by Fannie Flagg
After Norma had gone to sleep, Macky lay there wideawake. He had lied to Norma. The gun was not a fake, or a starter pistol. Ruby knew it, and he knew it, and he wondered what the hell Elner was doing with a loaded .38 in her dirty-clothes basket? After a while he decided that the only possible explanation was Luther Griggs, and what in the hell was he thinking leaving something that dangerous at her house? He knew thinking was not one of Luther’s strong points, and he liked Luther, but nevertheless, he was going to kick his butt from here to Wyoming and back. Macky wished that Ruby had not brought it over, because Norma was looking for any excuse to try to get Elner into that damned assisted living place, and Elner was not helping matters. First falling out of a tree, and now the gun. Tomorrow he would get up early and ride over and throw the thing in the river and get rid of it. He was not worried that Luther had shot or robbed anybody with it. Luther was too stupid to do anything and not get caught; when he had broken into his father’s trailer, he had left a note saying that he was the one who had done it.
Another New Day
4:00 AM
Norma woke up very early, and Macky was snoring. She pushed him over onto his side and tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. No matter how tired she was, once she was awake, she could never get back to sleep. As she lay there, she began to have anxious thoughts about what Aunt Elner had told her about seeing her mother and all the rest. True, it had obviously been some kind of a dream—walking around in the sky and going through a giant button, you would have to be an idiot to think otherwise—but still, there were certainly a lot of strange and unusual things that had taken place. They said that she really had been dead, and they had checked all the machines and they had been working just fine, and after all, as the doctor said, Aunt Elner did survive a fall that would have killed most people; then there was the fact that she could suddenly hear without her hearing aid. Could she possibly be telling the truth? Oh, dear. Last night she had been so sure, but as usual, now she was scared she might be wrong. Maybe Aunt Elner had not been dreaming. The longer she thought about it, Norma began to wonder if maybe this might be the sign, wonder, or miracle she had prayed for. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were true? Maybe there really was an afterlife. She got up out of bed and quietly picked out her clothes and tiptoed out of the bedroom.
She put on her makeup and got dressed and left a note on the coffeepot for Macky.
Honey, couldn’t sleep, so I have gone to the hospital to see Aunt Elner. Call you later at work.
Love, Me
Before she drove out of town, Norma decided to run by Elner’s house on the way and pick up her hairbrush and a few other things she might need while she was still in the hospital. It was still dark when she arrived, and when she opened the front door and turned on the lights, she was astonished at how neat the place looked. She would have to thank Tot and Ruby for doing such a nice job of cleaning up. While she was in the bedroom, she stopped for a second and seriously thought about taking down that photograph of those hideous little rats jumping around in the sand that Aunt Elner had cut out of a National Geographic magazine and Scotch-taped to the wall above her bed. She had been able to get rid of that robe, and now was probably her only chance to get rid of this, but she didn’t do it, and it took every ounce of strength not to. She went over and opened the dresser and got out two of the new nightgowns she had given Elner for Christmas and picked up her hearing aid as well, better safe than sorry. Aunt Elner could hear fine yesterday, but you never know.
And as far as Norma was concerned, that was the main problem with life. You never knew what was going to happen from minute to minute, and more than anything in this world, Norma hated a surprise. As she headed toward Kansas City, she realized that if someone had told her a few days ago that she would be on her way to the hospital this morning to see Aunt Elner, she would not have believed it. Why did this have to happen now?
Just when she had finally finished decorating her new town home, had gotten through menopause without murdering anybody, had dropped five pounds, and after forty-three years of marriage, her and Macky’s love life was exactly like she had always wanted it to be—on schedule, once a week, every Sunday afternoon at around four or five, depending on what else was going on. She liked that it took place on Sunday; it lifted it up out of the ordinary, into a more spiritual event, more in keeping with the marriage vow, rather than just doing it on the whim of the moment, like Macky wanted to.
Being an organized person, she liked to know exactly what was going to happen, and when. She wanted to have time to take a nice hot bath, put on some pretty music, and make a real occasion out of it. After all, Macky was still a good-looking man who had most of his sandy-colored hair, but he had never understood why she had not wanted to just drop everything and jump into bed without any advance notice or warning. He wanted to be “spontaneous,” he had said. Of course, when they were younger she had gone along with it, just to keep him happy; men can get their feelings hurt so easily. She had no idea what other people did or how often they did it. That was a subject she would never discuss with anyone, and she had been so relieved when she’d learned that by the time Linda had reached that certain age sex education was being taught in high school, and she did not have to have the birds and the bees conversation.
When she was growing up, people did not talk about their sex life the way they do now, and she preferred it that way. Even though she leaned toward being a little prudish on the subject, she was not frigid by any means—a fact that delighted Macky, but embarrassed her and still made her blush. “You don’t have to talk about it, Macky,” she would say whenever Macky would compliment her about how sexy she was. But it did please her, and every once in a while she would take her special bubble bath on a Wednesday or Thursday just to surprise him; unlike her, he did not need to be forewarned. She supposed all men were like that, but she certainly was not going to ask. Norma and Macky had been going steady since the seventh grade and married at eighteen. Norma had never dated another boy so her knowledge of the opposite sex was limited to Macky Warren and that was fine with her. She liked her life exactly as it was right now, and wouldn’t you know it, just when she finally had everything under control, Aunt Elner picked this very time to have some crazy near-death experience and get her all confused!
