She thought a moment after I asked her. She replied it was something scientific. "That's the only way to explain it," she claimed in her usual pedantic manner.
"Don't you think it's something magical?" I asked her. On Wednesday afternoons she would come to our trailer after school and study with me for the weekly Thursday geometry test. It was more for my benefit than hers, for she ended up tutoring me.
"I don't believe in magic," she said dryly. She was not very good at pretending. I was actually her only real friend, maybe partly because she was too brutally honest with her opinions when it came to the other girls at school.
"Well then why is it," I demanded, "that a man will look at one woman specially and a woman will do the same, look at one man specially? Something's got to happen between them, doesn't it?" I insisted.
Alice pressed down on her thick lower lip. Her big, brown round eyes moved from side to side as if she were reading words printed in the air. She had a habit of chewing on the inside of her left cheek, too, when she was deep in thought. The girls in school would giggle and say, "Alice is eating herself again."
"Well," she said after a long pause, "we know we're all made of protoplasm."
"Ugh."
"And chemical things happen between cells," she continued, nodding.
"Stop it."
"So maybe a certain man's protoplasm has a chemical reaction to a certain woman's protoplasm. Something magnetic. It's just positive and negative atoms reacting, but people make it seem like more," she concluded.
"It is more," I insisted. "It has to be! Don't your parents think it's more?"
Alice shrugged. "They never forget each other's birthdays or their anniversary," she said, making it sound as if that was all there was to being in love and married.
Alice's father, William, was Sewell's dentist. Her mother was his receptionist, so they did spend a great deal of time together. But whenever I went to have my teeth checked, I noticed she called her husband Doctor Morgan, as if she weren't his wife, but merely his employee.
Alice had two brothers, both older. Her brother Neal had already graduated and gone off to college and her brother Tommy was a senior and sure to be the class valedictorian.
"Do they ever have arguments?" I asked her. "Bad arguments?" I wondered if it was just something my mommy and daddy did.
"Not terribly bad and very rarely in front of anyone," she said. "Usually, it's about politics."
"Politics?" I couldn't imagine Mommy caring about politics. She always walked away when Daddy and Papa George got into one of their discussions.
"Yes."
"I hope when I get married," I said, "I never have an argument with my husband."
"That's an unrealistic hope. People who live together must have some conflicts. It's natural."
"But if they do, and they're in love, they always make up and feel terrible about hurting each other."
"I suppose," Alice relented. "But that might be just to keep the peace. Once, my parents didn't talk to each other for nearly a week. I think it was when they argued about the last presidential election."
"A week!" I thought for a moment. Even though Mommy and Daddy had their arguments, they always spoke to each other soon afterward and acted as if nothing had happened. "Didn't they kiss each other good night?"
"I don't know. I don't think they do that."
"They don't ever kiss good night?"
Alice shrugged. "Maybe. Of course, they kissed and they must have had sex because my brothers and I were born," she said matter-of-factly.
"Well that means they are in love."
"Why?" Alice asked, her brown eyes narrowing into skeptical slits.
I told her why. "You can't have sex without being in love."
"Sex doesn't have anything to do with love per se," she lectured. "Sexual reproduction is a natural process performed by all living things. It's built into the species."
"Ugh.,
"Stop saying ugh after everything I say. You sound like Thelma Cross," she said and then she smiled. "Ask her about sex."
"Why?"
"I was in the bathroom yesterday and overheard her talking to Paula Temple about--"
"What?"
"You know."
I widened my eyes.
"Who was she with?"
"Tommy Getz. I can't repeat the things she said," Alice added, blushing.
"Sometimes I wonder," I said sitting back on my pillow, "if you and I aren't the only virgins left in our class."
"So? I'm not ashamed of it if it's true."
"I'm not ashamed. I'm just . . ."
"What?"
"Curious."
"And curiosity killed the cat," Alice warned. She narrowed her round eyes. "How far have you gone with Bobby Lockwood?"
