“What in the name of Jesus do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m saying some prayers for Beulah.”
Seeing his look of horror, and knowing he didn’t really give a damn his wife had died, she felt compelled to add, “They’re called Hail Marys. I said three of them. Catholics pray to the Holy Mother of God at a time like this for the repose of the soul of the departed. It’s just one of the things we do.”
Before he had a chance to reply, she walked past him, out of the bedroom and out of the house.
As she drove home, it came to her that Beulah had, after all, died fairly peacefully. She was a very sick woman, and if the doctors had been right, her days were numbered. Dying instantly in her beloved garden had probably spared her months of suffering.
She stopped at the Western Union office and sent a telegram to Bob. Early the next morning, and after all this time, he telephoned her.
“Hello, Baby.”
“I’m so sorry, Bob, so sorry,” she said, when she could find the words to speak. “You were so close to coming home and your momma was looking forward so much to seeing you.”
“Yeah, I know, I know. Did she suffer any?” His voice sounded weak, strained.
“She didn’t suffer at all, so you don’t have to worry. We’ll miss her, won’t we? She was very special to me. A good friend.”
“Yeah well, I knew you’d get along just fine. I guess Daddy can handle everything, him being a preacher and all.”
“Yes, you needn’t worry about that. He’s got everything under control. You just try to get well and strong so you can come back home soon. Are you in any pain?”
“Not much. It hurt like hell at first but it ain’t so bad now. I got my two legs and ain’t that a blessin’? I’m gettin’ out of the army. They’re givin’ me a medical discharge.”
“I guessed they would. When will you be home?”
“It shouldn’t be all that long now. I can’t wait to see you, Baby.”
“It’ll be wonderful to see you too. It’s been a long time.”
Her mind whirled. How would it be when he came home? Would things be different for them?
“I’ll be home real soon. You give Momma a good-bye kiss from me.”
“Yes, I will. Try not to worry.”
“Bye, Baby.”
* * *
Piped-in music played softly in the funeral parlor. Kathleen stood side by side with Otis and Selma as one after another of the residents of Eddisville stopped by to pay their respects.
This was Kathleen’s first experience with an American-style funeral, and she couldn’t help but compare it with her little town in England, where there were no funeral parlors such as this. It was the custom where she lived for the coffin to be placed on a table in the best room of the home until the funeral. In the case of Catholics, candles would be burning, and a nun usually sat close to the coffin keeping a deathwatch over the body. She looked at Otis and wondered what he would think of such a custom.
Nobody here said Beulah had died. They all said she’d passed away. The open coffin, which Americans called a casket, was in an alcove in the large room.
Ever since Kathleen had known her, Beulah had never so much as put on lipstick. She felt her mother-in-law would scoff at the soft pink light, placed at the best possible vantage point, which now shone on her made-up face.
Kathleen liked the American custom of dressing the deceased in everyday clothes. Much better than a shroud. Beulah had on the dress Kathleen herself had bought for her at Christmastime. She’d never seen her wear it until now.
Not wanting to be alone with Otis and Selma, Kathleen left the funeral parlor with the last of the visitors. But because she had a strange longing to be with Beulah one last time, she waited on the funeral parlor steps the next morning, the day of the funeral, for the doors to open.
Gently she stroked the cold, dead hand. “This is a letter I wrote to you last night, Beulah. I think you’ll probably be able to read it now.” She placed the folded sheet of paper in the pocket of Beulah’s dress.
“We were really a shock to each other when we first met weren’t we?” She allowed herself a smile when she saw herself for the first time through Beulah’s eyes. “We sort of grew on each other though. I’m going to miss you Beulah, and I wish we could have made that trip to England.”
