Slow Funeral

by Rebecca Ore

  Lula sat in the narrow kitchen that used to be a porch and said, “Your grannie hits me with her cast.”

  Maude put stewed apples and some vitamin C powder in the blender, then said, “You can sleep in the other bedroom. Grandmom needs to be able to get to the bathroom easily.”

  “You’re not used to our ways.”

  Maude turned on the blender and Lula twisted away and covered her eyes as if the thing had shrieked. Maude said, “If Grandmom wanted scurvy, she wouldn’t be eating what I’ve been making for her since she got back from the hospital.”

  “I’m going to take that cast off. It hurts me.”

  “You maybe should be thinking about who else you know that needs a nurse.”

  “You didn’t hire me. You’re just a leech.”

  “I’m her granddaughter.”

  “And where were you when she broke her arm, anyhow?”

  “I was out.”

  “You go out all the time. It’s not what a woman taking care of her kin should do.”

  Maude went in to feed her grandmother, who was sitting up by her sewing machine. Partridge said, “Someone’s took off the treadle belt.”

  From the kitchen, Lula called, “You don’t need to be piecing quilts now.”

  Maude said quietly to Partridge, “Does it bother you that she sleeps in the bed with you?”

  “She’s right. It’s the way we grew up.” Partridge fed herself, wincing as the food touched her sore gums, but still eating.

  “To sleep with someone…,” Maude couldn’t say with someone who’s dying; so she finished, “… with someone who’s sick. She’s got no concern for you, didn’t want to use the blender to make your food, wants your cast off so it doesn’t bother her when you’re sleeping.”

  “Do I hit her with it?” Partridge asked.

  “You need it on.”

  “She’s right. I can’t sew with my arm in a cast.”

  “Grandmom, she shouldn’t hide the treadle belt.”

  “I hear you all arguing. You’re closer kin, but Betty likes Lula better. She says Lula would be good for me.”

  “Grandmother, you’ve had such a hard life. I want to…”

  “Everyone wants to do something for my last moments, Maude. Hire a black Christian.”

  What? Maude knew her kin thought the Christians were silly. “Why black?”

  “Because I heard they died with smiles on their faces and didn’t come back talking to their kin.”

  “Perhaps that’s oblivion, not going to heaven.”

  “They’re pretty confused about whether you wake up in the arms of Jesus or sleep in the grave until resurrection, but I won’t be made a mock of. I’m not going to use witch ways to keep on going, either. I’m sick of all of it.”

  “We wouldn’t see you anymore.”

  “I want to be buried in a churchyard. I don’t think it’s really our people we see slipping from the graves at the old place.”

  “What do you think we see?”

  “Spirit mockers. Now, drop talking about that. I want to piece a quilt. I cut it out.”

  Maude searched through the various compartments in her grandfather’s oak desk. She found the treadle belt, but she also found a revolver. Partridge nodded. “Your granddaddy had a cousin who was a deputy. He took it off a murderer.”

  Maude moved a short lever on the gun and swung open the cylinder. It was unloaded. She said, “A killing gun.”

  “And willful. It needs to be well kept, considering the county.”

  Maude closed the cylinder and said, “Does Lula know it’s here?” Of course, she did, she went through everything in the house.

  Partridge said, “You should get rid of it, if you’re afraid of it. If you’re afraid of it, you’ll empower it.”

  “I better keep in mind that it’s nineteenth-century technology,” Maude said as she closed the revolver up in the desk and turned to fit the leather treadle belt to the Singer. “Guns and sewing machines both, machines from when it changed.”

  “My Singer’s not nineteenth century. Got it in 1954. It’s got all sorts of attachments.”

  Meaning that to Partridge this treadle machine was as modern as she could imagine. Maude found an ice pick and punched a hole in the leather to put the staple through, then found the instruction booklet and oiled the machine as the diagrams suggested. She felt calmer, as though both the gun and the sewing machine were machines against magic. “I could sew together your patches.”

