CHAPTER 19
The real world and the time it abided by ceased to exist inside the confines of the hospital. Schedules and routines were clear as long as everything moved as it should, without a crisis, without an alarm that brought nurses and doctors running to save the day. But beyond that, the minutes dragged into hours, and the hours quickly accumulated, promising to turn into long, exhausting days. The dull white walls, acoustic tiled ceilings, and white shiny linoleum floors never changed, never offered a hint of weather. They were void of any emotion or cheer. I could never predict what was next, though I constantly sat on the edge of my chair waiting for bad news. I couldn’t outrun this pure white storm. It was early winter without the deep freeze.
For someone accustomed to seven hundred acres of open space and solitude, it didn’t take long for the walls to start closing in, for claustrophobia to set in. I paced the halls, toured the cafeteria, wished for a library, dodged the nuns, and read all of the Life and Field and Stream magazines that I could find, constantly looking for a distraction. I’d never been enamored with Hollywood, but I found pictures of the deceased Marilyn Monroe to be sad and lonely, no help at all in propelling me out of the doldrums that I was stuck in. Other magazines were devoted to President Kennedy. I avoided them like they were infected with a disease I could easily catch. I understood all too well the loss of a vibrant, healthy man in his prime—or just the loss of the simplicity of living a full life and dying of old age.
Hank had stabilized and the rattle in his chest had subsided, thanks to the miracles of modern medicine—an oxygen tent and consistent doses of penicillin and other more mundane drugs to boost his strength. Doc Huddleston assured me more than once that if his body had been left to its own devices, Hank would never have survived this latest battle to breathe, to live, to stay on this earth with me. I’d asked him not to tell Hank that for fear that he would swear off the medicine and treatment without my knowledge. There was no question in my mind that he was capable of that. No matter how withered and frail he was, Hank Trumaine was still fully in charge of what came next—at least verbally.
In between visits with Hank, usually ten minutes at a time, every three hours; consultations with Doc Huddleston, who remained optimistic that Hank would get to go home soon; and appropriate and expected visits from Pastor John Mark Llewellyn from the Lutheran church where Hank and I were still members, although not regular attendees, two days passed before I had fully realized it.
I’d slept in the waiting room on a dull and lifeless mattress thrown over two chairs that I had pushed together. I was glad I wasn’t as tall as Guy Reinhardt; I would never have found any comfort at all. And I was aided by a few sweet nurses who had brought me pillows, sheets, and a blanket to stay warm.
The hospital was as cold as the tip of an iceberg at night, and I had failed to plan for the onset of October weather. I could hardly believe it was mid-fall, nearly winter, even though the skies were constantly gray and filled with the threat of turmoil when I looked out the windows. Winter was never far away, and summer was always too brief a reprieve. I’d seen it snow in June once and knew from then on that the coldest season of the year never fully retreated; it was like a bug under a rock just waiting for the right time or right opportunity to make its presence known, to sneak out and sting when you least expected it.
I worked in that small room, too, occasionally accompanied by visitors there to see their own sick relatives and to do their duty just like me. A few times I’d been asked, “What are you doing?” and without any thought, I replied, “Writing an index.” To which the response was almost always, “How do you do that?” or “What is that?”
I should have just kept my mouth shut, but I think there were times when I was glad to have a conversation with someone that didn’t concern death and dying.
I had finished going through all the pages of the Common Plants book, and I hadn’t come across any more questions that I couldn’t answer for myself. The last thing I wanted to do was call the library and speak with Delia Finch. I’d tried to put that woman as far out of my mind as possible. Now all I had to do was find the time to go home, compile the entries that I’d already typed or written into one document, edit it, and then send it to my editor, Richard Rothstein.
It was early afternoon, and Hank was out from under the tent for his longest stretch since he’d been admitted to the hospital. Doc was weaning him off the oxygen, and Hank really was doing well, looking forward to going home in the next couple of days.