* * *
It hadn’t seemed to Kathleen that Beulah Conroy had any friends in life, but the Holiness Church of Jesus was crowded for her departure from it. As Kathleen took her seat at the front beside Selma, she nodded discreetly to all the people she regarded as her friends who sat directly behind. Her heart swelled with gratitude. Why, they all but filled two pews. Freddie Conroy was there, along with the Simpsons from next door. Dr. Parker sat with Sarah and William Tate, who sat closest to the aisle. Lennie Barlow and Bernie sat behind them with Johnny and Mary Mayhew. Next to Mary sat Patsy and Ed Ashcraft.
Kathleen watched Otis Conroy glance through his Bible as he walked slowly toward the lectern. He stood with his head down for at least half a minute and finally looked out over the sea of faces in front of him as if taking count. When his eyes focused on her and stayed there, she felt a slow heavy beat start in her chest. Without taking his eyes away from her face, Otis closed his Bible and came down the steps to stand in front of her.
“It’s been a long time since you were in this church.” His tone was probably as agreeable as he could make it. “I’m sure Selma appreciates your coming as much as I do.”
Kathleen only nodded in reply.
“It was Homer’s idea to close the casket. I reckon you told Beulah good-bye last night at the gatherin’ of friends.”
“Yes I did. And I went again to the funeral parlor early this morning. Last night I wrote a letter to Beulah. A silly idea I suppose but it was just to let her know I cared. I took it to her this morning and put it in the pocket of her dress.”
A ripple of fear ran through her when Otis leaned toward her, his face dark, sinister.
“Why did you do that?” he hissed. “She can’t read, and anyway, she’s dead ain’t she.”
Kathleen pressed back against the pew. “I suppose I did it more for myself than I did for her. Still, you never know, maybe she can read it now.”
“I ain’t never heard tell of anyone writin’ a letter to a dead person and puttin’ it in the casket,” he said through his teeth. “If that ain’t the strangest thing I ever heard tell of. What did you say?”
Before she could answer, Homer Conroy came down from the platform.
“Otis, are you coming on up here?” he whispered urgently. “We gotta be getting on with this.”
Her father-in-law turned from her then and with Bible in hand, mounted the steps to the pulpit.
Facing the congregation, his angry look was now replaced with one of humility and grief. He smiled a sad smile, the perfect expression for a preacher who had just lost his wife. Kathleen watched him in morbid fascination. What an actor he was, what a fake. When she’d told him about the letter she’d put in Beulah’s pocket, for some reason known only to himself, he’d been extremely agitated. Now though, up there where he obviously thought he belonged, he was more at ease. He looked relaxed and talked almost cheerfully of Beulah and their life together.
“My wife just loved growin’ things in her garden. She told me she felt more peaceful there than anywhere else except when she was in this church. And now she’s crossed over into Glory Land.”
Talking all the while, his gaze once more roamed the church. His face beamed now, filled with a sort of exultation. Steadily he worked his way from the very back all the way to the front, until finally his enigmatic gaze locked with hers. He stared at her with a look bordering on surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to see her there, as if he hadn’t talked to her just minutes before. His face turned a shade paler and he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the sweat that suddenly appeared on his brow.
He began talking faster a
nd at a higher pitch until he abruptly stopped talking. He tilted his head slightly as if listening for a sound, a sound nobody else in the church could hear.
Kathleen looked uneasily around as people turned to one another, clearly puzzled by his behavior. What was the matter with Preacher Conroy? They’d never seen him like this before. Otis, apparently realizing he was losing the thread of his thought, looked desperately around the church.
Then his wild amber eyes fastened again on her. “It’s this woman who’s at fault here.” His voice was an octave higher than usual as he pointed at her accusingly, his arm outstretched. “She comes sneakin’ into my house while my wife’s in the hospital and, well, Selma and me, we…”
“Daddy!” Selma, her face chalk white, screamed the word either in fear or in warning. Then, with a moan, she crumbled to the floor.
Kathleen tried to hold her as she fell but Selma slipped from her grasp.
Dr. Parker was beside her in an instant, lifting Selma from the floor. He motioned to two male members of the choir to come forward. After he’d spoken to them urgently, the men carried her through a side door.
