The Book of Bright Ideas

by Sandra Kring

  We stopped at a town called Barren to buy gas, just like we were supposed to, and we bought potato chips and Hershey bars with almonds and a couple of root beers. “We’d best not drink our soda pop right now, Button. Lord knows if there’s another restroom between here and St. Croix Falls.” Aunt Verdella sure was proud when she told the gas station guy how her and her niece were traveling all the way to Hopested to buy a plot and a gravestone for our little friend and how it was her first long car trip in years. “We’re doing good too. Aren’t we, Button?” I nodded, but the man didn’t watch me nod. I don’t think he cared if we were doing good on our trip or not.

  When we got to St. Croix Falls, we stopped again, just like Uncle Rudy told us to, and we got gas and more potato chips and candy bars. Aunt Verdella looked a bit tired, and when she got out of the car, she walked as stiff as the Tin Man. She was happy though. She smiled the whole time she told the lady behind the counter at that gas station all about our trip too. The lady smiled back and told her that it sure was nice, what we were doing for our little friend.

  It was about noon when we came to the sign on Highway 23 that said Hopested. Aunt Verdella laughed and shouted real loud, “Hopested, Minnesota. Population two thousand six hundred. We made it, Button! We did it!”

  Hopested looked a lot like Dauber, with just one street for the stores and the few other streets for houses. Aunt Verdella drove us down Main Street till we saw a diner, then she parked the car. It took her four tries to line the Bel Air up with the curb, and when we got out of the car, she walked to the sidewalk and looked at the space between the curb and the Bel Air and said, “Well, a horse could probably fit into that space, but the street’s wide, so I think it will be okay.”

  It was a real nice little diner, all decorated in red and white checkers, with a nice waitress who was almost as pretty as Freeda. She brought us each a hamburger and french fries, and two root beers that Aunt Verdella said we could drink now because the restroom was right there if we needed it.

  “Miss,” Aunt Verdella said when she paid our bill, “can you tell me where to find Hamilton’s Funeral Home? We came to order a plot and gravestone for a little friend of ours. Well, not for her, but for her mama. Mr. Hamilton told me on the phone that I could order them right through his establishment, but, silly me, I forgot to ask exactly where he’s located.”

  The pretty waitress stopped chewing her gum and said, “Sure. You just keep going here on Lincoln to the second stop sign, and then turn right. It’s two blocks down on your left. It looks like a big white house. Three stories high. You’ll see the sign propped on the lawn.”

  “Thank you, honey,” Aunt Verdella said.

  “Sure.” The lady slid coins out from the register and counted them out in Aunt Verdella’s hand. “And I’m sorry about you having to buy such things for your little friend’s mother.”

  “Oh, no need to be sorry, honey. It’s a good thing that we’re buyin’ them. Now she won’t have to carry her ma around in a jar anymore.” The lady gave Aunt Verdella one of those funny looks that means, “Wow, did you just say something kooky.” Aunt Verdella put her change back into her purse and said, “You have a nice day, now, honey. And thank you for the real good service.”

  There was only one car in front of the big white house, so it didn’t take Aunt Verdella long to park. As she reached for her purse, I looked up at the place, which was almost as pretty as the house Scarlett O’Hara lived in. I bit the inside of my cheek though, thinking about dead people being in there. Tommy told me once about funeral places. How they slap dead people on a concrete slab, point them upside down, and cut their armpits to drain out their blood. Then he told me how they put marbles where their eyeballs should be and stitch them shut so nobody could see that their eyes are gone. The whole idea of people laying in there with marbles for eyes and cut armpits made my stomach feel sick.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” Aunt Verdella said. “You’re making those noises in your throat again. You scared?”

  I couldn’t lie. Not with my throat going nuts like it was. I nodded, then I told her that I didn’t want to see dead people.

  She reached over and petted my hair. “You don’t have to be afraid, honey. We aren’t going into the funeral part. Look. See that back door there? See the sign above it? Mr. Hamilton’s wife sells the plots and gravestones out of that office right there. That’s where we’re going.” I sure was happy to hear that.

