“Muriel and Stan just pulled up.”
“Great,” I said, looking at my watch. “They made good time.”
“Blake?” Rita rested her hand in the small of my back.
“What?”
“Are you all right?” She rubbed my back lightly, and I looked down at her.
“Yes, I’m fine. Why?”
“I just wondered. You looked like you were thinking, or worrying about something.”
“Yeah, I guess I was thinking, but I’m all right. Just trying to keep track of everything that needs to be done.”
“Blake?” One of the women came from the kitchen. “We’re running out of cups. Do you have some more somewhere?”
I thought. “Teddy!” I yelled across the room.
Teddy came over, his face uncharacteristically unhappy. “Hm?”
“Get some of the other kids, run down to the your dad’s house and bring back some cups.” I held his arm, stopping him from running off, and turned to the woman. “Is there anything else we need?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
I turned back to Teddy. “Okay.”
He walked away, a slouch in his narrow, teenage shoulders. His pant legs stopped a few inches short of the tops of his shoes.
Rita was next. “Blake, Pastor Ludke wonders if you want to start early since Muriel and Stan are here.”
“No, I don’t think we should. I’m sure there are other people who aren’t planning to come until the service.” I was thinking of the house down the way, the second gathering.
Rita nodded. “That’s what I was thinking too,” she said. “I just thought I’d better make sure.” She turned and walked back over to Pastor Ludke, who nodded as she explained.
I made my way to the back door, hoping to catch Muriel and Stan so I could greet them privately, without an audience. But they were already in the door. I shook Stan’s hand and held Muriel, who cried softly.
“Where are the kids?” I asked.
“We decided to leave them with my folks,” Stan said. “It’s going to be a quick trip anyway. I have to get back to work day after tomorrow.” He shook his head.
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. Muriel pulled back from me, still holding my forearms, and smiled, her cheeks wet.
“How are you, Blake?”
“I’m holding together all right,” I said. “What about you?”
“Oh, Blake, it’s so strange. I never thought about Mom dying. I’ve always been so worried about Dad, I didn’t even consider her.”
“She’s just always been there,” Stan said. “She’s been there for so long, we always expected her to be there.” I saw a glimmer of moisture in the corner of Stan’s eye. “You’re a lot like her that way, Blake.” He looked right at me as he said this, and I felt a lump rise from my gut, right up past my heart, through my throat, and against the back of my teeth, sitting like a mouthful of oatmeal on my tongue. I knew if I said anything at that moment, it would come out in tears, and I looked down, swallowing hard. The blood ran to my neck, and needles of sweat tickled my forehead.
“That’s right, Blake,” Muriel said, pulling me against her again.
I relaxed into her arms, breathing deep, and felt a lone stream trickle from a corner of one eye. But I quickly wiped it away before stepping back and asking, “What do you two want to drink? We have coffee or stronger stuff. Might even be able to dig up some castor oil if you want.”
Stan laughed, and as always, his single, cheery “Ha” lifted my spirits.
It felt strange, wrong, not to have Bob among those of us who lifted the coffin to our shoulders and carried it out to the pickup. We drove the half mile to the hill where the other graves were and, once there, the same six unloaded the coffin, setting it next to the hole some of the neighbors had dug the day before.
Within minutes, the other, smaller group arrived. Bob and Helen led them to the site. They gathered to one side, so that there was an empty space between. Helen looked more distraught than anyone in either group, her mouth stretched into a frown. She cried when she saw the coffin, and Bob and their friends, including Steve and Jenny, closed in, surrounding her, putting their arms around her. I had to look away, and I fixed my eyes on the coffin until Helen was able to pull herself together enough for the service to begin.
The day was, in a word, glorious. A very light, warm wind whispered from the hay meadows, and the smell of alfalfa and sweet clover washed over the funeral. Soft, clean white clouds moved slowly across the sky, hiding the sun from time to time, shifting the light between a warm dusk and a pleasant afternoon. And the green rolled away from us like carpet in every direction, the gift of another wet season.
Pastor Ludke cleared his throat, and he captured Mom’s spirit nicely, talking of her tough, practical nature. He related the Hole in the Wall Gang story, and the murderer a few years before, which brought smiles to our faces. People grieved privately, with restraint, except for Helen.
Rita held my arm and sniffled, and Dad, just in front of me, bowed his head until the end, when he looked briefly up at the sky and pushed a sigh from deep within his chest. His shoulders lifted nearly to his ears and then fell as he exhaled.
None of us lingered. Once those designated began to lower the coffin into the ground, we left, the crowd splitting in two again, driving in different directions, to two different houses on the same tract of land.
The guests stayed for another cup of coffee and a snack. Everyone had brought food, and we had enough to feed the family for a week. Once the first of the guests found it an acceptable time to leave, the rest followed in short order, having one last brief word with the family. I was struck by the respect Mom had among those hundred or so in attendance. What was she like? I wondered. Mom had ruffled her share of feathers in her life, but many of the people she’d been in conflict with were there.
