My Heart Can't Tell You No

by M. K. Heffner

  ‘Ohhhh! Lew!’ Maddie seemed to wail inside. ‘Oh, Lew.’ She inched up to him, as if in a trance, her tears beginning. It would have been so much better—so much easier if he had actually looked dead—if he had looked like any other corpse. But he didn’t. There was a pinkish blush to his cheeks, not unnatural at all. There was nothing wax-like about his features. He seemed so relaxed. So peaceful. So—happy? Was he smiling? She looked again as she stood near his head. No, not a real smile. Not the grin he’d so often flashed to the world. But from so many years of smiling, he had obtained permanent laughter. A smile that wasn’t a smile at all, but a reflection of the love he held inside for life—for other humans. She felt Joe’s hands on her shoulders as she looked down at this dear, dear man who had a heart of gold. Oh how alive he looked as he lay in the casket wearing a soft blue cardigan. She smiled softly at him. She knew he’d be wearing a cardigan. After all, he was a young man of the cardigan era; an adolescent of the fifties. She watched his face, hearing words that had no sound. They were telling her, ‘It’s okay. Go ahead. You can touch me.’ Her hand went to his forehead, stroking, feeling the coolness of him, the stiffness of him. But it didn’t matter. He looked so alive. She might have just run into his living room from a day of hard play and found him napping on his couch. He was napping, that was all, only napping. Her hand continued to stroke his forehead, as her crying turned to sobbing, finally tearing herself away and pressing her face to Joe’s chest. Her arms going around him for all the strength she could take—his going around her for all she could give.

  “Come on. We should go out for the others now.” Joe turned her back toward the doorway.

  Joe picked up Robby and waited with Sarah as John and Beth moved into the viewing room. A few moments passed before they returned and let Sarah lead this small group back in to the casket. Her steps were slow, yet determined, as she moved to her brother, looking at the momentoes in the coffin with him. When she looked at his face, she reached immediately to cover his hand and stroke it.

  “Well, Lew,” she smiled down at him, although her eyes were filling with tears. “It looks like you pulled a good one on me this time.” She shook her head negatively. “Didn’t I tell you to take care of yourself?”

  Maddie and the others watched as she stepped back from her brother and turned to leave. She made her way back to the fourth row of seats lined up in the viewing room, sitting in the third seat from the end. The soft sobbing turned Maddie’s gaze back to her oldest son as he hugged John’s legs. His eyes barely tall enough to see Lew, but giving him a sufficient view of the great-uncle he had loved. Maddie moved her eyes upward, seeing how her brother strained to keep his grief inside before turning away and joining the rest of his family.

  “Do you know who that is?” Joe whispered to the son he held in his arms.

  “Uh-huh.” Robby’s thumb was about to go in his mouth again, until Joe’s hand caught it and pulled it back. “He’s sleeping.”

  Maddie and Joe took the boys back to sit behind Sarah, but Robby wasted little time before moving to sit in a chair next to his grandmother. Maddie sat directly behind him, with Jackie on her left and Joe on her right. She noticed that Robby gazed very hard at the man at the front of the room, going from a hard stare as he leaned against the back of the seat, to a rocking movement as he’d glance from Sarah to Lew.

  “Is he gonna get up soon, Gram?”

  “No, Honey.” Sarah took his small hand as she watched her brother. “He’s tired. He needs his rest.”

  Robby turned his head back toward Maddie. “Lew’s sleeping, Mommy.”

  “How are ya feeling, Sarah?” A low voice came from the side of the long room, from the doorway leading back into the foyer.

  Sarah turned slowly, looking up at the man who was moving to stand between the rows of seats at her chair. His gray pin-striped suit gave him an air of sophistication, but, as he looked down at Sarah, there was a love and admiration that was obvious. Sarah only smiled slightly then patted the hand he placed on her shoulder.

  “How are you, Sarah?” A tiny woman behind him asked.

  “I’m good,” she lied. “I’m okay.”

