everyone’s hand. Her sandy blond hair is pulled back with a gold clip and she has on small gold hoop earrings. I wonder if she had to go shopping for funeral clothes. I wonder if she took the Valium Tom sent over with Donna and Linda when they brought casseroles to her house.

  Dan’s eyes are red from crying, his face redder still, and he looks as if he hasn’t slept for days. Life isn’t fair, I think for the hundredth time. The world has tilted too far off balance and I’m not strong enough to right it. I cry only when we file past the coffin and I reach over and touch Aran’s blue dress.

  Betrayal

  At five when Tom calls, I can tell by his voice what kind of day he’s had. “I’m on my way home,” he says. That’s all. Not good. Outside the kitchen window, the crescent moon is already sitting on the edge of the frayed purple sky.

  When he opens the front door he doesn’t yell out, “Where are you?” or “That soup smells good.” I hear his briefcase drop in the hall.

  “Hey,” I call from my office where I’m answering e-mails. “What’s up?” He ambles into the room. His color is off. Something’s wrong. “How was your day?” I ask casually. He hates it when I interrogate him.
r />   “Fine,” he says. That’s all he says.

  It isn’t until dinner that he comes out and tells me. The office has received another request from a law firm for medical records. I lose my appetite and there’s no sound but the scraping of silverware. When he doesn’t say anything else, I ask, “What patient? Have I seen her?”

  “Elaine Wright. I don’t think so. She was that laparoscopy I did a few months back, the one with the nick in her bladder.”

  “I thought you noticed right away and had it repaired by the urologist.”

  “I did.”

  “So why are they suing?”

  “We don’t know for sure they will. It’s just a request for records. I never met her husband but when I made post-op rounds the nurses said he was a pill, a real troublemaker. Elaine seemed fine. I was more worried about a ding on my record for the peer-review committee than a lawsuit. But she never came back for her follow-up appointment.”

  “You think I should call her?”

  “Nah, forget it. It’s probably gone too far for that.”

  I watch the candle flicker on the dining room table, the way it throws shadows on the white walls and high ceilings. Tom’s hands lie flat on the tablecloth, his wide hands with the sensitive fingers, his competent surgeon’s hands. I don’t look in his eyes, afraid of the sadness.

  “So who’s the lawyer? Is it that same group, McKenzie, Rogers, and whoever?”

  “No, some guys from Pittsburgh. Aren’t you going to eat your soup?”

  “I’m full.” Not true. I’m really just sick. “Did you talk to the urologist? Did the patient have any bad outcome afterward? Did Elaine say anything to him about suing?”

  “Patsy, can you stop? This is the reason I don’t like telling you things. I don’t want to talk about it all the time. I considered not saying anything because you get so wound up. There’s nothing to do but wait.” He pushes up from the table, throws his napkin in my direction, and heads for his study. Alone, I gaze out at the budding peach trees and beehives below the garden. What other lines of work carry this risk, this kind of threat?

  Patients have to sign consents for a reason, and the surgeon has to write down the known complications of the procedures they’re consenting to: bleeding, injury, infection. No one is perfect, but apparently some patients think we should be. Whenever the office gets a letter from a law firm, I feel betrayed.

  I’ve never actually been in the courtroom, never actually been sued. It’s the fear of litigation that gets me. Every day I see twenty patients. Tom sees thirty. No matter how conscientious I am, I could miss something. Every week Tom does eight or ten surgeries. Over 75 percent of ob-gyns have been sued, and soon nurse-midwives and nurse-practitioners will catch up with them. I stare at the darkening sky, almost purple now.

  No matter how hard we try, Tom and I will face a lawsuit sooner or later; if not this time, the next.

  TRISH

  Trish sits eating lunch with me in my office. It’s her first day back after two weeks’ bereavement leave. Dr. Wilson would have given her more, but she says if she stays home, she feels worse.

  “You’ve lost weight,” I say, appraising my friend. Her wine- colored scrub top looks two sizes too big. “Did you get your hair cut?” The soft sandy feathers frame Trish’s face.

  “Yeah, I went to the mall, to that cheap place. I had to do something before I came back. I’m down fifteen pounds.” She fades off. “I’m sick all the time.” She puts her cup of yogurt aside. “I can’t sleep and my bowels are upset.” She reaches for the tissues on the window ledge to wipe away tears. “I just can’t believe she’s gone. I keep waking up and wanting it all to be a bad dream.”

  “I know what you mean …” How can I?

  “Here’s what’s really upsetting me today.” Trish reaches for an envelope that sticks out of her flowered satchel. “It’s the autopsy report. They say the cause of death was intentional, suicide. Oh, I feel so bad for her, Patsy, that she was that sad, that hopeless, and I wasn’t there for her. Did I tell you she called me the night before she died and asked to borrow money? You know what I told her? I said, ‘No. Get a job!’ And then Dan took the phone and yelled at her too. Told her she should come home and take care of her baby, that she and her so-called friends should get off their asses and quit asking for handouts … Now they say she killed herself. That very night, she killed herself.”