Kathleen watched Otis, visibly shaken, once again walk down the steps from the podium and come toward her. The hammering of her heart eased when she felt, rather than saw, William Tate and Freddie Conroy join her in the pew, one on either side.
Dr. Parker beat Otis to it, intercepting him as he reached the pew. “You’d better pull yourself together, Otis. Whatever Kathleen saw, or you thought she saw, has got nothing to do with this service. How about if we just get on with it.”
“Yes, but last night she wrote a letter to Beulah. She told me she did. She went to the funeral parlor this mornin’ and put the letter in the casket. What with Beulah bein’ dead an’ all, it just don’t seem fittin’.”
Otis talked softly but in his agitation it was loud enough for people close by to hear at least snatches of what he said. A murmur rippled through the church as his strange words passed from row to row.
Dr. Parker motioned to Homer Conroy, standing uncertainly on the podium. “I’m taking Otis outside for a breath of air,” he said. “Why don’t you take over? Tell the congregation he’s overcome with grief. Tell them anything.”
As Otis was led away, the buzz in the church became louder. Homer stood in front of the lectern and raised his hands for silence. “My brother isn’t able to continue. I warned him against officiating at the funeral service for his own wife. Will y’all now join me in prayer for him and his daughter Selma who are grieving so sorely.”
* * *
Otis and Selma were not at the graveside when Beulah was buried in Sunset Memorial Park on the edge of Eddisville. Kathleen wished she hadn’t told Otis about the letter. It seemed to have unhinged his already fragile hold on reality, and she didn’t doubt that if the coffin hadn’t already been closed, he would have taken the letter out and read it. Was he frightened of its contents? But what harm could it do in the pocket of the dress on a dead woman in a closed coffin who was about to be buried?
Kathleen knew Otis wasn’t sorry Beulah had died, and she’d seen firsthand his contempt for her. Had Beulah known of his sexual liaison with their daughter? Maybe Selma and Otis made no secret of it when Beulah was in the house. After all, if she had mentioned it to anyone, who would have believed her? Kathleen felt sick at the thought.
People hung around the cemetery and a few talked of Otis’s strange behavior, but in the main it was viewed as an outpouring of grief. The parishioners from the Holiness Church of Jesus thought the world of Preacher Conroy. Hadn’t he saved many a one from the clutches of the devil?
Kathleen was grateful when the Tates invited her to dinner that same evening. To get her mind off things, Belle had said. Tears of gratitude sprang to Kathleen’s eyes. She felt vulnerable and decided to tell them about Otis’s bargain. Sarah wouldn’t be there, Belle had said, so this would be an opportune time. Not that she didn’t like or trust Sarah, but she wanted only the Tates to know.
After the dishes were washed, and they sat at the card table ready for a game, she told them about the day she’d entered the house on Bennington Street and what she’d seen in the bedroom when she bent by the telephone to pick up Beulah’s glasses. At first she’d planned to tell them everything, about Otis watching through the bedroom door and the way he’d fondled her on the stoop. But the incest was enough, enough to let them know he might want to harm her.
“Was Selma being raped?” Belle asked.
“No, no, there was no way you could call it rape. As much as I hate to say it, she…well, I suppose you could say she was willing.”
Mr. Tate looked at her almost angrily. “Why have you kept this a secret all this time? Don’t you know you could have been in danger?”
She told them about the bargain with Otis, how he promised to take good care of Beulah if she told no one what she’d seen. She took a sip of the iced tea Belle had put before her. “I never would have told you if Beulah had lived, but now that she’s gone, I’m wondering if Otis will come after me.”
She shuffled the deck of cards in front of her, then shuffled them again. “He may be afraid I’ll gossip about it, especially because I work at the Gazette. Remember how that incident regarding the old lady who died in his church made the paper? He could be afraid something like this would happen again, but this time it would destroy him.”