I was free of the waiting room, which smelled more like cigarette smoke—with a few contributions from me—than the antiseptic room that Hank was moored in, when Hank looked over at me and asked, “When is Calla’s funeral?”
I knew; I had looked at her obituary in the Press, but I had tried not to read it too closely. I had just scanned it to make sure it really was about Calla. Guy had gotten to me—I had decided he was right. I had enough burdens of my own to deal with. But it was a fool’s game I was playing with myself. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away from my questions about Calla’s death any more than a June bug could stay away from the dusk-to-dawn light at the peak of the garage roof.
“Tomorrow,” I finally said.
“Is there calling?”
I nodded. “This evening for a few hours.”
“And you’re going, aye?”
I stood up and walked to the door of the room, which was closed. I pressed my head against it for a long second, trying to convince myself to say “yes,” then made my way back to Hank’s bed so I could hear him speak. “I hadn’t planned on it,” I said, gripping the bed rails with both of my hands to steady myself. I couldn’t lie to Hank. Blind as he was, he could see it from a mile away.
He cocked his head at me and offered a furtive glance with his blank eyes. It was more habit than anything else, and as much as he could read me, I could still read him, too. Blindness had been a recent malady, and I was sure his body still responded just like it always had. “I think you should go,” he said. “You’ve been holed up in this hospital since I came in, and to be honest, I think it’s getting to you. You’re snippy and prone to bite the head off of anyone who disagrees with you. Some fresh air will do you good.”
“I am not snippy.” I let go of the bedrails and planted both of my hands on my hips.
After a long beat, he said, “My point exactly, Marjorie. You need to go to the calling, but more than anything, you need to get out of this hospital for a little while. It’ll do me some good too, to know you’re still doing the things that you need to. I hate it that I crippled both of us.”
I let those words drift away and relaxed my arms at the same time. I wanted to ask him who the patient was and who the concerned spouse was, but I held my tongue. “I’m not leaving you,” I whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Hank’s voice was weak but certainly stronger than it had been in days. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his words. He had just fought a battle and won, had come out on the other side with the ability to breathe on his own quicker than anyone thought he would be able to. But I knew how fleeting those victories could be. I had left him at the house with Betty Walsh, only to come back and find him gone. I feared finding the same thing all over again when I returned to the hospital room.
“Do you promise?” I demanded, trying to push the image of an empty hospital bed from my mind.
“Yes,” Hank said. “I promise. Scout’s honor. I’d make a cross over my chest if I could.”
“Don’t do that; the nuns will tell you you’re doing it wrong.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe that’s the problem.” He forced a smile, then looked away from me for a quick second. “I’ll be right here when you get back, Marjorie. Go pay your respects to Calla for both of us. I know she was your friend, not mine, but she made our life better. She was always there for you. What would you have done without her with all of your book work?”
Book work. That was what Hank always
called my indexing jobs. It was like farm work to him, the only way he could understand it. An index was a tool that Hank seldom used, and he had no interest in knowing how it worked or how to create one. He just wanted it when he needed it—like the horribly written one in the back of the owner’s manual for the combine. He’d used that one over and over learning the ins and outs of the new machine.
“Besides,” he continued, “I’m sure Herbert’ll be happy to see you.”
I sighed. “All right. You’re right; I should go. But I didn’t bring my good clothes to town with me. I’ll need to go out to the house and get ready.”
“I’m sure Shep’ll be happy to see you, too. That dog likes you more than he ever did me.”
I ignored the comment because it was true. I looked up at the clock over Hank’s bed and calculated the time it would take to drive home, dress, then drive back to the funeral home. “If I’m going to go to the calling, then I need to leave now,” I said.
“Then you better get going,” Hank said. “Or you’ll be late and miss it altogether.”