"Not far," I said. She was suddenly staring at me so hard I had to look away.
"Remember Beverly Marks," she warned.
Beverly Marks was infamous, the girl in our eighth-grade class who had gotten pregnant and was sent away. To this day no one knew where she went.
"Don't worry about me," I said. "I will not have sex with anyone I don't love."
Alice shrugged skeptically. She was annoying me. I sometimes wondered why I stayed friends with her. "Let's get back to work." She opened the textbook and ran her forefinger down the page. "Okay, the main part of tomorrow's test will probably be--"
Suddenly, we both looked up and listened. Car doors were being slammed and someone was crying hard and loudly.
"What's that?" I went to the window in my bedroom. It looked out to the entrance of Mineral Acres. A few of Mommy's co-workers got out of Lois Norton's car. Lois was the manager of the beauty parlor. The rear door was opened and Lois helped Mommy out. Mommy was crying uncontrollably and being supported by two other women as they helped her toward the front door of our trailer. Another car pulled up behind Lois Norton's with two other women in it.
Mammy suddenly let out a piercing scream. My heart raced. I felt my legs turn to stone; my feet seemed nailed to the floor. Mama Arlene and Papa George came out of their trailer to see what was happening. I recognized Martha Supple talking to them. Papa George and Mama Arlene suddenly embraced each other tightly, Mama Arlene's hand going to her mouth. Then Mama Arlene rushed toward Mammy, who was now nearly up to our steps. Tears streamed down my cheeks, mostly from fear.
Alice stood like stone herself, anticipating. "What happened?" she whispered.
I shook my head. I somehow managed to walk out of my room just as the front door opened.
Mommy took a deep breath when she saw me. "Oh Melody," she cried.
"Mommy!" I started to cry. "What's the matter?" I asked through my sobs.
"There's been a terrible accident. Daddy and two other miners . . are dead."
A long sigh escaped from Mommy's choked throat. She swayed and would have fallen if Mama Arlene hadn't been holding on to her. However, her eyes went bleak, dark, haunted. Despair had drained her face of its radiance.
I shook my head. It couldn't be true. Yet there was Mommy clutching Mama Arlene, her friends beside and around her, all with horribly tragic faces.
"N000!" I screamed and plowed through everyone, down the stairs, outside and away, with my hands over my ears. I was running, unaware of which direction I had taken or that I had left the house without a coat and it was in the middle of one of our coldest Februaries.
I had run all the way to the Monongalia River bend before Alice caught up with me. I was standing there on the hill, embracing myself, gasping and crying at the same time, just gazing dumbly at the beach and the hickory and white oak trees on the other side of the river. A white-tailed deer appeared and gazed curiously at the sound of my sobs.
I shook my head until I felt it might snap off my neck, but I somehow already knew all the No's in the world wouldn't change things. I felt the world horribly altered. I cried until my insides ached. I heard Alice calling and turned to see her gasping for breath as she chugged her way up the h
ill to where I was standing. She tried to hug and comfort me. I pulled away.
"They're lying," I screamed hysterically. "They're lying. Tell me they're lying."
Alice shook her head. "They said the walls caved in and by the time they got to your father and the others--"
"Daddy," I moaned. "Poor Daddy."
Alice bit her lower lip and waited for me to stop sobbing. "Aren't you cold?" she asked.
"What difference does it make?" I snapped angrily. "What difference does anything make?"
She nodded. Her eyes were red, too, and she shivered, more from her sadness than the wintry day.
"Let's go back," I said, speaking with the voice of the dead myself.
She walked beside me silently. I don't know how I got my legs to take those steps, but we returned to the trailer park. The women who had brought Mommy home were gone. Alice followed me into the trailer.
Mommy was on the sofa with a wet washcloth on her forehead, and Mama Arlene beside her. Mommy reached up to take my hand and I fell to the floor beside the sofa, my head on her stomach. I thought I was going to heave up everything I had eaten that day. A few moments later, when I looked up, Mommy was asleep. Somewhere deep inside herself she was still crying, I thought, crying and screaming.