Whatever others thought of her, there was no denying that Mom was her own person. She spoke up when many women were afraid to, and on this day, even those who disagreed with her seemed willing to concede that this was an admirable woman.
But here’s what’s interesting to me about my mother. More than anyone else that I’ve lost in my life, I have reconsidered this question of what she was like as the years pass. In fact, the question has changed in her case to “What would she have been like?” Under different circumstances, what would my mother have been like? Because the word that I heard bandied about during the reception for my mother was “tough.” She was tough, all right. But was that really what she wanted to be remembered for?
I think not. I think more than anyone in our family, my mother’s personality was shaped by her life. She knew nothing but work, and because she did not question her lot in life, she probably didn’t think much about whether she was missing out on anything. She shouldered her load and carried it with a dignity that was almost invisible. But it wasn’t until years after she was gone that I wondered whether there were dreams she had never pursued. Perhaps dreams she had never even given voice to. I wondered whether she and Rita had ever talked about such things. And more than anything, this is what I grieve about my mother. She lived a good life. She was a good person. But what would her life have been like if she’d had more of a say in the matter? We’ll never know.
The worst part of these occasions, for me anyway, is when they’re over, when the guests are gone, and there’s still a good portion of the day left. For whatever reason, I always feel like I should be doing something with all that time. But it isn’t exactly appropriate to jump into work clothes and rush out to the fields. So the time crawls like the Little Missouri on the hottest day of summer. We sit in our dress clothes, the most painful part over, and nothing left to say.
If I were to revise the rules of grief, I’d say everyone should spend this time doing what they like instead of what’s appropriate. The problem with that, of course, is the same as with anything else. When other people are involved, if you do what you like, somebody will take it wrong,
or think you’re avoiding them. It’s the price of having a family, I suppose, following these unwritten rules.
Jack, who normally ignored such rules, stuck around this time, although he looked as if he wanted to tear the clothes off his body. He sat fidgeting in the dining room. The rest of us settled into the living room, stretching our legs out.
“That was a real nice service,” Muriel said.
“Yes, it was,” I said. “The old fella surprised me. I think that was the first time I heard him give a service for a woman when he didn’t say ‘she was an obedient wife.’ Made me think he actually knew her.”
Dad smiled, sadly.
“Blake,” Rita admonished me gently, “it’s not exactly a time for jokes.”
“It’s all right,” Dad said. “I’d rather laugh than cry.”
We all nodded.
“How was your drive down?” Rita asked Stan and Muriel.
“Real nice. Such a beautiful day,” Stan said.
“It really was,” Muriel said. “I love the mountains in spring. The trees are so green and the animals are coming out of hiding.”
A silence settled for a few moments, as we all looked at the floor.
“So what have you been reading about the war?” Stan plucked a cigar from the pocket of his jacket and bit the tip off. He held it toward me, and raised an eyebrow.
“No, thanks,” I said. “Never have liked the taste of those things.”
“Dad?” Stan asked.
Dad shook his head, but reached into his pocket and pulled out his pouch of tobacco and papers. I decided to have one too.
“Pearl Harbor was something, huh?” Muriel said.
“It’s pretty frightening,” Stan said. “The Nazis are willing to do whatever it takes, and now that they’ve got the Japs working with them, I just don’t know.”
“We should have jumped in sooner,” Dad said. “We waited too long.”
“I don’t think so,” Rita said. “I don’t think Roosevelt knew how serious this was until Pearl Harbor.”
“But the Germans!” Stan said. “They’ve been marching across Europe like someone taking a walk through their backyard. How could he not have known? He should have done something to stop that!”
“I think he did what he could without declaring war,” I said.
“But he should have declared war,” Stan insisted. “He should have declared war the minute they started bombing London. Because you know once they’re after England, they’re going to want us next.”
We all sat chewing that thought, drinking and smoking.
“What do you think, Jack?” Stan yelled into the dining room. “You were in the first war, right?”
A silence settled over the room that I could feel, like a cold winter wind. Everyone’s eyes dropped, and Stan looked around the room, sensing the chill. I waited for Jack’s reaction, wondering if he still believed we didn’t know. He had to realize that Rita’s presence made it impossible to lie. I glanced at Rita, who was glaring toward the dining room.
I heard a rustling, and heels against oak, heading through the kitchen, then out the back door.
“Oh, no. Now I’ve done it,” Stan said. He looked around, and Muriel looked puzzled.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is he still upset about the war? That was twenty-five years ago.”
“He was never in the goddam war.” Rita spat the words, her anger over years of secrets, worry, and fear fueling a raw, harsh voice I couldn’t remember ever hearing from her.
“I thought…” Muriel’s voice faded. “I thought he was.”
I thought back to the day that Helen revealed Jack’s secret at the dinner table, and realized that Muriel had been off at school in Belle Fourche by then. She wasn’t there.
“Muriel always told me he was. That you used to get letters from France,” Stan said.
“We did,” Muriel said. “What about his injury, his arm?”
Rita again spoke bitterly. “He hurt his arm in a bar fight. That’s why he was discharged early, before the war was over. And friends he met in boot camp mailed those letters from France for him.”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “Well, not that long. But maybe not worth going into right now.”