  The man gently patted Sarah’s shoulder. “I don’t want you getting yourself sick over this. He wouldn’t want it either and you know it.”

  “No,” Sarah sighed. “I don’t suppose he would.”

  “Sarah?” The man’s voice was suddenly passive as he looked at her, although he was ten years the woman’s senior. “How do you think he looks? They couldn’t find his red sweater. You know the one he always wore. They looked everywhere but couldn’t find it. So I gave him that one. Do you think it’s all right?”

  Sarah looked over at him with surprised confusion. Like Maddie, she didn’t know why he would be seeking her approval.

  “He looks nice, Harry. The sweater’s really nice too.”

  “Do you think so?” He seemed relieved. “It was one I got for Christmas a few years ago. I never wore it. I guess I just didn’t care for sweaters. So, I gave it to Janet and the boys for him. They called me when he was in the hospital. They called to say he was bad, but, by the time I put on my shoes and started for the front door, the phone rang again and they said he was gone.”

  “They called you?” Sarah’s voice held no emotion, but her family could hear the pain at not having the opportunity to be with him during that time.

  “They didn’t want you to know he was bad. You have to remember, Sarah, no one ever expected this. Not even Janet, I think. I think she still has it in her head that somehow he’ll be coming home again. And those who did realize what was happening, also realized they didn’t want to risk your health by telling you. They didn’t want anything to happen to you, as well.”

  “I would have rather been with him.” Sarah faced front.

  “We know that. But you’ve got to think of your health now. Lew would have appreciated your being there with him too—but then he would have died worrying about you. You know Lew.”

  “I—guess—you’re right.” She watched people walk up to the casket, people Maddie didn’t know. “Who was with him?”

  “They all went up. Except Wayne and Lewis.” He spoke of Lew’s third and oldest sons. Sarah finally looked over at her older brother.

  “Wayne? Somehow I thought he would have been the one at his side.”

  “Harry. Sarah. It’s been a long time,” said a man leading a small group of people.

  “Hello, Phillip. Margaret. Vesta.” Sarah looked up at the group. “Not long enough if you ask me, I mean funeral-wise, that is.”

  “Yes. We’re going fast now,” Margaret said. “Are these your children?”

  “Two of them.” Sarah turned slightly to look at Maddie and John. “This is my boy John. And my baby, Maddie.”

  “It looks like yer baby’s gonna have a baby,” the oldest of the group, Vesta, said. By her appearance, she seemed to be around ninety years old.

  “Her third. These two are hers. And the little girl is John’s,” Sarah said a bit loudly, revealing that the woman was hard of hearing, before turning back to her children. “This is my cousin Phillip and his wife Margaret, and this is my Aunt Vesta—your grandfather’s sister.”

  “What’s the matter with you kids? They tell me you’re sick now,” Vesta said to Sarah, making her smile slightly at the elderly woman’s loud bluntness.

  “I don’t know. I guess we all just inherited Mom’s weak heart,” Sarah told her.

  “Yer mom? That’s right, Mame did die of a heart attack. But what’d you expect? My brother had her pregnant with her eighteenth child.” She looked back at Maddie. “You say you already have two? And another one on the way? Who’s yer husband? Him?” Maddie simply nodded, the total openness of the woman amusing and fascinating her. “You don’t plan on getting her pregnant every year like my brother did—do ya? Eighteen kids is what killed that pretty lady more than a bad heart. All that wear and tear on a woman’s body. The man don’t hav
e to worry—he just plants his seed and watches it grow. But it’ll kill a woman sure as if you put a gun to her head.”

  “I—I—don’t—plan on having eighteen children. No.” Joe was flabbergasted as he watched the woman.

  “No? Then how many?”

  “I—don’t know. We—haven’t discussed it.”

  “Three kids already and you still haven’t discussed it?” she said with distaste, then looked back at Sarah. “You better keep an eye on those two. That’s how your mother and dad started out. He looks like a strong healthy boy—he’ll have her fat every winter. In twenty years there will be a pack of kids and no mother—and this fella will climb into the bottle trying to forget what he did to her.”