Norma arrived at the hospital in time for breakfast. The orderly had just placed Elner’s breakfast tray on her table.
“Well, hey!” said Elner when Norma walked in. “How did you get here so early?”
“I decided to try and beat the traffic. How are you this morning?”
“My bites are itching a little, but other than that I’m fine. Have you come to take me home?”
“I don’t know yet. I hope so, but I haven’t talked to the doctors.”
“I hope so too, I’m ready to go home. Look at this,” said Elner, holding up a biscuit. “Hard as a rock. Oh well, the scrambled eggs are pretty good, but all they give you here is apple jelly. Have you had your breakfast?”
“No, not yet.”
“Don’t you want some of this?”
“No. You eat it all, you need your strength. Everybody at home sends their love, I think some of the girls might be coming over later. Did you sleep all right?”
“Oh, sure, except they kept waking me up all night giving me shots and taking all my vitals. They sure keep an eye on you here, too much so, if you ask me.” She showed Norma her cup. “Look, this coffee is not very strong. Maybe later on you’ll get me some from somewhere else.”
“I will, but I had something I wanted to ask you.”
“What?”
“Well…about what you told me yesterday…about your…” She looked around, and whispered, “Visit?”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk about it?” Elner whispered back.
“You can talk to me, just not anybody else. Tell me again, exactly, what were the messages you were supposed to deliver?”
“Well, let’s see…Raymo
nd said, ‘The world is getting better all the time,’ and things of that nature.”
“Uh-huh…and what did Neighbor Dorothy say again?”
“She said that life is what you make it, and what you make it is up to you. Smile, and the world is sunny.”
“And that was it?”
“Pretty much so. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I guess I expected something a little more profound, more complex, than ‘Life is what you make it.’”
“Me too, but I think that’s the good news, life is not as complicated as we thought.”
“Are you sure that’s all they said? Did they say anything about the end of the world?”
“Not specifically, but Raymond did say to hang in there. I think that’s a positive message myself.”
“Oh, yes, but positive thinking is not all that new. I was hoping for something with more of a revelation, something we haven’t heard before.”
“Well, Norma, just because you’ve heard it before doesn’t make it wrong.”
“No, I understand that, but—”
The door suddenly swung open and a nurse said, “Mrs. Shimfissle, we have a radio station calling, wanting to do a live feed with you…somebody named Bud?”
Elner’s eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s the Bud and Jay show! Can I tell them about the chicken and the egg? I won’t say where I heard it.”
“Oh my God,” thought Norma, “Aunt Elner, you are not going on the radio, let me talk to them.”
A few minutes later Bud of the Bud and Jay show said to his listening audience, “Well, folks, just spoke to Elner Shimfissle’s niece in Kansas City, and she says Mrs. Shimfissle can’t come to the phone quite yet but that she’s fine, and sends us all her regards. And now, Mrs. Shimfissle, if you are listening…here’s a song just for you this morning…. Here’s Miss Della Reese singing ‘What a Difference a Day Makes.’”
When she came back in, Norma sat and stared at Elner like she was a bug, trying to observe her actions to see if she could tell if she seemed to be in her right mind, but with so many people in and out of her room, it was hard to tell. But so far she seemed normal, if you could call Aunt Elner’s regular behavior normal.
The Visitors
11:30 AM
Around late morning a group of the ladies from Elmwood Springs met downtown in front of the newspaper office, then they all piled into Cathy Calvert’s station wagon and headed over to the hospital to see Elner. They were all in a good mood, happy to be going to the hospital instead of the funeral parlor, where they all might have been that day.
Irene said, “Can you believe it? Here she is alive and kicking, and I had already made three green bean casseroles and three Bundt cakes.”
Tot, who sat in the backseat by the window because she was the only one who smoked, said, “I was too stoned out on my pills to cook.”
Neva added, “Well, I practiced her gospel songs.”
Ruby Robinson said, “I cleaned out her refrigerator and almost took that nasty old cat home.”
“Merle and I sent her a plant, and he went over and killed her snails. I just hope she doesn’t find out, you know how she is about her snails,” said Verbena.
Cathy Calvert said, “Well, girls, I think I have you all beat, I already wrote her obituary!” And they laughed all the way to Kansas City.
When the ladies walked into Elner’s room, they all declared how well she looked, considering. Then Tot looked over and said to a pale Norma, “But you look terrible, you look just plum wore out.”
“Well, I am a little tired, I got up pretty early,” said Norma.
Then Tot turned to Elner. “You have just put us through the ringer, girl, we all thought you were a goner.”
“So did I,” laughed Elner.
“When are you coming home?” asked Irene.