  “But how can they know that, that she killed herself intentionally? Does it say it in the report?”

  “No, not in the report. That’s what the detective told me, what’s his name, Lieutenant Saxton, the one that’s been handling her case.”

  “Let me see it.” I grab the envelope off Trish’s lap, then, realizing I’ve been abrupt, ask, “I mean, if it’s okay? Do you mind if I read it?”

  Trish sighs. “No, of course not. See what you think. They say the cause of death was a methadone overdose. The blood level doesn’t look that high to me, but she wasn’t big. She usually weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds. They say she weighed a hundred and nineteen pounds afterward …”

  Tears come to Trish’s eyes and to mine. I know that she’s seeing the same thing I am. The thin, young dead body of Snow White on a stainless-steel autopsy table in a cold morgue. I touch her hand. It’s as cold as a metal slab. Then I skim the report until I get to the summary: Cause of death: Methadone overdose. Trish is right. The blood levels weren’t that high.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “This could still be accidental. They can’t tell from the clinical exam or toxicology report that she did it on purpose. Methadone is a slow-acting narcotic without much euphoria. I don’t think it has much of a rush. Maybe Aran took a few pills and didn’t feel anything, so she took a few more … then more. Maybe she wasn’t used to them. After a while she might have just felt drunk and forgot how many she took. Don’t you think? Can’t you see that?”

  Trish wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her scrub top.

  “And what about this?” I roll my desk chair closer until our knees touch, wanting to convince her. “If she meant to commit suicide, wouldn’t she have left a note? See what I mean, Trish?”

  Trish nods and takes a big breath, letting her head fall back against the wall. “Maybe you’re right. What do they know? That Lieutenant Saxton is such a big jerk. ‘We got the autopsy report back,’ he said over the phone.” She imitates him with a nasal twang and a mountain accent. “‘You’ll probably get one in the mail today. It looks like she killed herself.’ That’s what he said. Just cold! I believed him, but it doesn’t actually say suicide in the report. Aran was a writer. She left me notes about everything!”

  “Yeah, and remember that old guy Pappy,” I put in, “at the trailer court. He kept talking about the little green pills.” Trish stares at me, puzzled. “You don’t remember that?”

  “No, I guess I missed it.”

  I shift in my seat, sure of myself now. “Yeah, he kept telling me, even after you left, that there were little green ‘rectangled pills’ all over the table and the cops took them. He even drew me a picture.” I shake my head, remembering. At the time I didn’t get the significance. “The point is, why would Aran stop at just a few pills if she wanted to end her life? She’d take them all, right? Aran’s not dumb, she would know that.”

  Trish puts the lid on her unfinished yogurt and tosses it into the wastebasket under my desk. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have listened to that cop. What does he know? She would have written us a note. I know she would.” The small woman stands, stronger now, defending her daughter. Before she opens the door, I catch her by the sleeve and pull her back. We stand like we’re slow-dancing and I remember the dream of the waltz. We are resting our battered mother-hearts together.

  Another Day on Earth

  When someone you love dies, your life starts over. Right then, that moment, nothing is ever the same again. A blue sky, a snowstorm, the taste of cake, the feel of your own skin. Nothing.

  I’m thinki
ng about this as I’m coming out of the hardware store, where I’ve just purchased a cast-iron park bench for Aran’s grave site. The clerk, a friend of Zen’s from high school, helps me wrangle it into the back of the Toyota. I’m not sure how I’ll get it out by myself, but I’ve been thinking of doing this for weeks.

  Trish is now on an antidepressant that I prescribed for her. She’s never taken one before, but there’s a time and place for everything. It seems to be helping. Dan still can’t talk about what happened and sometimes has uncontrollable rages. Their other children are settled back in school, Melody stays with a neighbor during the day, and Trish says she’s changed as a mother. I ask her how. I want the secret. Be strict? Be permissive? Give them money when they ask? Never give them money? Keep them at home under lock and key forever? I want to know.

  “Tell them you love them. Tell them you love them every day.” That’s what Trish says.

  Today I’m taking the bench up to the cemetery near Faith Chapel. The grave is beautifully situated under a huge spreading maple tree on top of the ridge. It’s the kind of spot where a person could sit and contemplate life, could think about God, or hope, which, when you consider it, is the same thing.

  At Aran’s grave site, I stand for a minute. New blades of grass grow wispy and thin from the fresh mound of earth. Quart jars of white irises sit near a temporary headstone. There’s a wind chime, a ceramic butterfly, and a few photographs left by Snow White’s teenage girlfriends.

  Twenty minutes later, the bench is situated under the maple. The whole operation was harder than I’d imagined, but I’d maneuvered the heavy piece into the spot I wanted and leveled it up by digging holes in the hard dirt with a tire iron. I settle myself on the bench, leaning back to test it. The sturdiness appeals to me, and the graceful feminine scrollwork; a nice tribute to a beautiful girl. Then I slide down onto the grass and rest right next to Aran.