  “I’ll watch them, Vesta,” Sarah told her.

  “All right. Now, where am I supposed to sit?”

  “Sit up here if you want to.” Harry pointed to the seats ahead of him.

  “Hear that, Joe?” John whispered. “That means no more touching.”

  “Why in the hell didn’t she pick on you?!” Joe whispered back. “Your wife’s just as pregnant as Maddie.”

  “Probably because she was sitting all the way over there.” Harry whispered back to them. “She couldn’t see her.”

  “I saw her.” Vesta’s voice came back to them. “But he only has one—and looking at those two—two children will be about it. And that other one ain’t as green as the young filly back there. And the look that young fella has in his eyes back there—he’s just waitin’ for this one to come out so he can fill her belly with another one.”

  Maddie looked up at Joe with amusement as she took his hand, amazed to see for the first time in her life, a pink hue to his cheeks. She couldn’t help thinking about what a kick Lew would be getting out of this conversation.

  “Can’t keep nothing from you, can we, Vesta?” Harry said in a smiling voice.

  “Not if I can help it. Where’s his wife anyway? Didn’t he have a flock of kids too?” She gestured toward the front of the room, toward Lew’s body.

  “They’ll be arriving soon,” Harry told her.

  “I think I’ll go back for a cigarette.” Joe stood up and started back for the waiting room.

  “Daddy. Me too?” Robby whispered loudly, then ran after his father.

  “I think I’ll come too.” John stood up and followed in their direction.

  “Daddy, Lew’s sleeping. Shouldn’t we wake him up?”

  “No, Robby.” Joe took the boy’s hand and started for the waiting room.

  “Is that why we’re being so quiet? So he can sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  Joe was in and out of the waiting room throughout the night. Whenever the urge for a cigarette would rise, he’d go off but always return to Maddie’s side and just behind Sarah. It seemed to Maddie, that whenever the situation would become too heavy for her to bare, she only had to look up and Joe would be returning to her.

  It was especially hard for Maddie when she watched Janet enter the room with her two oldest sons, Lewis and Edward, and her thirteen-year-old daughter. Janet seemed to be walking in a trance—not seeing anyone but her husband as he lay before her. With a son on each arm, she seemed to sag before they shuffled her to the first row of seats. Her daughter stood helplessly at the coffin, her sobbing bending her young body as she leaned over her father until Edward finally made his way back to her and took her to a seat. With half of Lew’s children in the room with him, his other half remained in the waiting room, refusing to come out and look at him. The most adamant was his oldest daughter; she politely put off whomever suggested she come out. At sixteen, she was turning into a beautiful flower. Many there declared her resemblance to Sarah that night. Not many, though, knew of the special bond she had with her father. She had the sensitivity to always know when he was ill and needed help—and now a complete helplessness to do anything for him.

  The number of visitors who came to the funeral home that night was spectacular. Friends of Lew’s who would go immediately to Janet and offer their condolences, and relatives who would say a few words to Janet then go straight for their Aunt Sarah—even though, by that time, Lew’s two other sisters were sitting near, and his brother Harry was forever hovering over Sarah, they went to her. Maddie noticed the gleaming love she saw in each of her older cousins; cousins she was too young to know well, for most of Sarah’s sisters and brothers had been completing their line of children by the time Sarah was starting hers. How many of them came to Sarah to hold her hand and turn to Maddie with stories of how she had taken them to town for ice cream—or made them a pretty dress—or sat on a porch swing listening to their childish chatter when everyone else was too busy. There was a special pride in her eyes as Maddie watched her cousins come and always reluctantly leave when others came up for their turn. Each friendly enough, but determined to tell Maddie and John their stories, as if they were trying to tell them she was theirs first. And Maddie couldn’t help seeing the glow of motherhood that entered her mother’s eyes as she would gaze at each of these full-grown adults. Sarah Baker was a special person to these people—just as the man was who had brought them all there.

