Corpus Christi

by Bret Anthony Johnston

  He sat on the bed, pulled off his boots. She touched his back.

  “Where?” she said.

  “A field off Yorktown. A cornfield that’s just been plowed.”

  “Did he—”

  “Minnie.”

  “How much would a vet have cost?”

  “Oh, I think the old boy deserved better than that.”

  He’d said this for a week, though she knew he also wanted to save money. Overtime had been slim lately, and they were seven months pregnant. In bed, she could smell the dark field on him, a cloying scent that promised he would handle such things. She whispered, “Are you okay?”

  He stayed so quiet she thought he was weeping, or about to. He who never wept, he who always calmed her when she fell to pieces. She wanted him to cry, though.

  “Honey?”

  He said, “My ears are still ringing.”

  MINNIE MARSHALL DIDN’T SLEEP THE NIGHT BEFORE arranging her funeral. She stayed up in the den, smoking and watching television and applying a mud mask. Her foot kept time with the ceiling fan; September in South Texas. She thought of when they buried Richard, of course—thought of the long line of mourners, the poem Lee had read. She hadn’t known he would read anything—hadn’t even known he wrote poetry. Would he write one for her?

  Before he returned home to care for her, Lee—thirty-three, unmarried, renting the bottom floor of a house in St. Louis and writing his dissertation on an obscure, utterly forgettable historical subject—had taught high school history. She had liked telling people this. Yet, lately, she often thought of him as the boy who’d run screaming from butterflies, as the infant who some nights would quiet only when Richard shredded rags beside the crib; the ripping noise awed him. Or she thought of the year he’d been stricken with rheumatoid arthritis, when they spent days watching game shows and soap operas or, if his knee felt strong, going to the pond and tossing crumbs to ducks. The ducks had always cheered him. She had known him best then. High school and college seemed waves that knocked him away from her; or his girlfriends were the waves. Of all of them, she could only remember Moira, the bawdy, patchouli-smelling sister of his friend Russell, who rarely wore a bra. After his father died, he’d visited more, but he remained distant, a guest who spoke only when spoken to. She’d learned not to pry on those short stays but imagined that prolonged time together would foster conversations, wear thin his reticence. Now, home for a year, he seemed never to have unpacked his bags; he seemed to have layered himself in silence like winter clothes.

  Some mornings she allowed herself to make a racket to rouse Lee sooner, clanging pots or dropping spoons into the sink, but today she let him sleep. She felt croupy and beleaguered. She brewed coffee and thumbed through the Caller-Times. When Lee had lived in Missouri, she’d sent him articles from the paper and she still sought out stories to interest him. Always she saved the obituaries for last. None of today’s names were familiar, neither from the cancer center nor from life before. The sunrise was opening the kitchen. She mixed batter for waffles, beat eggs, fried sausage. Normally Lee ate cold cereal, but she hoped a solid breakfast might start the morning right. The cooking took an hour and she had just sat down when he began stirring. Her heart quickened. She took her ashtray from the table. Smoke bothered him while he ate.

  He said, “You can stay.”

  “Get ’em while they’re hot,” she said. Slowly, she brought a heaping plate to him. If she rushed, or forgot to pause after standing, she found herself light-headed and reeling, then on the floor, hearing Lee’s frantic voice as he rushed to her. She fell often, far more often than he knew.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  She sipped her coffee. “Wonderfully. How about you, sweetheart?”

  “I thought I heard you walking around last night.”

  “I wanted some chocolate,” she said. “I drifted off watching a show about France.”

  He nodded and resumed eating. As in his youth, he still cut food with his fork rather than a knife. He mixed ketchup into his eggs, stirred sugar into his coffee. He sopped syrup and sausage grease with his toast. She loved watching him eat.

  “There’s more of everything,” she said.

  He shook his head, still chewing, and rose to rinse his dishes. He returned the ashtray. “How do you feel?”

  “Full of energy,” she said brightly. She lit a cigarette. “I thought we’d go to the pond after the appointment. We can get sandwiches for a picnic.”

  He smiled, even laughed a little, and looked at her as if she’d suggested sprinting to Houston. Probably he’d expected her to complain.