“Like Bob and Helen?” Muriel asked. “Is that not worth going into now too?” She looked around at each of us, and her face started to lose its color, a pale white covering her skin like paint. “What’s going on with this family?”
“Muriel, honey, simmer down,” Stan said. “Jeez, I didn’t mean to start something here.”
“I just want to know what’s going on.” Muriel spoke in a careful, measured tone, keeping her voice low. “That’s all.” She looked around at each of us.
Dad breathed deep, holding his hands over his face, so that his nose showed from between. He lowered them, then reached up with the back of one and wiped his eyes. He shrugged. “I can’t imagine why you want to know, but it don’t matter to me.”
“Why don’t I tell them,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Dad said, leaning back in his chair.
So, after taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I proceeded to tell Muriel and Stan everything they didn’t already know about Jack, Helen, and how all the stories fit together. It was actually the first time I’d told anyone about the letter Helen had stolen from my room, way back when, and when Dad heard this, he shook his head, his eyes closing with a look of dismay. When I told about the argument that prompted Bob and Helen to move, I had to admit I didn’t know the cause. I looked at Dad to see if he could help me out, but he shook his head again.
Stan and Muriel sat and listened to the whole story, he puffing on his cigar and shaking his head from time to time, she with her hands folded in her lap, clenched tightly together. Now and then, one hand would flutter away from the other, up to her face, where she brushed back a strand of hair or scratched behind her ear.
And I was surprised to find my body tensing up, my muscles tightening with each word. The emotions that had accompanied each event came back as I recounted them. I felt myself going through all the anger, hurt, embarrassment, and an overwhelming sense of sadness. Telling about the money Bob and Helen had stolen, I looked down to see that both hands were clenched into tight fists, recalling the indifference on Helen’s face. It seemed impossible that this was our family I was talking about.
Muriel and Stan asked few questions, as I left out few details. And when I finished, they both sighed and looked down at the floor for a while. Stan twirled his cigar in the ashtray, forming a point with the burning ashes.
“I had no idea,” he said.
Muriel turned to him as he said this, then looked back down at the floor, as if contemplating whether she had suspected any of this. She lifted her eyes to mine, and they looked very sad.
“Neither did I,” she said. “You sure do keep a lot to yourselves.”
“Well, there’s not much you can do about it from out there,” Dad said, a little irritably. “There’s not much anyone can do about it.”
Stan leaned forward, looking past Muriel at Dad. “She wasn’t criticizing you, Dad. Were you, Muriel?” She shook her head. “It’s just that we, especially Muriel, sometimes worry about you folks out here. I’ve always said I’d be glad to help you out any way I can, and you’ve never asked. We don’t know if it’s because you don’t need help, or if you just aren’t saying.”
Dad looked away, squinting through the smoke from his cigarette. “There’s still not much anyone can do about any of this.”
Muriel threw her hands in the air, and turned her head to one side, her nostrils flaring. “So that’s it, then,” she said. “Is that all there is to it? Because we can’t do anything about it, we don’t have a right to know what’s happening in our own family.” She turned to Dad, who did not meet her gaze.
I felt the need to jump in. “I think all Dad’s trying to say is that we don’t see any reason to worry all of you out there when you have probl
ems of your own. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Dad remained in the same position, his eyes distant and narrow, his whole body turned away from us, legs crossed. “Well…not exactly,” he said.
“So what then?” Stan asked. “If that’s not the reason, then I don’t get it.”
Dad took a drag off his cigarette, the paper burning down to his fingers, and crushed the butt in the ashtray. He exhaled through his nose, a thin stream of smoke drifting from each nostril up toward the ceiling. “The way I see it, if a body decides to move away from their family, well…” He lifted one weathered hand, as if that explained everything, and he said nothing more.
Muriel lifted her chin, taking short breaths in through her nose and clamping her hands together, the knuckles white. “I see.” She nodded. “I think I understand,” she said. She stood up, slowly, and walked from the room.
Stan ground his cigar into the ashtray and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He locked his hands together, the fingers relaxed, curved slightly. He held this position for a long time before he spoke. “Dad, I’m sorry this came up today. It wasn’t the right time to talk about family matters. But I’m hoping that your grief is affecting what you say. And I hope you didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He said this in his deep, steady voice, speaking directly at Dad without a pause. Then, without waiting for a response, he rose and went to the room where Muriel had retreated.
Now it was just Rita, Dad, and I, and if there was ever a time I felt helpless, it was that moment. I sat exhausted, as if I had just relived the last twenty-five years of my life.
“Dad, is there anything you want, some coffee or anything?” Rita asked.
He shook his head, and I said a silent thank-you to Rita as the gesture made it somewhat comfortable for us to leave the room. I stood and stretched my arms out in front of me. Rita stood beside me.
“I think I could use a nap right now,” I said.
“Actually, that sounds pretty good to me too,” she said.
So we went to separate rooms and lay down, leaving Dad alone, staring out the window. It seemed to be what he wanted.
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