"Let me make you a cup of tea," Mama Arlene said quietly. "Your nose is beet red."
I didn't reply. I just sat there on the floor beside the sofa, still holding on to Mommy's hand. Alice stood by the doorway awkwardly.
"I'd better go home," she said, "and tell my parents."
I think I nodded, but I wasn't sure. Everything around me seemed distant. Alice got her books and paused at the doorway.
"I'll come back later," she said. "Okay?"
After she left, I lowered my head and cried softly until I heard Mama Arlene call to me and then touch my arm.
"Come sit with me, child. Let your mother sleep."
I rose and joined her at the table. She poured two cups of tea and sat. "Go on. Drink it."
I blew on the hot water and took a sip.
"When Papa George was down in the mines, I always worried about something like this happening. There were always accidents of one sort or another. We oughta leave that coal alone, find another source of energy," she said bitterly.
"He can't really be dead, Mama Arlene. Not Daddy." I smiled at her and tilted my head. "He'll be coming home soon, won't he? It's a mistake. Soon he'll be coming over the hill, swinging his lunch basket."
"No, Mama Arlene. You don't understand. Daddy has an angel looking over him. His angel wouldn't let such a terrible thing happen. It's all a mistake. They'll dig out the mine and find Daddy."
"They already found him and the other poor souls, honey." She reached across the table to take my hand. "You've got to be strong for your mother, Melody. She's not a very strong person, you know. There's a lot of hardship to endure these next few days. The whole town is in mourning."
I gazed at Mommy, her eyes shut, her mouth slightly open. She's so pretty, I thought. Even now, she's so pretty. She's too young to be a widow.
I drank some more tea and then I got up and put on my coat. I went out to stand near the front entrance and gaze down the road. As I stood there, I closed my eyes and wished and wished as hard as I could that this wasn't true, that Daddy would soon call out to me.
Please, I begged my angel, I don't care if you don't grant me another wish but this one. I took a deep breath and then opened my eyes.
The road was empty. It was twilight. Long shadows crept over the macadam. The sky had turned an angry gray and tiny particles of snow began to appear. The wind picked up. I heard a door slam and turned to see Papa George emerge from their trailer. He looked over at me and then he sat in his rocker and lit his cigarette. He rocked and stand at the ground.
I gazed once more at the hill.
Daddy wasn't there.
He was gone forever.
2
A Coal Miner's Grave
.
It was snowing the day we buried Daddy, but I
didn't feel the cold flakes on my face or the wind blowing my hair when we walked to the church or afterward, when we walked behind the hearses to the cemetery.
Daddy's and the two other miners' caskets were side by side at the front of the church, one casket really indistinguishable from another, even though I knew Daddy was the tallest of the three and the youngest. The church was filled with miners and their families, store owners and Mommy's friends and coworkers at Francine's Salon, as well as some of my school friends. Bobby Lockwood looked very uncomfortable. He didn't know whether or not to smile at me or just look sad. He shifted in his seat as if sitting on an ant hill. I gave him a tiny smile, for which he looked grateful.
I heard lots of sobbing and noses being blown. Way in the rear of the church, someone's baby cried. She cried throughout the service. It seemed fitting.
Papa George said there should have been more representatives from the mining company there and that the mine should have been shut down for a few days in honor of the dead. He and Mama Arlene walked beside Mommy and me when we followed the hearses to the cemetery. Except for the crunchy sound of everyone's footsteps on the snow and the far-off wail of a train carrying away the coal, it was terribly quiet. I actually welcomed Papa George's stream of complaints.
He said that if there hadn't been an oil embargo to put pressure on the coal miners, my daddy wouldn't have been killed.
"Company saw the dollar signs," he charged, "and pushed them miners too far. But it ain't the first time, and I'm sure it ain't gonna be the last." We passed under the granite archway to the cemetery. Angels were carved in the stone.
