A Death in the Family

by James Agee

  "Be with us all you can," she whispered. "This is good-bye." And again she went to her knees. Good-bye, she said again, within herself; but she was unable to feel much of anything. "God help me to realize it," she whispered, and clasped her hands before her face: but she could realize only that he was fading, and that it was indeed good-bye, and that she was at that moment unable to be particularly sensitive to the fact.

  And now he was gone entirely from the room, from the house, and from this world.

  "Soon, Jay. Soon, dear," she whispered; but she knew that it would not be soon. She knew that a long life lay ahead of her, for the children were to be brought up, and God alone could know what change and chance might work upon them all, before they met once more. She felt at once calm and annihilating emptiness, and a cold and overwhelming fullness.

  "God help us all," she whispered. "May God in His loving mercy keep us all."

  She signed herself with the Cross and left the room.

  She looks as she does when she has just received, Hannah thought as she came in and took her old place on the sofa; for Mary was trying, successfully, to hide her desolation; and as she sat among them in their quietness it was somewhat diminished. After all, she told herself, he was there. More strongly even than when he was here in the room with me. Anyhow. And she was grateful for their silence.

  Finally Andrew said, "Aunt Hannah has an idea about it, Mary.„ "Maybe you'd prefer not to talk about it," Hannah said.

  "No; it's all right; I guess I'd rather." And with mild surprise she found that this was true.

  "Well, it's simply that I thought of all the old tales and beliefs about the souls of people who die sudden deaths, or violent deaths. Or as Joel would prefer it, not souls. Just their life force. Their consciousness. Their life itself."

  "Can't get around that," Joel said. "Hannah was saying that everything of any importance leaves the body then. I certainly have to agree with that."

  "And that even whether you believe or not in life after death," Mary said, "in the soul, as a living, immortal thing, creature, why it's certainly very believable that for a little while afterwards, this force, this life, stays on. Hovers around."

  "Sounds highly unlikely to me, but I suppose it's conceivable."

  "Like looking at a light and then shutting your eyes. No, not like that but-but it does stay on. Specially when it's someone very strong, very vital, who hasn't been worn down by old age, or a long illness or something."

  "That's exactly it," Andrew said. "Something that comes out whole, because it's so quick."

  "Why they're as old as the hills, those old beliefs."

  "I should imagine they're as old as life and death," Andrew said.

  "The thing I mean is, they aren't taken straight to God," Hannah said. "They've had such violence done them, such a shock, it takes a while to get their wits together."

  "That's why it took him so long to come," Mary said. "As if his very soul had been struck unconscious."

  "I should think maybe."

  "And above all with someone like Jay, young, and with children and a wife, and not even dreaming of such a thing coming on him, no time to adjust his mind and feelings, or prepare for it."

  "That's just it," Andrew said; Hannah nodded.

  "Why he'd feel, 'I'm worried. This came too fast without warning. There are all kinds of things I've got to tend to. I can't just leave them like this.' Wouldn't he! And that's just how he was, how we felt he was. So anxious. So awfully concerned, and disturbed. Why yes, it's just exactly the way it was!

  "And only when they feel convinced you know they care, and everything's going to be taken good care of, just the very best possible, it's only then they can stop being anxious and begin to rest."

  They nodded and for a minute they were all quiet.

  Then Mary said tenderly, "How awful, pitiful, beyond words it must be, to be so terribly anxious for others, for others' good, and not be able to do anything, even to say so. Not even to help. Poor things.

  "Oh, they do need reassuring. They do need rest. I'm so grateful I could assure him. It's so good he can rest at last. I'm so glad." And her heart was restored from its desolation, into warmth and love and almost into wholeness.

  Again they were all thoughtfully silent, and into this silence Joel spoke quietly and slowly, "I don't-know. I just-don't-know. Every bit of gumption I've got tells me it's impossible, but if this kind of thing is so, it isn't with gumption that you see it is. I just-don't-know.

  "If you're right, and I'm wrong, then chances are you're right about the whole business, God, and the whole crew. And in that case I'm just a plain damned fool.

  "But if I can't trust my common sense-I know it's nothing much, Poll, but it's all I've got. If I can't trust that, what in hell can I trust!

  "God, you'n Hannah'd say. Far's I'm concerned, it's out of the question."

  "Why, Joel?"

  "It doesn't seem to embarrass your idea of common sense, or Poll's, and for that matter I'm making no reflections. You've got plenty of gumption. But how you can reconcile the two, I can't see."

  "It takes faith, Papa," Mary said gently.

  "That's the word. That's the one makes a mess of everything, far's I'm concerned. Bounces up like a jack-in-the-box. Solves everything.

  "Well it doesn't solve anything for me, for I haven't got any.

  "Wouldn't hurt it if I had. Don't believe in it.

  "Not for me.

  "For you, for anyone that can manage it, all right. More power to you. Might be glad if I could myself. But I can't.