  I walked real fast down the sidewalk to get past the other part of the building, and I held my breath, in case Mr. Hamilton just carried a dead person inside and there were dead people’s germs still floating in the air.

  The lady inside was little and had a bump on her back. Her hair was sprayed stiff to her head, and it was a bluish color, like her dress. “Can I help you?” she said. She wore big, thick glasses that made her eyes look like marbles too, under a magnifying glass.

  Aunt Verdella started telling her the whole story then. How this beautiful young woman and her little sister came into Dauber, the little girl carrying an urn with her ma inside. “It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen,” Aunt Verdella said. “That child carries her ma with her everywhere she goes. She talks to her too. And she told Button here that when she grows up she’s gonna buy her ma a final restin’ place. Well, Tommy—that’s my husband’s farmhand—he accidentally knocked over the urn. That poor child was hysterical! That’s when I decided to skip buying the color television set I was saving for and buy her mother a plot and a stone instead.

  “Anyway, the woman lived right here in Hopested, ma’am, so I thought it would be a good idea to have her final restin’ place be here. I know the dead woman has a sister and a brother living here, so it would be nice for them too. I ain’t got much, mind you, but Mr. Parkins—the funeral director back in Dauber—he gave me a price quote on what both would cost in Dauber, and he figured it’ll run about the same here.”

  While Aunt Verdella was talking, the lady’s stiff hand kept spreading out toward the two fancy chairs facing the front of her desk, which meant we should sit down. Aunt Verdella didn’t seem to notice though, so the lady waited for Aunt Verdella to take a breath, then she told us to have a seat.

  Once we sat down, the lady with the marble eyes—who said her name was Mrs. Hamilton—brought a couple big books to the desk and opened them. “Here we have our stones,” she said.

  “We want a white one. A pretty one. Not too expensive, like I said. And do you think we could have an etchin’ of a little fairy cut into it?”

  “A fairy?”

  “Yeah. A fairy.”

  “Well, I suppose so. I imagine you’d need a picture for them to go by, but we’ll see what we can do.”

  Aunt Verdella scooted the book over a bit so I could see, then she turned page after plastic-coated page, while she asked the cost on this gravestone and that one. I swore we were gonna be there for a hundred years till Aunt Verdella found a nice one we could afford. I about sighed out loud when she finally said, “This one. Yep, that’s the one we want, ain’t it, Button?”

  Then the lady started talking about plots. “Golden Gate Cemetery is just at the edge of town,” she said. “It’s a lovely place. The plots all run about the same price, of course, but—”

  “Oh. We have to have a plot next to a tree. I don’t suppose you have apple trees there, but, boy, wouldn’t that be nice, Button? If not, then of course any tree will do.”

  “There’s a few trees, ma’am. And also some pretty lilac bushes. Perhaps we could find a plot next to one of those?”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful!”

  We were there a long, long time before it looked like we were gonna get any closer to being done with our business. And the longer it took, the more I thought about the dead people laying in the rooms just past the double doors behind Mrs. Hamilton. Tommy had said that some dead people turn into zombies. Out the window, I saw a man in a suit go down the steps and cross the street. He sorta looked like a
zombie to me.

  Aunt Verdella stopped talking right in the middle of a sentence and looked down at me. “Button, what’s the matter? You have to tinkle?”

  “There’s a restroom just through these doors, down the hall and to your left,” the blue-haired lady said. I shook my head fast. “No, I don’t have to go.”

  The lady got out some forms. She asked Aunt Verdella for her name and her address first. Aunt Verdella recited them, spelling out Verdella, since the lady didn’t know how to write it. Before Mrs. Hamilton could even ask another question, Aunt Verdella was talking about something else. Telling the lady how we were gonna need a minister to come say a few final words on the day the ashes got buried.

  “I’m sure that can be arranged. Now, I need the deceased woman’s name, the year of her birth and death, and any verse you’d like on the stone.”

  “Oh dear. I didn’t think of what we might like written on it.” Aunt Verdella dug in her purse until she found an envelope, then put it down on the lady’s desk, scribbled side up. She turned to me. “What do you think, Button? Course, a verse will probably cost extra.”

