As Good as True

by Cheryl Reid

  “He was on the dining-room table when the funeral home came,” Mr. Dupont said.

  “Oh,” I said. “I did not want him moved, but his mother, she is from the old country. Syria then, Lebanon now,” I said. “She wanted to lay him out and mourn him at home.” I wondered if he could read a liar, if he could get the truth from a person.

  “I see.” Mr. Dupont noted this.

  Michael’s warm body hovered. He touched my shoulder as if to comfort me.

  My shirt was wringing wet, but if I removed the suit coat, the green bruises would peek from the hems of the short sleeves and more questions would follow.

  Nelly sputtered inside the screen door and sobbed in the next room.

  “Had Mr. Nassad been complaining of chest pain, weakness, nausea?”

  “He had heartburn, he said.” That night, after the soft scraping of his nails across the door, he shook it and the lock rattled in the jamb. He banged and I prayed the lock would hold and the dresser would not topple. I opened the window and looked down through the limbs of the pecan tree to see if there was a way for me to descend. He was sick in the bathroom, and then he stumbled back to my door and rattled it again. “You have poisoned me, you witch.” Then begging, “Have mercy. Take me to the hospital, and we can make peace.” There was stumbling down the stairs and a rambling through the kitchen. I squeezed the phone cord in my pocket. He would not find his keys either. I had hid them in the back of the silverware drawer. Then he made a slow climb up again.

  “That will do.” Mr. Dupont gazed over the rims of his glasses at Michael and me with a mournful smile. He saw me as a grieving widow.

  I bowed my head and held Eli’s handkerchief to cover my eyes. Michael patted my shoulder, as if to say Good job, and left to report to Marina. My temples beaded with perspiration and I blotted my face as if I were blotting tears.

  That night, when I had struggled to turn the deadweight of his shoulders and body, his mouth gaped open and bile spilled out. His eyes, the color of green glass, did not blink.

  “Just one more question, ma’am.”

  I looked up.

  He took off his glasses and folded them into the palm of his right hand. His heavily lashed eyes searched my face. “I’m duty bound to ask.” Without his glasses balanced on his nose, he looked ten years younger. “Do you know of anyone who would want to harm your husband—an employee, a customer, a family member?”

  I swallowed my breath. “No,” I said. “His family loved him. His mother is devastated. His children too. He was a good man.”

  The screen door slapped shut. Michael must have gone outside.

  With a flick of his wrist, he settled his glasses on the tip of his nose and wrote again. “Your mother-in-law, she suspects you harmed him?” He looked over the rim of his spectacles and waited for my answer.

  “She is angry that I helped Mr. Washington.” That was my best excuse for Nelly’s behavior, and it was true.

  Mr. Dupont nodded as if he sympathized with the situation. Maybe he was someone who would have allowed Mr. Washington to deliver his mail had he been assigned to his street.

  I cast my gaze to the floor. “She’s never cared for me, for our marriage.” I squeezed my eyes shut and worried what she might be saying to Marina. “She wanted him to marry someone else.”

  That early morning, I did not turn on a light. The stars were bright, but the moon was waning, almost invisible. In the dark, early morning, in my nightgown and bare feet, I walked across the cool, dew-kissed grass to the shed and returned Elias’s crowbar to the wall and the can I’d removed earlier to its shelf. I tracked blades of wet grass into the kitchen and plugged the telephone cord back in. From the drawer, I took his keys and hung them on their hook. Upstairs I began to clean around his body, in his room, in the hall and the bathroom.

  Mr. Dupont placed the lid on his pen. “Usually, when a question of foul play has been brought, there is an investigation. We send the deceased to the medical school in Birmingham for tests that we can’t do here.”

  I wiped the vomit from his mouth, and with my nightgown tied between my legs, I scrubbed the kitchen. All of this I did in the dark, so Verna would not notice lights on in my house.

  I watched Mr. Dupont read his notes. I bit my lip to keep calm.