  “You sew?”

  Maude wanted to ask how hard it could be if all the little old ladies did it. “I could learn.”

  “It’s a courting device. Shows a man you know how his mind works, all geometric. Like he courts you with intricate language when even plain talking’s hard for a man, and you court him with something hard for a woman, piecing spaces. Piecing this quilt will see me out. It’s my last quilt.”

  “Don’t say that.” Maude realized that perhaps to keep Partridge alive beyond this last quilt could be cruel. “Well, Grandmother, as you wish.”

  “I’ll live to see you piece it.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “It’s a log cabin. Not too terribly long. The best one for getting a man is windmills. You might start cutting you a windmill.”

  “I always thought piecing a quilt was tedious.”

  “It is tedious. That’s valuable. Shows a man you’ve got patience.”

  Maude opened the piecing bags and saw rectangles of cloth strung on thread, various colors and various sizes each strung separately. She felt intimidated and motivated.

  “You begin by sewing the red strip to the print,” Partridge said. “Use the thin masking tape as a seam guide. Lay it straight, right on the edge.”

  Lula came in and said, “My momma didn’t use no masking tape. She handpieced them, wrapped them up after midnight so they wouldn’t get witch-tangled.”

  “Maude’s learning,” Partridge said. “And there’s no point in handpiecing since the machine came in. Machine piecing’s tedious enough.”

  Maude thought that the machine and cloth going under it revived Partridge. She was passing an honest skill to a new generation. The women quieted as the machine whirred. Maude handed what she’d joined to Partridge, who said, “You need to redo here. There’s a seam ripper in there somewhere.”

  Seam ripping was the most tedious part of it, but Maude got the seam right and felt accomplished.

  “She’s gonna die from your making it,” Lula said.

  “I’d have died sooner,” Partridge said.

  Maude took her grannie’s good hand and squeezed it gently. The skin felt like old dressmaking patterns.

  Maude called Douglas. “Hi,” he said, meaning, what is this about?

  “I’m piecing a quilt.”

  “Back to the land and all that.”

  “No. It’s more like geometry in cloth, though this pattern isn’t so complex.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you, Maude.”

  “Can you get some time off?”

  “I may have more time off than I’d been expecting. The company I’m working for is talking about layoffs. You need any engineers in rural Virginia?”

  “Probably not. I don’t know. What’s your specialty?”

  “I’ve worked in optics, in film processing, computer images. World’s a bit behind me at this point.”

  “Can you call me back? I promised I wouldn’t talk more than three minutes.”

  He did, and Maude realized she was terribly relieved. That embarrassed her.

  “I could come see you for Thanksgiving, if you’re not having family visits.”

  “That’s next month.” If Partridge died before then, it would be in another era.

  “I’d like to see how things shake out here.”

  “So I have to face Halloween alone?”

  “I’ve been thinking about you, Maude.”

  “I’m happy to hear that. I got the stones.”

 
“The stones?”

  “The stones we collected at Point Reyes. Someone at Karmachila sent them to me.”

  “Oh. I gave them to Susan. I…”

  Fucked her. Thought so. “I’d love to see you at Thanksgiving, then, and thanks for calling back.”

  “Are things working out for you? You’re not too unhappy?”

  “I’m getting to know my grandmother better. I’ve still got my car, and I’ve got a cousin here. She’s got a falconry license and an Connemara-Arab hunter.”

  “Sounds neat. I’ll call before then.”

  “I’ll send you some photos of my grannie’s quilts.”

  Mid-October was the season of the last overflights of National Guardsmen and the sheriff’s deputies looking for drug patches. Most older Bracken County people hated having the helicopters overhead because that much unadapted machinery in the air spread logic all over the place and killed magic. Even people who didn’t rely on entities allied themselves to people who did, made secondary use of the magic. But the children looked around when the machines flew. Freed of a compulsion to stay in the county and fetch and carry for someone powerful, some local kids from the powerless classes joined the military under the protection of its vast machines—the helicopters, the jets from Norfolk that flew practice bombing runs against the high school, afterburner booms canceling a teacher’s drone forever. And left, got educated, and never came back.