CHAPTER 20
The house looked the same as it had when I’d left it last, only Jaeger had brought in the mail and stacked it neatly on the kitchen table. Shep danced around my feet, trying to fill up on the attention he had lost out on since I’d been away. I ignored him the best I could and riffled through the pile of envelopes, hoping for a check for the last index I’d written, but I only found more bills than I cared to admit ownership of. There was seed debt, the combine payment, and overdue medical bills to pay. Along with the bills in my hands, there was a mortgage and the expenses of daily living to contend with. We’d barely broke even on last season’s crop, and the dry spell we were in the midst of didn’t foretell a positive cash flow for the winter wheat that was already in the ground—and not yet paid for. The truth was, my indexing income barely kept the lights on. One of these days, all of our debts were going to catch up with us and come due all at once—but not right now. Not today, not while Hank still breathed and fought to live. I tried to make money the least of my concerns. Hank worried enough in his silence for both of us.
I dropped the bills on the table and set about getting myself prepared to leave again, even though I wished I could have just stayed home with my dog at my feet, doing the work I loved—all while Hank tended to a bounty crop on the back forty. It was a fantasy that would never come true—more magical thinking, more wasted time on wishing for something that could never be. Those days were gone, and just like I had to accept Calla’s fate I knew I had to accept my own whether I liked it or not.
Time ticked away with each breath. As much as I wanted to ignore the clock, I knew I couldn’t. Calla’s calling was in an hour, and Hank was lying in his hospital bed awaiting my return.
It wasn’t long before I was back in the Studebaker, rattling my way toward Dickinson, feeling like a yo-yo. I was loaded down with proof pages from the Zhanzheng book—which I began to fully consider now that all of the entries for the Common Plants book were written—enough clothes and essentials to last three days, and a heavy heart for leaving Shep behind again. I was certain that the nuns would cart him off to the dog pound if they found him snuggled up with me in my makeshift bed in the waiting room. It was a nice thought, but not worth the risk. I needed Shep and he needed me. If I was sure of anything at that moment, it was that.
“I’ll be home soon, boy, I promise,” I heard myself saying. I’ll be home soon . . .
The parking lot to McClandon’s Funeral Home was nearly empty. I didn’t know what I had been expecting, but I certainly didn’t think that I would be the only library patron in town who felt that Calla Eltmore held one of the most important jobs in the entire county. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe Calla was just the old, dried-up woman who checked out their books when they wanted them. I was filled with a deep, uncomfortable sadness as I parked the truck up near the front door.
When Erik and Lida Knudsen were shown in the funeral home, there hadn’t been a parking spot to be found. Guy Reinhardt had had to direct traffic. But I guess folks were curious because that was a murder and this was a suicide. Even though there wasn’t an official word on the cause of Calla’s death, the gossip chain in town had pronounced it to be true. Betty Walsh’s original pronouncement at the house was proof of that.
Suicide made everything different, and I knew it. Murder was an unprovoked nightmare, and suicide was a self-inflicted sin. The darkest sin. A commandment broken with blatant disregard for anything that was believed or held in faith—or outside of it, for that matter. Thou shall not kill was the highest order in the land—unless it was lamb season—and Calla Eltmore had broken that commandment. Her memory would be forever shunned, or at the very least ignored, not spoken of in polite company from here on out. It was almost as if suicide was contagious, a disease transmitted by touch or thought.
I was in no mood for such thinking, and for that I was glad of the sparse showing of mourners’ cars in the parking lot. I wouldn’t have to face the gossip and the judgmental sneers as I made my way up to the casket to say my goodbyes.
Without another moment of thought, or giving in to the temptation of putting the truck in reverse and speeding back to the hospital, I squared myself, glanced in the mirror to make sure my face and hair were presentable, then pushed the creaky driver’s door open and marched toward the entrance to the funeral home. It opened upon my approach almost on command, as if someone had been watching me the entire time—just waiting. The solemn act unsettled me.