  "I'm not exactly an atheist, you know. Least I don't suppose I am. Seems as unfounded to me to say there isn't a God as to say there is. You can't prove it either way. But that's it: I've got to have proof. And on anything can't be proved, be damned if I'll jump either way. All I can say is, I hope you're wrong but I just don't know."

  "I don't, either," Andrew said. "But I hope it's so."

  He saw Mary and Hannah look at him hopefully.

  "I don't mean the whole business," he said. "I don't know anything about that. I just mean tonight."

  Can't eat your cake and have it, his father thought.

  Like slapping a child in the face, Andrew thought; he had been rougher than he had intended.

  "But, Andrew dear," Mary was about to say, but she caught herself. What a thing to argue about, she thought; and what a time to be wrangling about it!

  Each of them realized that the others felt something of this; for a little while none of them had anything to say. Finally Andrew said, "I'm sorry."

  "Never mind," his sister said. "It's all right, Andrew."

  "We just each believe what we're able," Hannah said, after a moment.

  "Even you, Joel. You have faith in your mind. Your reason."

  "Not very much: all I've got, that's all. All I can be sure of."

  "That's all I mean."

  "Let's not talk about it any more," Mary said. "Tonight," she added, trying to make her request seem less peremptory.

  The word was a reproach upon them all, much more grave, they were sure, than Mary had intended, so that to spare her regret they all hastened to say, kindly and as if somewhat callously, "No, let's not."

  In the embarrassment of having spoken all at once they sat helpless and sad, sure only that silence, however painful to them all and to Mary, was less mistaken than trying to speak. Mary wished that she might ease them; her continued silence, she was sure, intensified their self-reproach; but she felt, as they did, that an attempt to speak would be worse than quietness.

  In this quietness their mother sat, and smiled nervously and politely, and tilted her trumpet in a generalized way towards all of them. She realized that nobody was speaking and it was at such times, ordinarily, that she felt sure that she could speak without interrupting anyone, but she feared that anything that she might say might brutally or even absurdly disrupt a weaving of thought and feeling whose motions within the room she could most faintly apprehe
nd.

  After a little while it occurred to her that even to hold out her trumpet might seem to require something of them; she held it in her lap. But lest any of them should feel that this was in any sense a reproach, or should in the least feel sorry for her, she kept her little smile, thinking, how foolish, how very foolish, to smile.

  Smiling at grief, Joel thought. He wondered whether his sister and his son and his daughter, if they were thinking of it at all, understood the smile as he was sure he did. He wished that he could pat her hand. By God, they'd better, he thought.

  Andrew could not get out of his mind the image of his brother-in-law as he had first seen him that night. By the mere shy, inactive way the men stood who, as he and Walter first came up, stood between them and Jay, he had realized, instantly, before anyone spoke, "He's dead." Somebody had murmured something embarrassed about identification and he had answered sharply that they'd managed to phone the family, hadn't they?, and again they had murmured embarrassedly, and ashamed of his sharpness he had assented, and there in the light of the one bulb one of the men had gently turned down the sheet (for he gathered a little later that the blacksmith's wife, finding him covered with a reeking horse blanket, had hurried to bring this sheet); and there he was; and Andrew nodded, and made himself say, "Yes," and he heard Walter's deep, quiet breathing at his shoulder and heard him say, "Yes," and he stood a little aside in order that Walter might have room, and together they stood silent and looked at the uncovered head. The strong frown was still in the forehead but, even as they watched, it seemed to be fading very slowly; already the flesh had settled somewhat along the bones of the prostrate skull; the temples, the forehead and the sockets of the eyes were more subtly molded than they had been in life and the nose was more finely arched; the chin was thrust upward as if proudly and impatiently, and the small cut at its point was as neat and bloodless as if it had been made by a chisel in soft wood. They watched him with the wonder which is felt in the presence of anything which is great and new, and, for a little while, in any place where violence has recently occurred; they were aware, as they gazed at the still head, of a prodigious kind of energy in the air. Without turning his head, Andrew became aware that tears were running down Walter's cheeks; he himself was cold, awed, embittered beyond tears. After perhaps a half minute he said coldly, "Yes, that's he," and covered the face himself and turned quickly away; Walter was drying his face and his glasses; aware of some obstacle, Andrew glanced quickly down upon a horned, bruised anvil; and laid his hand flat against the cold, wheemed iron; and it was as if its forehead gave his hand the stunning shadow of every blow it had ever received.

  Now these images manifolded upon each other with great rapidity, at their constant center, the proud, cut chin, and could be driven from his mind's eye only by two others, Jay as he felt he had seen him, the contact after the accident, lying, they had told him, so straight and unblemished beside the car, the dead eyes shining with starlight and the hand still as if ready to seize and wrestle; and as he had last actually seen him, naked on the naked table, a block beneath his nape.

  Somebody sighed, from the heart; he looked up; it was Hannah. They were all looking downward and sidelong. His sister's face had altered strangely among this silence; it had become thin, shy and somehow almost bridal. He remembered her wedding in Panama; yes, it was much the same face. He looked away.

  "Aunt Hannah, will you please stay with me here tonight?" Mary asked.