  “Have you taken your medicine?”

  She held smoke in her lungs, then blew it over her shoulder, away from Lee. Sometimes she lied about taking her pills and spent the day worried he’d catch her, but this morning she behaved.

  “All done,” she said. Then after a moment, “More cars are broken into at funerals and weddings than anywhere else. People forget to lock their doors because they’re too emotional.”

  He set a ceramic bell on the table. The bells were all over the house. She would ring one if she fell, or felt pain or had trouble breathing, or if whatever was coming for her came and she couldn’t bear to face it alone. The bells comforted Lee and shamed her.

  She yawned.

  “You should nap before we go. Or I can reschedule.”

  She waved her hand—pshaw. She asked, “Do you know what the French used to call the guillotine?”

  “A little early for beheadings, isn’t it?”

  “The widow.”

  He swept crumbs into the sink. A jolt of guilt for not washing the breakfast pans stung her; she could almost remember washing them. In Lee’s presence, she was acutely aware of tasks she’d not completed. She said, “Daddy spent some time in France before I met him.”

  He braced himself. No one else would have seen his inward tensing—a quick, despondent inhalation, as if she were about to drag him under water—but she noticed. The water was talk of his father. She doubted that Lee avoided the discussions because they depressed him—rather, he thought they grieved her. And they did. What she couldn’t explain was how she loved talking about Richard, adored hearing his name. She felt happiest in those unforeseen moments when she turned and for an instant, thought she’d seen him; when she woke still believing he lay beside her.

  She said, “My traveling days are over.”

  “Mama . . .”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.” She snuffed out her cigarette, then tried lighting another, but her lighter wouldn’t immediately spark. She said, “Traveling just seems such a hassle now.”

  “You’d like France,” Lee said. “When a person lights a cigarette, he offers everybody one.”

  LINDA “MINNIE” MARSHALL WAS FIFTY-FIVE WHEN the doctor said cancer. Her boys were both gone. Richard— husband and engineer, taker of early retirement package, reader of mysteries and griller of lobster—had died six years before; Lee had lived in Missouri since college. She worked as an accountant, owned a late-model Oldsmobile, and lived in the three-bedroom house the life insurance had paid off. She had seen the doctor because she’d been more tired than usual— her potassium was low again, she’d guessed. The exhaustion could have been a blessing; her body could have finally been adjusting to a life alone, settling into a routine without the boys, and if she honored the change, her days might bring her happiness again. If not happiness, at least less sorrow. But the doctor had sat heavily on the rolling stool, removed his glasses, and outlined options for treatment. Because he gave her a fair chance for recovery, she knew she would die.

  She had considered not telling Lee of the disease, had considered letting it run its course untreated. He would be cowed by the diagnosis—she knew this as surely as she knew his name—and he would not understand how it could come as a relief. For years he’d beseeched her to move beyond his father’s death, and now, finally, she would. Then, unexpectedly, she was mortified and needed him
home. She needed his company in the chemo ward, needed to see him when the oncologist pressed the stethoscope to her back or pointed to X-rays where the tumor in her lung glowed like a star. She needed him to interpret what the doctors said; she told him she didn’t want him to censor the information he got from the doctors when he talked to them alone, but he lied anyway and she knew it. When she asked him about the flashes of color in her peripheral vision, pinwheels and splotches and starbursts, he blamed the sun or tricks of light. When she asked about her ruined handwriting, he claimed to see no difference. When she asked how long she would live, he said you couldn’t trust doctors.

  Dressing for the appointment took over an hour. Breakfast had drained her, and now she was winded doing her makeup, weak-legged as she slipped into her skirt. Every button was a chore. How perfectly easy it would have been to stretch out and shut her eyes, but she pressed on because she’d already canceled the meeting twice. She thought to take a nerve pill, but decided against it; she was bleary enough. For years she’d rushed to dress for work and get Lee to school, and now she wondered how she’d ever managed. A wave of pride rolled inside her. The doctors had said her memory would fail, and often she’d forgotten what she tried to remember, but the unbidden past returned vividly. The musky scent of Richard’s hair gel; the sequined fabric she’d sewn for one of Lee’s Halloween costumes; years later, the noise of him and a girlfriend in the shower, thinking she should be angry, but really feeling pleased; the mower still idling on the afternoon she found Richard in the half-cut yard; the thought thirty minutes before, I bet he’s thirsty; the grass clippings on the glass of water she’d brought him. The memories assailed her, asleep or awake. She wore them like pearls.