  Maddie looked up at her mother. Sarah and Lew were alike—just as they were opposites. The characteristic they had most in common was their enormous hearts. Oh, how they had loved Lew, just as they all loved Sarah.

  Maddie felt drained as Joe drove them home with a sleeping Robby and a tired Jackie. She could only imagine how her mother was feeling. They’d stop to check on her before going home and girding themselves to start all over again the next day.

  CHAPTER XLI

  The day of the funeral dawned with a crisp brightness that belied the frigid blast of the outside air. Joe had been sitting in the living room waiting for Sarah to get dressed. Robby was wrapped in a thick quilt as he lay with his head on the arm of the couch, watching early morning syndicated programs. Jackie was wrapped in a similar blanket as he sat on the floor. John was due any minute with his daughter, dropping her off for his father to watch.

  “Maddie, come in here a minute,” Sarah called from her bedroom.

  “What’s wrong?” Maddie entered the bedroom with her, and, although Joe couldn’t see the two women, he could hear their every word.

  “Nothing. Snap this.”

  “There ya go. All snapped,” she said after a long moment.

  “Maddie, wait. Tell me something—was it my imagination or did you walk up from your house and Joey walk up from his house this morning?”

  “No, it wasn’t your imagination. That’s where we slept.”

  “I thought you moved back together—finally.”

  “No, I stayed down at his place the night Lew died. But I’ve been staying at home the past two nights.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said slowly. “Then tell me this. Is that—or isn’t that an engagement ring on your finger?”

  “It is.” Maddie’s voice was amused.

  “Then why . . . ,” Sarah paused. “Never mind. I like it—the ring I mean.”

  “So do I.”

  “So why are you still living apart?”

  “As cold as it was, we didn’t want to shuffle the boys from his house to yours.”

  “Why didn’t he just sleep down at your place then?”

  “Probably because he didn’t like the idea of jumping out in this weather first thing in the morning just to go down for a change of clothes.”

  “He could have brought his clothes up with him.”

  “If you really want the truth, we just haven’t had time to think things out these past three days,” Maddie sighed. “I haven’t even asked him what he’s going to do.”

  “Marry you—I take it.”

  “Mm-hmm. That much we’ve decided. But we haven’t got around to telling the boys yet. Jackie’s been impossible since Lew died. He won’t even look at Joe. And the things he said when Joe told him about Lew—I couldn’t deal with it, at least until we’re past the services today.” />
  “Well,” Sarah came out of the bedroom as she moved into the kitchen. She was such a lovely woman—clothed in a dress of light blue, with her head held high. She was everything to be admired. “He’ll get over it. If he’s given half a chance. But if he doesn’t get over it—what then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, are you going to continue putting off the wedding just because Jackie doesn’t approve?”

  “I—don’t know.”

  Jack Baker entered the kitchen from the porch, his breathing telling everyone it was extremely cold outside. His steps carried him into the living room where he sat on a chair next to a heating vent. “The car’s started—and the heater’s already on. So, by the time you get out there, it should be warm enough.”

  The front door opened again and two pairs of feet rushed across the kitchen floor.

  “Well, look at you!” Maddie laughed. “You look like a frozen turkey.”

  “It’s cold.” Jenna’s voice vibrated with a huge shiver before John carried her into the room, bundled inside two blankets.

  “Sit her here,” Jack smiled as he looked up at them. “I’ll warm ya up.”

  “Pappy—it’s cold out there!” Jenna told him as John placed her on his father’s lap.

  “I know,” Jack told her. “The thermometer reads fifteen degrees—but that wind’s taking it down to about ten below.”

  “Ten below?” she asked as he unwrapped her.

  Joe got to his feet and went to the kitchen. The sight of Maddie fixing a thin chain around Sarah’s neck was breathtaking. The two women he loved most in the world. Joe looked at Maddie, her dark hair traveling down well past her shoulders now. She was a combination of youth and maturity, a combination of soft motherhood and heated desirability. When his eyes moved to her face, she glanced up at him, a tiny smile of knowledge curving her perfect lips, before looking back to the gold chain she was fixing for her mother.