  Mama, Andrew thought, and his heart went out to her as he looked at her deaf, set smile.

  "Why certainly, Mary."

  Joel decided not to look at his watch. Andrew covertly glanced at the mantel clock. It was…

  "I hope Mama won't mind too much. I hope she'll understand. Poor thing. Mama," she suddenly called, and put her hand on her mother's hand and on the trumpet. Her mother eagerly tilted it. "I think it's about time we all tried to get some sleep." Her mother nodded, and seemed to be about to speak; Mary pressed her hand for silence and continued, "Mama, I've asked Aunt Hannah if she'll stay here tonight with me." Her mother nodded and again seemed to be about to speak. Again Mary pressed her hand: "I'd love it if you could, but I know how it would disrupt things at eleven-fifteen,"-"Hahh," her father exclaimed-"and I just…"

  "Tell her, Poll!"

  "Also, Mama. Also it's just-I hope you'll understand and not mind, Mama dear-it's just it would be so very hard for us to talk, quietly, and with the children and all, why I just sort of think…"

  "Why certainly, Mary," her mother interrupted, in her somewhat ringing voice. "I absolutely agree with you. I think it's so nice that Hannah can stay!" she added, almost as if Mary and Hannah were little girls.

  "I hope you know, Mama, how very much!-I hope you don't mind. I just appreciate it so much, I…"

  Her mother patted her hand rapidly. "It's perfectly all right, Mary. It's very sensible." She smiled.

  Mary put an arm around her and hugged her; she turned her aging face and smiled very brightly and Mary could see the tears in her eyes. She was speechless and her head was shaking in her effort to convey her love and the entirety of her feeling. "Anything I can do, dear child," she said after a few moments. "Anything!"

  "Bless you, Mama!"

  "Beg pardon?"

  "I said bless you, dear!"

  Catherine patted her hand on the back and smiled even more tightly.

  I love you so much! Mary exclaimed within herself.

  "Praps the children," Catherine said. "I could take care, if-it would be more, convenient…"

  "Oh, I don't think we should wake them up!" Mary said.

  "She doesn't mean…" Andrew began.

  "Tomorrow," her mother said. "Just, perhaps, during the-interim…"

  "That's wonderful, Mama, that may turn out to be just the thing and if it is I most certainly will. Most gratefully. It's just, I'm in such a spin it's just too soon to quite know yet, make any plans. Anything. Tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow then."

  "Thank you, Mama."

  "Not at all."

  "Thank you all the same."

  Her mother smiled and shook her head.

  Joel and his sister stood up.

  "Mary, before we go," Andrew said.

  "?"

  "It's much to late, Mary, you're much too tired."

  "Not if it's important, Andrew."

  "Let's let it go till morning."

  "What is it, Andrew?"

  "Just-various things we'll have to discuss pretty soon." He took a deep breath and said in a loud voice. "Getting a plot, making arrangements about the funeral; seeing about a headstone. Let's wait till morning."

  Earth, stone, a coffin. The ugly craft of undertakers became real and tangible to her, but as if she touched them with frozen hands. She looked at him with glazed eyes.

  "That'll be plenty of time, Mary," she heard her aunt say.

  "Of course it will," Andrew said. "It was foolish of me to even speak of it tonight."

  "Well if there's time," she said vaguely. "Yes if there's time, Andrew," she said more distinctly. "Yes, then I'd rather, if you don't mind. Tomorrow in the morning." She glanced at the clock. "Goodness this morning," she exclaimed.

  "Of course not," Andrew said. He turned to his aunt and said in a low voice, as one speaks before an invalid, "Let her sleep if she can. You phone me."

  Hannah nodded.

  "Must've…" Joel said, and went into the hall.

  "What's…" Hannah began.

  "Hat I guess. Mine too." Andrew left the room; in the hall he met his father, carrying his own hat, his wife's, and Andrew's.

  "Left them in the kitchen," his father said.

  "Thank you, Papa," Andrew took his hat.

  Catherine was standing uneasily in the middle of the room, holding her trumpet and her purse and looking towards the hall door. "Thank you, Joel," she said. She settled and pinned her hat by touch, a little crooked, and looked at Hannah inquiringly.

  It's all right, Catheri
ne," her husband said.

  Andrew was watching his sister. It seemed to him that these preparations for departure put her into some kind of silent panic. Maybe we should stay, he thought. All night. I could. But Mary was chiefly watching her mother's difficulties with the hat. No, it's the slowness, he corrected himself. Sooner the better.

  "Well, Mary," he said, and stepped to her and put his arms around her. He saw that her eyes were speckled; it was as if the irises had been crushed into many small fragments; and in her eyes and her presence he felt something of the shock and energy which had radiated so strongly from the dead body. She was new; changed. Nothing I can do, he thought.

  "Thank you for everything," she said. "I'm so sorry you had it to do."

  He could not answer or continue to look into her eyes; he embraced her more closely. "Mary," he said finally.

  "I'm all right, Andrew," she said quietly. "I've got to be."