“I don’t know yet, I’m still being observed.”
“For what?” said Tot.
“I don’t know that, either…to see if I’m still in my right mind, I guess.”
Verbena stood staring at her. “How do you feel now? Do you have a headache? Wasp stings give me a headache.”
“No, no headache, but I feel like a big old pincushion. They’ve stuck me with so many needles and looked at me from every which way, inside and out, from top to bottom. I think I had every test they could think of, and some twice. You can’t accuse them of not being thorough.”
Tot plopped down on a chair beside the bed. “Let’s cut to the chase. What I’m dying to know is, how did it feel to be dead? Did you go through a white tunnel or see anybody interesting?”
Norma held her breath, but Elner, a woman of her word, answered, “No, I didn’t go through any white tunnel.”
“Well, shoot,” said Tot, “I was hoping you’d have a lot to report, some words of wisdom.”
“Yes,” added Neva. “Did you have any insights, or revelations or anything?”
“Yeah,” said Verbena. “I heard people that died and came back could cure things, I was hoping you could help me with my arthritis.”
Elner, looking at Norma, said, “All I can tell you is that you better live each day like it was your last, because you never know. Take a lesson from me, one minute I’m picking figs, the next minute I’m dead.”
While the rest of the ladies were still visiting with Elner, Ruby Robinson went down the hall looking for her friend Boots, to have a chat and see if she could find out anything more about what had happened.
Ruby asked where she was and found Boots down in the nurses’ room taking her break. Boots was very happy to see her, and confided, “I’ve been given orders not to discuss it, but I’ll tell you this much.” She looked around to see if anyone was listening. “They’ve checked and rechecked everything and they still don’t have a clue what went wrong. My friend Gwen was in ER at the time and she swears Elner was dead.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” said Ruby.
“In all my years of nursing, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
When Ruby came back into the room, Elner called out to her, “Cathy just read me my obit, and it was a good one. I’m sorry now that she didn’t get to run it in the paper.”
The ladies stayed until around three, and then left for home so they could beat the traffic.
After the ladies left, Elner said to Norma, “Ruby said they tried to call Luther, but he was out of town. He’s gonna be sorry he missed the excitement, won’t he?”
“Frankly, I think he’s better off, you know what a big baby he is.”
“Yes, that’s true. Neva said my funeral was going to be one of the biggest ones ever, and to hear Irene tell it, you and Macky were in for a lot of good casseroles. Now, aren’t you sorry I didn’t stay dead? You can freeze those, you know. I’ll bet you and Macky could have probably eaten off of them for a good year.”
“Oh, Aunt Elner. Good Lord,” said Norma. “I can always make a casserole, for heaven’s sake. You don’t have to die for us to get a casserole.”
“Well, anyway, I just hope Dena and Gerry didn’t buy one of those nonrefundable tickets to get to my funeral, but if they did, I guess they can just keep it and use it the next time, don’t you reckon?”
Norma looked at her. “Aunt Elner, if you die again any time soon, I swear…I can only handle so much.”
That night when Elner was having her dinner of liver and onions, she waited until the nurse left, and then said to Norma, “This liver is way too dry, not near as good as they make it over at the Cracker Barrel.”
Norma looked over at it. “No, it doesn’t look that good.”
“When am I getting sprung out of here, do you know? I need to get home.”
“I’m not sure, maybe they will let us know something tomorrow.”
“Norma, I hate you having to drive all the way here and back home again, you probably have a lot more important things to do than sit with me all day.”
“Don’t be silly. The most important thing to me is making sure you’re all r
ight.” Norma reached over and took her hand. “You know, I would just die if anything happened to you.”
“Well, that’s mighty sweet of you, honey.”
That evening after Norma went home, when Elner was alone, she had a chance to think more about her trip. She wished Norma had believed her about seeing everybody and how wonderful it was, but she couldn’t make her believe if she didn’t want to. Of course, Elner had been happy to see her friends and relatives again, everybody had been so nice. And she certainly wouldn’t have hurt Norma’s feelings for anything in the world, but Elner found herself a little sad to be back. She understood that Raymond and Dorothy must have had their reasons for sending her home, but she longed to go back. She had been so disappointed not to get to see Will. It was difficult, because it was certainly a feeling you had to keep to yourself. You couldn’t very well tell your loved ones you would rather be dead, and not expect them to have their feelings hurt. But still she couldn’t help but wonder why she’d had to come back. Oh, well, it was just one of those mysteries and only they know the answer. She lay there for a moment, and then broke out in song again. “Ah, sweet mystery of life. At last I’ve found thee…At last—”
The worried night nurse rushed in.
“What’s the matter, Mrs. Shimfissle? Are you in pain?”
“No, I feel fine, thank you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I heard you moaning in pain.”
“No. I was just singing.” Then she laughed. “I guess I sing about as well as Ernest Koonitz plays the tuba, but at least he’s getting lessons.”
“Well, sorry to have disturbed you. Good night.”
“Good night, and next time, when I feel a song coming on, I’ll be sure and warn you.”