“You’d better move into this house with us,” Belle said. “At least for a while. We’ve got the guest bedroom and you’d have your own bathroom.”
Kathleen jumped at the offer. “Are you sure you don’t mind? It would only be for a few days, until I see how Otis is going to react.”
“You can stay as long as you want to,” Belle said as she patted Kathleen’s hand.
“What does your family think of all that’s happened to you since you came here?” her boss asked. “Aren’t they worried sick about you?”
“They don’t know. I’ve never written about anything bad. I only tell them the good things. Oh, they know Bob’s in Korea and that he’s been wounded. But they don’t know about how strange Otis is except that he’s a preacher.”
She shuffled the cards once again before dealing them seven cards each.
* * *
Five days later Freddie called her at the office and asked her to join him for lunch in Todd’s. He’d already ordered for them when she arrived. Two hot dogs, all the way, french fries, and a couple of Nehis.
“You ain’t gonna believe this,” he said. “But Otis has gone.”
Kathleen almost choked on her Nehi and reached for a napkin. “What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“He’s left Eddisville, left South Carolina, and Selma’s gone with him. Uncle Homer told Momma that Otis found himself a church in Tennessee that’s in need of a preacher. To hear Otis tell it, they’ve been asking him for ages, and every time they asked, he told them no. When they asked again on the day we buried Beulah, he said yes.”
Kathleen sprinkled salt on her french fries. Could Otis really be gone? Was she free of him at last?
“What about the house and everything?” she asked.
“He didn’t own the house,” Freddie said. “It belongs to the church. They let Otis live there rent free on account of him being such a good preacher and all.”
“Oh.”
Freddy looked quizzically at her. “Something happened in the church between you and Otis, didn’t it? Otis acted all torn up because you’d put a letter in Beulah’s casket. I heard him say it and it didn’t make no sense to me.”
“It didn’t to me either, Freddie.” Kathleen deliberately acted puzzled. “I’ve always told you Otis was sort of strange. Maybe you’ll believe me now.”
Freddie nodded as he smothered his french fries with ketchup. “I used to think Otis was, well, sorta holy, but he ain’t, is he. I guess you’re right, Kathleen. He really is kinda weird.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to tell Bob.”
/> She knew that even though Otis’s leaving Eddisville was just about the best news she could get right now, Bob wouldn’t look at it quite the same way.
“He’ll be coming home any day and he’s going to find everything changed for him. Not only has his momma just died, but his daddy and sister have moved away.”
Freddie swirled the ice in his glass. “I’ll help you think of something. I suppose you’ll be going to the airport to pick him up?”
“Yes, and I hope you can come with me. You and Mary. Bob said he can’t walk far yet, and I’m thinking he might need the strong arm of a man to lean on.”
“Unless it’s a Sunday or nighttime, Mary won’t be able to come, because she’ll be working. I can always change shifts with someone so you can count on me.” He stared off across the restaurant. “I’m wondering how it’s gonna go between you and Bobby. I still ain’t changed my mind about him. You sure hit the jackpot when you married into that family. Bobby Conroy didn’t have no business doing what he did, going back into the service and leaving you here all alone, especially after you’d already come so far.”
He took a savage bite of his hot dog. “I remember the day you first came to town, looking all lost and lonely, standin’ outside Gus’s, and tryin’ to look like you didn’t give a hoot no one was there to meet you. You gave up everythin’ you’d ever known for Bobby Conroy. If you ask me, he deserved every damn thing he got.”
Kathleen wanted to tell Freddie this sort of talk wasn’t what she needed to be hearing right now. She was worried enough about the upcoming reunion with Bob without him piling on the agony. Still, she knew he spoke this way because he really cared about her. She’d never known until she met Freddie Conroy that a friendship with a member of the opposite sex could be purely platonic. But this was indeed the case. She loved him like a brother and felt as comfortable with him as she did with anybody.
Different Drummers Page 19