I stepped over the threshold and stopped just inside the foyer. The overbearing and unwanted smell of the funeral home hit my nose in a floral explosion of blossoming life that could only be associated with death. It was such a mix of scents that my mind, usually prone to sorting and listing identifiable substances, was confused and scattered. I knew it was more than the jumble of flowers all vying for my attention, demanding to be categorized. It was the fact that I was about see to Calla in her final state. Unless the casket was closed. Please let it be closed . . .
“Miss Eltmore, I presume,” a man’s familiar voice said.
I looked over and made eye contact with Pete McClandon, proprietor of the funeral home and the current Stark County coroner. I had known Pete for most of my life, and to be honest he looked the same now as he did when I was a young girl. He had to be in his early eighties, and his hair was still as black as the underbelly of a crow. I wondered if he colored it with shoe polish. It looked like it—either that or Rit dye. His face held deep worry lines, rivulets of time cut through weathered flesh that made him look hard, like a marble sculpture had been set on his shoulders instead of a soft human face. His gray eyes were cloudy but still as warm and comforting as they could be in any circumstance. Pete McClandon had a quick smile and a hearty handshake on most days, except when he was working the front of the funeral home; then he was the tower of sadness, quiet and respectful. Like now, like he had been for both my parents and Hank’s and for so many of our friends.
“Yes, of course, I’m here to see Calla Eltmore,” I said to Pete, never breaking eye contact with him. I wondered if there were any other funerals in the coming days. I hadn’t checked the paper to see.
“Straight ahead.” Pete pointed the way. He was wearing his signature black suit, which made him look the same as always. I’d never seen him dressed any other way. Always in black, like it was a cloak he couldn’t escape or a military uniform he refused to discard.
I hesitated; I had a flood of questions that I wanted to ask Pete, but I knew he wouldn’t answer them, couldn’t answer them. Did she really kill herself? Why does a person do that? You’ve seen it before, you have to know . . . I exhaled instead and walked slowly toward the open double doors that led into the parlor that held Calla’s casket. The walk was lined with bouquets of colorful flowers, but one thing was missing from each of them: a card. It was like no one wanted to be associated with a suicide but had sent flowers out of respect anyway
—or the funeral home had put them there so the showing, the funeral, would appear normal for those who did attend. That made sense.
The parlor was long and narrow and also served as a chapel for those that chose not to have their funerals in a church. The walls were stark white and the ceiling was arched, the rafters dark walnut with a high sheen. The center of the room was filled with folding chairs, all spaced evenly, row after row, waiting to be filled. The floral fragrance—carnations, chrysanthemums, heather, lilies, and more—followed me inside the room and was accompanied by distant music, an instrumental organ hymn that I knew the words to but tried to ignore. The promise of salvation, of a perfect eternity, was out of place, distasteful, a discussion I didn’t want to have. I couldn’t imagine heaven at that moment—if ever. Hell was easier. I never thought of Calla as a tortured soul, but I must have been wrong.
I gasped and stopped when I realized that the lid to the casket was open. It was a simple oak coffin like I had seen more times than I wanted to admit, with a white satin interior. When I focused, I could make out Calla’s profile, her face angled upward, her glasses on like she was staring into the sky at a forty-five degree angle, her head propped up on a soft virgin pillow. I was certain that her eyes were closed. As certain as I could be at that moment.
At the thought, I closed my own eyes, and then opened them again to make sure I wasn’t imagining the vision of Calla dead, lying in a casket. I wasn’t. She was there for all the world to see.
There was only one other person in the parlor, which surprised me, since there had been a few cars in the parking lot. It only took me a second to recognize Herbert Frakes, sitting alone in the front row, dressed in his best moth-eaten suit, his head bowed like he was praying, or counting the threads in the lush, gold-sculptured carpet under his feet. I made my way to him, never taking my eyes off of Calla. I couldn’t believe that Pete had left the lid open. I just couldn’t believe it.
See Also Deception Page 9