  The woman picked up the envelope. She stared at it, her eyes stretching wide, then shrinking small, making it look like the lenses of her glasses were made from fun-house mirrors.

  “Oh, can’t you make out the name? I’m sorry. I don’t have much for penmanship. It’s Hannah Malone. Hannah, H-a-n-n-a-h, Malone, M-a-l-o-n-e. And I know that’s the correct spelling too, because Winnalee—that’s the woman’s daughter—she’s a real smart little girl, just like Button here, and she spelled the first name out for me. And I’m sure on the last name. Anyway, the dates are—”

  Aunt Verdella didn’t have time to finish giving the lady the dates, because Mrs. Hamilton looked up and said, “Excuse me. Did you say the child’s name is Winnalee?”

  “Yes, Winnalee Malone. She’s the deceased woman’s daughter. Her and her big sister, Freeda, moved into Dauber—that’s where Button and I live. Anyway—”

  “Excuse me a minute, please. Excuse me.” Mrs. Hamilton hurried out of the double doors, closing them behind her (which I was glad about, because I didn’t want to see no dead people with bloody armpits, or any zombies).

  “Hmm,” Aunt Verdella said. “Maybe she suddenly wasn’t feeling well. She did look a little peaked there all of a sudden, didn’t she?” Aunt Verdella stood up. “All this sittin’ today. I’m not used to sittin’ so long.” She circled around the little room, looking at a vase of plastic flowers, then reading a poem about resting in peace that was hanging on the wall in a gold frame.

  After what seemed like forever, the doors opened and a man came into the room, Mrs. Hamilton behind him. He held out his hand to Aunt Verdella, and it looked a bit damp, like he’d just washed it. I cringed, thinking that maybe he’d had to wash his hands because he’d been cutting armpits, so I was glad that he didn’t expect to take my hand too. “Ma’am? I’m Charles Hamilton, and of course you’ve met my wife. Sit down, please.” He had one of those slow, kind voices that sounded like it was saying, “I’m sorry,” even when it wasn’t. Both Mr. Hamilton and his blue-headed wife looked like they felt sorry, and a little scared, about what they were about to say. Aunt Verdella must have figured this too, because she groaned.

  “Oh dear, don’t tell me I need a death certificate to order these things, or something like that. Why, me and Button drove six hours to get here. Oh dear. The minute I saw your faces when you came through the door, I thought of the death certificate we had to bring in when we buried Mae, my mother-in-law.”

  “Sit down. Sit down,” the man said, and that too, sounded like, “I’m sorry.”

  “Ma’am, a death certificate would certainly help in this case.” He cleared his throat. “Please, Mrs. Peters, can you tell me some more about what you’re doing here, and why?”

  Aunt Verdella plucked at the eyelet trim around her collar as she quickly told him about Freeda and Winnalee and how they came into Dauber, Winnalee carrying that urn. She told him about the color television set she was going to buy too, and why she’d changed her mind. “Oh dear. I never thought of a death certificate till now,” she said again. “And we drove such a distance. Oh dear.”

  The man and the lady exchanged looks, then the man cleared his throat again. “Can you tell me the name of the sisters again, please?”

  “Freeda and Winnalee Malone.” Poor Aunt Verdella looked ready to cry, because something was telling her—just like it was telling me—that Freeda and Winnalee’s ma was not gonna get her final restin’ place.

  The man leaned back in his chair and then came forward again. He folded his hands, the tips of his pointy fingers and thumbs touching, kind of like he was going to start playing “Here Is the Church, Here Is the Steeple.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I don’t know quite how to say this, but…” He stopped and scratched behind his ear. “Well, Hopested is a small town, ma’am, and in my business especially, I’ve come to know every family, going back a good three generations.”

  I looked at him, and at Aunt Verdella, and my throat got so full of gunk that I couldn’t stop clearing it. I knew what he was gonna say next was not gonna be good.

  “Ma’am, I’ve known the Malones for years. I knew Freeda’s granddaddy, and I knew her father. I buried them both, in fact. But, well, I never buried Hannah Malone. Do you understand what I’m trying to say here?”