  Lee drove because she no longer could. She swerved and veered, sped and stalled. Twice she’d gotten lost a mile from home. Both of them blamed her medication, but she knew the pills were not the problem. Now she rode in the passenger seat, checking herself in the mirror. Half-circles hung under her eyes; her face was gaunt and pale. Her makeup looked rushed. Her hair, though, was full-bodied and healthy. After the treatments, it had grown back thick and dark and lovely, another woman’s hair.

  “I feel like we’re going to a museum,” she said. “We’re all dressed up.”

  Despite the desiccating sun and humidity, she wore heels and a long-sleeved satin blouse. The sleeves hid the bruises that dappled her arms; the softest bump scarred her. Also, she was always so cold now.

  Lee said, “Too spiffy for ducks. I vote for lunch and a matinee.”

  “We can change clothes. I’ll want to sit in the sun after this.”

  Then a thought occurred to her. “But don’t dress me like this, okay? Just jeans and a T-shirt. Sneakers. No makeup.”

  “Okay, Mama.”

  “And no jewelry. The morticians steal it.”

  Lee adjusted the rearview mirror. As with talk of his father, he refused to discuss her dying. Yet she needed him to know these things. Because she’d botched the past year of his life, she strove to spare him her burial. The dementia would set in soon. No one had said that outright, but she saw it coming. Poor Lee. Listening to her babble and watching her body falter, feeding her soup and waiting, waiting, waiting for her last breath would be torment enough without fretting over her jewelry and car, her house and clothes and last wishes. In the recliner at night, she devised ways to slip information into conversations, but the ideas evaporated with the sunrise. Her ideas were dew and mists.

  “The last time I wore this, Daddy took me to The Nut-cracker, ” she said, though suddenly the memory seemed slippery, possibly completely wrong. “Nothing like that had ever come to Corpus. He bought tickets for Christmas. Your father looked dashing in a suit.”

  “And you look fabulous in red,” he said, glancing at her blouse. “You should wear it more often.”

  That she would never again wear the outfit was palpable in the car, and she waited for the feeling to disperse. They passed a corner where people sometimes sold puppies from truck beds, but none were there today. She hated the dogs being sold that way, but their absence always disappointed her.

  “Here’s a test,” she said. “What was in Dad’s car when I met him?”

  Lee shook his head. Richard had strolled into the office where she worked as a receptionist. He wore a tweed jacket, a full beard. She had said Just a minute, had said it in an abrupt, frenzied tone that made him chuckle, and he’d started calling her “Minute.” By the time he left, he was calling her Minnie, and it had become her name.

  “A poodle,” she said. “A little black poodle—I could see him through the window. Isn’t that something?”

  He smiled at her.

  They rode beside the bay, coppery light glimmering on the marbled water. She said, “Isn’t the weather gorgeous? We can walk a trail at the pond.”

  “You are feeling good.”

  She wanted to say “Fit as a fiddle,” but suspected the words might wound him, so she checked herself. And now that he’d acknowledged her energy, she was momentarily relieved of the charade. She was an actress between scenes, out of breath and nervous. Her heart raced. Outside, the blurred horizon seemed close enough to touch. She remembered going to the pond during chemo, Lee’s hand on her elbow as she stepped over the exposed roots of live oaks. Now, he turned a corner and the sun blinded them. He lowered both visors, but she pushed hers back up. The heat felt glorious on her battered arms.

  “Daddy used to fix pancakes for his poodle on Saturday mornings,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “His name was Peppy. He died before you were born.”

  THE MINISTER BEGINNING THE LAST PRAYER OF the service, Minnie regretting Richard being on a diet when he died. She wished she’d been able to cook for him that last month, to prepare one of her recipes he loved. What it would’ve been, she had no idea. Just as she had no idea how she would survive life without him.