  Maude heard the helicopter motor behind Taylorsville, almost as though the helicopter was larger than the town. The magic whipped away, leaving a hundred scuffling merchants with mortgages. As though they’d never seen it before, one or two stared at stock they could never sell in Taylorsville without magic: Guatemalan handicrafts, Orvis fly rods. The witch women’s beauty faded. The witch men’s faces became vapid or looked cruel. The other locals looked at their patrons and shuddered.

  The MiniCooper, which had been running well after the favor-doing stranger put Betty’s gas treatment in it, seemed to be an elderly car again. I need to take it to a real mechanic, Maude thought, then remembered she’d been planning to do this since she came here. Maude wondered if Betty could get out at all on a day with helicopters flying.

  At the grocery, all the bok choy looked like it had come from California by truck on a hot day. Maude wished she’d planted a fall garden, but it was too late now. She bought some frozen pita bread and a couple of cans of garbanzos and peanut butter to make poor hippie hummos bi tahani. I hate the food here. They’ve spent their whole lives eating what the Cherokee used for field rations: cornbread, beans, and some greens. Maude felt more aggravated than usual, no magic seduction laying a glamour over the difficult lives, the deep loyalties given by the powerless to those who never planned to honor their workers’ faith. The helicopter felt like it was directly overhead.

  Back home, she unloaded the groceries while Lula fussed at her for buying garlic and parsley. “Frills, don’t need ’em. Tongue shouldn’t be catered to.”

  “Lula, I miss the food I’m used to.”

  “You didn’t grow up here, that’s a fact.”

  “My dad and mom were from here, but they developed a taste for better food, more interesting food.”

  “We can’t afford to feed you like a foreigner.”

  “Garbanzos are cheap enough.”

  “Chick peas. What’s wrong with pintos?”

  In the afternoon, while the helicopters flew over the ridges behind the house, Lula sat in the room with Maude and Partridge. Maude sewed quilt squares, very carefully and very slowly. Lula said, “I don’t have nobody. No home. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Maude said. She looked over and saw how gnarled Lula’s hands were. One side of Lula’s face seemed drawn. Stroke?

  “My blood pressure’s bad. Hearing them helicopters doesn’t help. Montgomery County sheriff said he didn’t want them bothering people.”

  Partridge said, “Montgomery County’s different. It’s got Virginia Tech.”

  Lula said, “Betty was such a help to me. I’m not much on my own.”

  Maude, wanting to goad Lula while she was under the machines, said, “I haven’t seen Betty or her car today.” Remember, old woman, your patroness can’t stay up to logic.

  Partridge said, “You know you won’t see Betty today.”

  “While you were out, we decided that I’ve got to stay,” Lula said.

  “She hasn’t got anyone,” Partridge said.

  “Not much power, either,” Maude said. “Not crosscousin bred or outcrossed to other entity-ridden families.” Maude felt petty, but Lula so tempted her to be mean.

  The helicopter flew away and Lula’s face straightened and her hands seemed somewhat less gnarled. Lula said, “Pure t life is mean without something to believe in,” as though she stole Maude’s thoughts. She got up to fix more cornbread and pinto beans. When she was done, Maude would use the blender to make something Partridge could eat. Then, after Lula did the other dishes, Maude would clean the blender.

  Two days later, Maude finished piecing her first square. Because working on the quilt seemed like conjuring death, Maude stopped sewing. Partridge noticed that Maude just sat in front of the machine, not treadling, and said, “You don’t understand. I could die sooner if I didn’t have the quilt to wait for.”

  “I could be finished piecing in two, three months. I feel weird about it.”

  “I want to be buried in that quilt. I like seeing you at the machine, by my bedside. I’m sorry I didn’t teach you earlier.”