  After I had wrestled new sheets on his bed, I got a rug from the attic that I had put away for summer. The carpet was bulky and the rough backing scratched my skin as I dragged it down the stairs, past his room, and into mine. I kicked it into place and covered the scratches on my floor. My gown was soaked with perspiration. I stopped to drink water from the bathroom sink, took a cool bath, and changed my gown before lying down again.

  I thought I could live in peace—I would soon be a grandmother, run the store, or sell it. I thought I could help Mr. Washington. I thought I would be safe. I lay in bed with the window open. The breeze from the river flowed inside. I slept hard until the heat of the morning woke me.

  Mr. Dupont looked over the rims of his glasses. “I’ll speak with your son, and then I’ll sign the death certificate.”

  “Okay.” I stood. I hoped Nelly’s silence meant she had dozed off, or better yet, she might be dead.

  In the living room, on the sofa pushed against the wall, I found Eli with his grandmother propped in the crook of his shoulder. Her glasses were folded and placed on his knee. Her withered hand lay cupped in her lap. Her mouth fell open in the shape of an O. Her carrying on had worn her out.

  Marina stood against the wall nearest the kitchen where she’d been listening.

  “Eli,” I whispered. “He wants to talk to you.”

  We maneuvered Nelly from his arms. She was light, gaunt, insignificant in my hands, barely the weight of a child. She’d been such an enormous woman, and now she had so little flesh around her bones. I propped her onto pillows and stood near to keep an eye on her should she wake.

  Mr. Dupont asked Eli similar questions. Eli said he had been away at seminary, so he could not speak to any changes in his father’s health. “But Mother would know,” he said. “She’s stood by him all these years.”

  A turn of the truth.

  Marina stared at me and a chill raced down my spine. If her eyes could spit darts, I would be dead.

  “Do you know of anyone who would want to harm him?”

  “No,” Eli said. “People liked him.”

  “What about that business with the colored mailman?”

  “I can’t imagine.” Eli’s voice trailed off. “We were only trying to help him.”

  We, he had said, we, as if his father had been party to it all.

  “Neighbors, angry customers?”

  “No. No one wanted to harm him.” Eli sounded resolute.

  “And what about your grandmother—she doesn’t trust your mother?”

  Eli said, “Grandmother has never been kind to my mother, and it’s worse now. She’s looking for someone to blame.” Eli cleared his throat.

  Marina left her spot and stepped onto the front porch.

  “People her age,” Mr. Dupont said. “Keep a close eye on her. Grief can weigh hard on the older folks.”

  “I imagine so.” Eli’s voice strained.

  There was a pause. A scratch of pen to paper. “Would your mother want to cause your father harm?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” A rush of certainty filled his voice.

  “I’m sorry to have to ask, but it can be difficult to see much difference between a heart attack and poisoning.” Mr. Dupont’s tone was light, conversational, like he was letting Eli in on a trade secret. “Similar effects, but I’ve always detected it. The doctors in Birmingham haven’t disproved a case of mine in sixteen years. I suspect your father had an overwhelming stress event that caused his heart attack. He had all the signs—the skin color, the enlarged heart, the gastric distress.”

  Eli cleared his throat.

  “I apologize for talking shop.” Mr. Dupont’s voice returned to its somber inflection. He shuff
led papers and scooted his chair. “Let’s give this to your mother.”

  The men stepped into the hall. On the sofa, Nelly began to rouse and groped around for her glasses.

  Mr. Dupont handed me the paper, the heading Death Certificate in plain black letters across the top. The official-looking paper with its embossed stamp said the cause of death was massive myocardial infarction. He whispered to me, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” I handed the certificate to Eli.

  Eli wrapped his arm around me.

  I looked at the floor because I could not look my children in the eyes. My knees felt numb.

  Mr. Dupont handed Eli his card. “If you have any questions, contact me.”

  Nelly got her glasses on and pointed at me. “Are you taking her now?”

  Mr. Dupont raised his eyebrows. “My sympathies to you, ma’am,” he said to Nelly. If I were to go to trial, he’d take the stand. He’d answer questions about today, about Elias, about the things Nelly said.