  Lee folded the sheet of paper with his poem on it and slid it into his pocket; she heard the paper crease.

  Richard would have said she’d spent too much on his funeral—as he’d always said about the Christmas presents she bought—and they would have argued over the receipts at the kitchen table. He’d always meant to plan his funeral, to save her the trouble and prevent her from spending what she’d just spent. He was fifty-eight, and wet grass had kept bogging the mower. He’d said he would come right in; they were going to a movie that night. She hadn’t cried during any of this, not in front of anyone, not even Lee. She was proud of that. Maybe Richard would have been proud, too.

  “Amen,” the minister said, raising his head and opening his eyes.

  Shrimp, she thought. He might have wanted my fried shrimp.

  IN THE FUNERAL HOME, NOW, WITH LEE, SHE wanted a nerve pill more than ever. The high ceilings and tall windows and Spanish tile floors made her anxious. She sat on a plush couch while Lee registered with an old woman behind the reception desk. How the woman stood it, Minnie couldn’t imagine; how the water trickling in the stone fountain didn’t drive her mad. Behind her, heavy oak doors opened into the chapel, and down the hall were viewing rooms, the refrigerated floral displays. All of it nauseated her; she fought off a shiver. A slow, tinny music whispered in the speakers. Among the headstones, you could hear and smell the ocean, less than a mile away, but inside there was only the incessant gurgle of the fountain, the smell of frozen flowers.

  “Won’t be long,” Lee said.

  “That’s a lousy thing to say.”

  His eyes shut, a short exhale. “You know what I mean.”

  She rocked forward and straightened his shirt, something she’d done all her life; just then it seemed she could list every instance. She said, “Look at your collar. We can go shopping after our picnic.”

  He leaned back, his standard response. “How do you feel?”

  “Tense,” she said. “They’ll try screwing us into every little thing.”

  “Let’s hear what they say.”

  “They’ll say,
‘The more you spend, the more you care.’ ”

  She heard shoes clacking on the tile, but connected the sounds with the approaching man only when he loomed over her. She began levering herself up from the couch, cringing and struggling in the cushions until finally Lee supported her elbow. Her head swam in dizziness, and she worried she’d already exposed some vulnerability, forfeited an advantage. When she recovered, she flashed Lee and the man a smile. Their eyes were waiting for her to fall.

  She said, “Haven’t keeled over yet.”

  Lee adjusted his sleeves; the man chuckled politely. In a voice like a doctor’s, he said, “Mrs. Marshall, I’m Rudy Guerrero.”

  At first, she liked him calling her Mrs. Marshall, but walking to his office, she suspected the formality was a tactic to flatter widows, a calculated plea to trust his wet eyes and dark, expensive suit. She steeled herself. A large mahogany desk crowded the room, and she caught Lee admiring it. The Windberg painting on the wall was the same as the one in her oncologist’s office, but she still liked it very much: a deer drinking from a creek, gauzy morning light shafting through vines. She was staring at the painting when Guerrero unbuttoned his jacket and sat in the deep leather chair. He opened an embossed folder, patted a handkerchief to his brow.

  “Does a person absolutely have to be embalmed?” she asked.

  Guerrero folded his hands together, glanced at Lee. “Well,” he said, chuckling again. “State law doesn’t require—”

  “Perfect. Let’s skip that.”

  Lee sighed. Guerrero twisted the ballpoint of a heavy silver pen into place. Nodding, he said, “A tough customer—I like it.” Minnie heard the pen skimming across the desk. She glanced at Lee but he averted his eyes. Somehow she’d expected him to be pleased.

  She arranged to draft monthly payments from her checking account; then, if necessary, her life insurance would cover the rest. More than anything, she wanted to pay off the funeral. She and Richard had never discussed this, but there seemed a tacit agreement that whoever lived longer would sacrifice for Lee. Her last duty was to be thrifty with her dying. The practicality buoyed her. But as she deliberated between grave vaults and cement casing, between a church funeral and a graveside service, Lee voted against her. She wanted a plaque where he wanted a monument. He cracked his knuckles and shifted in his seat. She suggested compromises when she could, but nothing satisfied him. Maybe a mother’s funeral could never satisfy her son.