  Maude found the pieces for the next square. Partridge seemed satisfied.

  Terry called Maude on Friday and said, “Why don’t you have dinner with us. You’ve got someone who can take care of your grandmother, don’t you?”

  “She doesn’t do blenders,” Maude said.

  “Partridge wasn’t starving before…”

  “She was. I could blend up a soup and let Lula reheat it, I guess.”

  “John’s going to be here. I’ve been telling him about the helicopters that have been flying over this week. He says they’re probably doing war games.”

  “No, they’re looking for marijuana growers waiting for the last minute before frost.”

  “War games would have been more romantic. Well, can you come for dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  She went to her grandmother and said, “Would you mind if I went to Terry’s for dinner?”

  “Supper or dinner?”

  Maude remembered the local usage. “Supper.”

  “Don’t stay too late.”

  “I’ll fix something for you before I go.”

  “You resent being here, trapped with old people? When I was your age, I took care of my children and my old people.”

  Maude said, “I didn’t expect to have to do this. I’d like to get out more. It’s not that I resent you, please understand that.”

  “I would go out more, too, but it’s too late. You shouldn’t leave me with Lula.”

  “I need to get to know my other kin.”

  “Yes, gad about with the living.” Partridge drew her covers up to her chin and looked away from Maude. “Go, then. Leave me to be tempted. You’re such a self-centered bitch, gadding about, striding broad to open your legs.”

  Maude remembered another time when Partridge was difficult, arguing with her father’s people over the disposition of his body, telling them their God put them in a subservient position, saying that she mocked the Christians behind their backs, saying they were the Sunday Morning Church of the Saturday Night Sinners, thieves and backstabbers who did as they pleased because Jesus would forgive them even if the people they wronged or stole from wouldn’t. Even though her father hadn’t gone to church since he fled Bracken County with his bride, Maude’s father’s people took her father’s corpse anyway and buried it sanctified. “I’ll be back by midnight.”

  “Close up the sewing machine now, so the threads don’t get spirit-tangled if you’re late.”


  Maude put away everything connected to the quilt and drove to Terry’s house.

  Terry drove a midsized sedan in dark blue. Her husband’s car was a Bronco, which Maude thought was an odd car for a computer technician. The Bronco had gunracks. Maybe this man wasn’t meant to live in Richmond.

  Terry came to the door with her husband. “Hi, Maude, this is John.”

  “Your truck?”

  “Yes, makes quite a splash in Richmond.” John seemed to be peering at the world from behind two sets of glasses, one the real glasses he wore, the other some metaphysical distorters. A man ripe for bad magic, Maude thought.

  Terry said, “John likes the country. He’s spent time in Idaho, at Hayden Lake, wasn’t it, honey? His father’s family is old Richmond stock, tidewater plantations and all. His mother’s kin to us.” Maude followed her cousins into the living room where a semiautomatic pistol lay in parts on newspaper.

  “A semiauto… Colt?” Maude said, trying to be polite.

  “Like guns?” John asked. “I can get you a great deal on an Uzi clone. I’ve got a dealer’s license.”

  “We’ve got a revolver at the house.”

  “If I get laid off, I’m going to move here and get a concealed weapons permit. Terry says everyone here has one.”

  “Lots of people do.” Maude felt that the difference was that local people grew up with guns. Even though the locals understood how to handle guns better than most, guns still fired by alleged accident during family arguments, refused to make clean suicides, and whispered constantly about the power of 140-grain bullets and smokeless powder. They evoked killer entities.

  “I wonder if I could bring down a helicopter,” John said, putting the gun back together and aiming at the ceiling.

  Terry said, “I told him about the helicopters flying over looking for dope.” She didn’t seem to find John’s gun talk at all disturbing.

  Maude wondered if he was teasing what he assumed to be her peacenik sensibilities. Or did Terry magic him into this? “You ought to introduce yourself to your neighbors, telling them you’re going to be target shooting, and reassure them that you’re not careless with guns.”