  “Well, of course you didn’t,” Aunt Verdella said. “She was cremated. Her poor little daughter carries her everywhere she goes. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Ma’am, I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I guess I’m going to have to just come right out and say it. Hannah Malone isn’t dead, Mrs. Peters. She’s a member of our church, and we see her there regularly, when her health allows it.”

  “She was there yesterday, in fact,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “In pain or not, from a ruptured disk, she was there.”

  Aunt Verdella gasped, and maybe I did too.

  Mr. Hamilton cleared his raspy throat, but just once. “Ma’am, I don’t care for gossip, but I don’t see any other way to explain this to you but to come right out and tell you what everybody in this town knows anyway. Freeda Malone, Hannah’s daughter…well, let’s just say, she was on the wilder side. She ran away when she was young and then came back into town about four years ago. Anyway, the best any of us know, Freeda left her mother’s house after they argued and went straight to the school. The little girl’s teacher, Miss Miles, had taught Freeda herself, so she was able to tell Hannah for sure who took Winnalee.”

  Mrs. Hamilton continued the story, but not before she too, apologized for repeating gossip. “Poor Miss Miles believed Freeda when Freeda told her that her mother had just passed away an hour ago and that she needed to take Winnalee out of school immediately. After all, Miss Miles knew of Hannah’s poor health, as we all did. Why, word spread of Hannah’s death quickly. Within an hour, folks were calling Charles to ask when the funeral would take place, but we still hadn’t gotten a call to pick up her body.”

  “I finally drove out to the Malones’ to find out what was going on,” Mr. Hamilton said.

  “Hannah was heartsick when Charles got there, of course, because by that time, folks had called out to the Malone place, expecting to talk to Hannah’s younger brother, Dewey, only to find themselves talking to Hannah herself!” Mrs. Hamilton stopped to take a breath, then continued. “Poor Hannah has been sick with worry since, as you can imagine. It’s taken a toll on her already-precarious health. After all, once her husband passed away, and then after Freeda left, what did she have but that little one, for those few years? Granted, Dewey moved back in with Hannah just before Freeda took Winnalee, and although I’m sure he’s fine company for Hannah, that doesn’t help lessen her worry over the child.”

  Aunt Verdella got out of her chair and paced. “I…I just don’t know what to say.”

  “We’re sorry,” Mr. Hamilton said. “It looks
like you’re another in a long line of good people that Freeda has duped.”

  Aunt Verdella was so upset that she dropped her purse. There were tears in her eyes and in her voice as she thanked the Hamiltons for their time.

  Mr. Hamilton walked us to the door. “Ma’am, we are so sorry that you made such a long trip for nothing.”

  Aunt Verdella thanked him again, then asked him where we could find a room for the night. “I don’t see well enough to drive in the dark, and as shook up as I am now, I couldn’t drive back tonight if I wanted to.”

  The man told us where to find a motel, and out the door we went, walking like zombies.

  20

  Aunt Verdella didn’t yack at the man who checked us into the motel, like she’d done to everyone else we’d met so far. She just quietly handed him the money he asked for, and then we carried our bags to room number 26.

  The room was totally beige except for the nubby, dark green bedspread and curtains. Aunt Verdella sat on the bed, her hands limp on her lap. “I just can’t believe this,” she said. “Why would Freeda lie to that poor child and tell her that her ma was dead and in that jar? Oh my. Oh my. What on earth do we do with this, Button?”

  We went back to the diner for supper, even though neither of us was hungry, but like Aunt Verdella said, it was better than staring at the walls. Aunt Verdella ordered us each a meatloaf platter, and some banana cream pie for dessert. While I ate the best I could, Aunt Verdella took a bite here and there but mostly sat without talking, staring out the big window to the side of us, her eyes not budging even when somebody walked by on the street. I watched her as much as I could without looking rude for staring, and I thought about how she looked old without a smile on her face.

  We got back to our room and Aunt Verdella turned the television set on, but she didn’t really watch it. “We’d best get ready for bed, Button. We’ll head back first thing in the morning.”