  Mr. Dupont shut the screen door softly behind him. “My condolences,” he said to Marina on the porch. Michael stood near the street, where the men were nearly finished clearing the yard.

  I started out the door toward Marina.

  Nelly used her cane to stand and pounded the wood floor with it as she moved toward me. “Where are you going?” Nelly’s voice whipped through me and I froze.

  “Grandma,” Eli said. “Leave her be.” His voice was authoritative, like a teacher scolding a student.

  “Quiet,” she snapped. To her, he was a child, the same as her sons. She pointed at me. “Marina will disown you.” Her voice was cold and calculating, not senile as Eli had made her out to be. “You were never good enough for my boy. You were a white nigger then and you still are.”

  Marina shot through the screen door. “Grandmother!” she said. “Enough.” Marina would go toe to toe with Nelly, with me, with any person. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. Not today.”

  A holly bush rustled near the porch rail. The mockingbird alit atop the bush. Michael shook Mr. Dupont’s hand as he passed. Michael’s crisp white sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing a golden shade of skin. He took a drag from his cigarette and looked back at the house.

  I had done what I had done to be with Marina. I had to get through this day and the next.

  Nelly’s gnarled finger poked my arm. “You leave or I will bury you alive.”

  “Stop it,” Marina said. “What if Michael hears you?”

  “He should know the truth.” Nelly grasped Marina’s swollen arms with withered hands. “Your father worked to give you everything.”

  “What about me?” I squeezed my hands into fists. The cut throbbed. “I worked beside him. Everything we have is from me too.”

  Marina’s face was red. She shot me a look.

  “If she had her way, she would have left you,” Nelly screeched.

  Marina had heard this her entire life and the story was part of her. “Michael’s partners will be here in an hour.” Marina kept her voice low, measured.

  “You have your father to thank for your position.” Nelly lost her icy tone. “Your grandfather opened the store here, not in Mounds like your mother’s people, but your father made the store what it is. People respected him. They knew he was a good man. She has brought you nothing but shame.”

  “Michael thinks we’re crazy, and I don’t blame him.” Marina rubbed her forehead. No trace of makeup remained, but she would fix that before people arrived.

  Nelly’s hands clamped together like the priest at Mass blessing the Eucharist. She turned toward Elias’s dead body. “I told you what she was.” She moved easily, like water rolling across the living-room floor. She laid her head on his chest. “Heaven forbid this!”

  Marina leaned against the wall for support and traded glances with Eli.

  I reached for her and she jerked away.

  “No,” Marina shouted at me. Her temple throbbed. “You asked me if I knew what my father had done. Ask me if I know what you did.” Her eyes bore down on me. Her face was broken into sadness, anger, disbelief. “You let that man in this house. You put him in more harm than you could ever help him out of. What was Daddy supposed to do when he came in and found you alone with him?”

  Eli pulled Nelly off the body. “You both have to stop this,” he said to Marina and to Nelly. “Helping him was the right thing.”

  Nelly pushed Eli. “Go! Go! Get away! You should be ashamed.” She balanced on her cane and took up wailing. “Your mother is a shame!”

  Eli closed the lid of the casket, and Nelly hobbled into the kitchen to her sister.

  Sweat beaded on Marina’s temple. She glared. “Because they found out you let him in, they put a brick through the grocery window.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” I asked.

  The men outside were finished cleaning the branches from the yard. Michael crossed the lawn toward the pickup.

  “What does it matter? If it’s the whites or the blacks.” Marina held her stomach. “We are still the talk of town.”

  “The window is already being replaced,” Eli piped in, impatient with her. “You care more about your reputation than a man’s life.”

  “What about our father’s life?” Marina asked. “All of this craziness killed him.”

  Eli took a deep breath and looked down at us from his height. A car door shut. He glanced outside. “Father McMurray is here.” Eli went out to greet him.