Mommy kept her hood over her head, her eyes down. Every once in a while she released a deep sigh and intoned, "I wish this was over. What am I going to do? Where do we go now? What am I going to say to all these people?"
Mama Arlene had her arm through Mommy's and patted her hand gently and muttered back, "There, there, be strong, Haille. Be strong."
Papa George remained close to me when we reached the grave site. His flecked brown eyes filled with tears before he lowered his head, still thick with hair and as white as the flakes that flew into our faces. The other two miners who had been with Daddy when the walls caved in were being buried on the north end of the same cemetery in Sewell. We could hear the mourners singing hymns, their voices carried by the same cold February wind that tossed the flakes over the West Virginia hills and the shanties under the gray sky.
We raised our heads when the minister finished his prayer. He hurried off to say another prayer over the other two miners. Although Mommy wore black and no makeup, she still looked pretty. Sadness simply lit a different candle in her eyes. Her rich maple-brown hair was pinned back. She had bought the plain black dress just for the funeral and wore a hooded cape. The hem of the dress reached only a few inches below her knees, but she didn't appear cold, even though the wind whipped her skirt around her legs. She was in a daze even deeper than mine. I grasped her hand much more tightly than she held mine.
I imagined that if Mama Arlene and I were to let go of Mommy's arms she would just float away in the wind, like a kite whose string had snapped. I knew how much Mammy would rather be anywhere but here. She hated sadness. If anything happened to make her unhappy, she would pour herself a gin and tonic and play her music louder, drowning out the melancholy.
I gazed at Daddy's coffin a final time, still finding it hard to believe he was really shut up inside. Soon, any moment, the lid would pop open and Daddy would sit up laughing, telling us this was all his little joke. I almost laughed imagining it, hoping for it. But the lid remained shut tight, the snowflakes dancing over its shiny surface, some sticking and melting into tears.
The mourners filed past, some hugging Mommy and me, some just pausing to touch our hands and shake their heads. Everyone said the same thing, "Sorry for your trouble." Mommy kept her head down most of the time, so I had to greet people and thank t
hem. When Bobby took my hand, I gave him a small hug. He looked embarrassed, mumbled something, and hurried off with his friends. I couldn't blame him, but it made me feel like a leper. I noticed that most people were awkward and distant around us, as if tragedy was something you could catch like a cold.
Afterward, we all walked back from the cemetery more quickly than we had walked to it, especially Mommy. The snow fell faster and harder, and now that the funeral was over, I felt the cold cut right through to my bones.
The other two miners' families and friends were getting together to eat and comfort each other. Mama Arlene had made a pot roast thinking we would all be there, but as we left the cemetery, Mommy told her she wasn't going. She couldn't get away from the sadness fast enough.
"I can't stand any more sad faces around me," she wailed and shook her head.
"Folks need each other at times like this," Mama Arlene explained.
Mommy just shook her head again and quickened her pace. Suddenly, Archie Marlin caught up with us in his imitation patent leather shoes and his shiny gray suit, with his glossy red hair parted in the middle.
"Be glad to drive you home, Haille," he offered.
Mommy's eyes brightened and more color returned to her face. Nothing could cheer her up as quickly as a man's attention. "Why thank you, Archie. That's very kind."
"Ain't much. J wish I could do more," he remarked, flashing me a smile.
Behind us I saw Alice widen her round eyes even more. "Come on, honey." Mommy reached for my hand, but I stepped back.
"I'll walk home with Alice," I told her.
"That's silly, Melody. It's cold."
"I'm not cold," I said, even though my teeth wanted to chatter.
"Suit yourself," Mommy said and got into Archie's car. Two large cotton dice hung from the rearview mirror and his seats were upholstered with an imitation white wool that shed on your clothes. The wiry threads were sure to get all over Mommy's black dress, but she didn't care. Before we had left for church, she told me she expected to throw the dress in the garbage the moment she took it off anyway.
Melody Page 2