  Out on the lawn, Michael took a money clip from his pocket. He counted cash and handed the men payment for their work. The old beater truck, filled with branches, pulled away. Those men would go back to Mounds. They knew this was the house Orlando Washington delivered mail to, where Elias Nassad had lived, and that I was Faris Khoury’s daughter. How careful they must be to come here, do a job, and act like nothing was wrong.

  “It’s half past three.” Marina looked at the watch strangling her wrist. “The visitation is at four. We’ll have the Rosary around six.”

  Michael strolled to meet Father McMurray and Eli under the shade of the pecan tree.

  Marina groaned and made her way to the dining-room table.

  “If you’re having the baby, let me take you to the hospital,” I said.

  “No.” Marina perched on the edge of a chair, her eyes closed, her pale olive skin gleaming with perspiration. “No.”

  “No, you’re not in labor, or no, you won’t go to the hospital?” The old ache in my chest tugged the same as when Elias was near. “I’m worried about you.”

  “If you are worried, that is your own doing. I can’t clean up your messes any longer—not yours, not Daddy’s.”

  Female voices carried in through the open windows. Marina turned her head. “The church ladies are here. I have to get things ready now.”

  How very much she was like him. I could do no right. He had seen me as a burden and now she did too. But I knew what she felt, in that moment, the pressure in her back, her abdomen, her legs, that constant physical weight, and the weight of fear before the baby came. She did not know what came after. She was ignorant of having a child, caring for her, aching for her. She was ignorant of all the complications, how you could love a child and resent her too.

  The Vigil

  The Catholic church ladies flowed in, one after the other, arms laden with dishes. “Oh, Anna,” they said. “Your house looks so beautiful.” I knew they had always been curious to see inside our house, not a factory worker’s house or a farmer’s.

  No, I wanted to say. We had money when others did not, but I did not host parties or teas. I had no interest in opening myself up to their judgments.

  “Isn’t it wonderful he can be here?” one of the church ladies asked.

  I did not nod or answer the stupid women.

  “Where is Marina?” they asked.

  “She’ll be down in a minute,” I said. Marina had gone upstairs to primp.

  When Marina appeared in
the dining room, no longer did she look perturbed. She wore a simple face of grief, powdered and pretty. Her hair was swept up in a perfect French twist. The church ladies swarmed to show her what they had brought. She smiled at the macaroni and cheese, the chicken casserole, the fruit pies. I knew she wanted some bland American foods for herself and her husband’s family and colleagues. Marina called to Louise, “Do you think we should put out the cold dishes?”

  Louise peeked around the corner of the door. “You sit. I do it. Okay?”

  Marina nodded and Louise disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “Tell me what you want me to do,” I said.

  The church ladies placed their dishes where Marina pointed. She treated me as if I were one of them and I followed her orders dutifully, arranging plates and servers, writing on the cards, placing the casseroles, the pies, the pitchers of lemonade and tea. “Put the silver to the left.” Marina’s voice regained its edge. “That server is too small.”

  I moved the plates and forks and napkins as she directed. Louise, the church ladies, and I filled the bellies of the chafing dishes with hot water and lit the Sterno beneath. Marina kindly asked them to help Louise straighten the kitchen, to fix the rows of chairs, and to start the giant percolator. We shuffled back and forth as she wanted.

  A steady stream of perspiration rolled off my neck and down my back. I would not take off the suit jacket. I would spare Marina that. I kept my back to the coffin, the rows of white chairs, the huge wreaths crowding the casket.

  Father McMurray and Eli murmured in the corner. “You’ve done what you can,” I heard Father McMurray say to Eli. “We can’t right all the wrongs in one fell swoop.” They spoke about the mailman and his safety, about where he could go and what he could do. Father McMurray scowled in my direction, as if to say, Haven’t you caused enough trouble? I could hear him say, “If we do any more, we risk angering the parish over a Negro who is not even Catholic.”

  Marina stood by the screen door to receive the visitors.

  Eli touched my shoulder. Someone had opened the casket. I could avoid the day’s purpose no longer. My son sat me near the head of the casket. The mingling smell of embalmment and sweet flowers turned my stomach.