The Funeral Dress

by Susan Gregg Gilmore

  “Why don’t you leave this girl alone,” Easter said, growing excited, the large jellylike lump on her neck starting to shake.

  Norma Barker, another lapel maker, came from behind and reached out to hug Wilma. But Wilma kept her eyes locked on Runt and Mettie, and Norma walked on. A few others paused as they walked past them, trying to decipher what was happening there among the dead. Even Mr. Fulton moved closer, but he kept his grip tight on Nolan’s coat sleeve.

  Runt took Mettie’s hand. “Look ladies, Mettie and me are taking the baby home with us. Emmalee knows it. This ain’t no surprise to her.”

  Easter narrowed her eyes and carefully pushed Emmalee behind her. “Why would you go and do that, Runt? Emmalee’s a good mama. She had a rough start for sure. There’s no denying that. But she can do it.” Easter looked toward the fresh graves and shook her head. “Leona knew she could, and I bet Curtis felt the same way.”

  Mettie squeezed Runt’s hand. “Mrs. Nichols,” Runt said. “I believe even you would agree a baby don’t need to be raised in my brother’s house, no matter how good the care.”

  “She don’t have to be raised there,” Easter shot back. Wilma tried to say something, too, but Easter cut her off. “Emmalee can live with any of us. She don’t have to go to Red Chert.”

  “She ain’t living with strangers,” Runt said. “The baby ought to stay with the best of its family.”

  Easter leaned toward Runt. “Emmalee’s proven she can do anything she sets her mind to. You seen that dress she made. She could make a good living doing things like that. I tell you this girl can do whatever she wants, even raising a baby way back there in Red Chert if she has to. But like I said, she don’t have to be in Red Chert if she don’t want.”

  Runt exhaled, his breath blowing white against the graying sky. Mettie nudged Runt’s ribs, and he drew in a deep breath. He grabbed for Emmalee, but Cora swatted at his hand.

  “Oh, Lord, you don’t need to get Cora going,” Easter said and laughed. “Don’t let her age fool you. She can throw a pretty mean punch, and she’d think nothing of doing it right here on the church grounds.” Easter clapped her hand over the cross she was wearing around her neck. “See, I can’t do that. I’m a real Christian woman. But it wouldn’t bother Cora none, would it, Cora?”

  “Nope. Wouldn’t bother me at all.” Cora inched toward Mettie, her arms by her side. “And I don’t think you want to get into it with an old woman here, with the preacher standing by. Do you, Runt?”

  Mettie dropped Runt’s hand and crossed her arms across her middle. “I’m sorry, Emmalee, Mrs. Nichols, Cora,” Mettie said, her tone harsh, “but I can’t leave without the baby. I got to know Kelly Faye is safe.”

  Emmalee turned away from her aunt and faced the men in the green jumpsuits. They handled the shovels as if they were children’s playthings, pushing the metal tips into the pile of red chert and easily tossing another bit of earth back into the open graves. Their motion was steady, and their brows were moist with sweat even though the temperature outside remained cold. With every shovelful of dirt, Emmalee watched Leona sinking farther away. She was disappearing right there in front of her, like her very own mama had done all those years before.

  “Are you even listening to me, Emmalee?” Mettie asked. “We’re talking about your baby here.”

  Emmalee handed the baby to Easter and stepped toward her aunt. “Funny how you never paid me a bit of attention till I got me something you wanted.”

  “That’s not so,” Mettie said, her voice frantic. “Me and Runt are doing this for you and the baby.”

  “For me. Hell, Mettie, you never cared about me.” Emmalee pushed even closer till she could feel Mettie’s breath on her face and smell the jasmine perfuming her skin. “You know, I can’t help you’re drying up and ain’t got no baby in your house. But Kelly Faye ain’t your baby, no matter how bad you want her to be. So go on and get the sheriff,” Emmalee said and took her baby back in her arms. “This ain’t going to be as easy as you think.”

  Mettie stood quiet, swaying on her high heels sunk deep in the wet ground.

  “Go on,” Emmalee said, her voice so soft it was nearly swept away in the wind blowing stronger and colder than it had in the morning. Mettie’s coat slapped at her thighs, and she extended her arms like a tightrope walker trying to regain footing.

  Mrs. Cain held her hand to Runt’s ear and said something in private. Runt nodded. He placed his hand at the small of Mettie’s back and slowly led her away. Mettie’s shoulders slumped forward and shook. Runt stopped and wrapped his arm around her waist, and Mettie leaned against her husband. Runt didn’t bother speaking to Nolan as he passed him by.

  “Oh hell, Doris,” Cora said, interrupting the quiet, “you know I ain’t got much. My place ain’t much better than Nolan’s, I imagine, but I raised three kids there with nobody ever trying to take them from me.” Cora kept her hands on her hips and stepped toward Doris. “Like I said, my place ain’t much but it’s clean, and I’ll take in more if I need to.”

  “That’s right,” Easter said. She stepped up next to Cora, and Wilma fell in behind her. “Me and Wilma got room. We’d help. You know that. What’s got into you, Doris? I’ve never known you to go around yanking babies from their mamas. You gave up on Emmalee before she ever got started.”

  Doris shook her head. “Maybe I’ve just seen more than you three and don’t have that kind of hope anymore.”

  Brother Herd and Mr. Fulton stood by the women, listening to their offers to take Emmalee and Kelly Faye home. Mr. Fulton looked to his wife, but Hester ignored him and walked back to the church, disappearing through the front door.

  None of them noticed Nolan sneaking up until he grabbed Emmalee around the arm and pulled her from them.

  “Come on, girl,” Nolan said, “we’re going home.”

  Cora shifted her pocketbook to her right hand and cocked her arm as if she might hit somebody. The preacher and Mr. Fulton stared at Nolan, who was tugging harder on Emmalee.

  “Let go of me,” Emmalee said and jerked her arm free.

  “Come on,” Nolan repeated. “I said we’re leaving. The Lanes are in the ground, and it’s time to go home.”

  Emmalee stood firm in her own space.

  “You gone deaf, girl? Come on.”

  “I ain’t going with you.”

  “The hell you ain’t.”

  “Did you hear anything I said this morning, Nolan?”

  “I ain’t heard nothing about you not coming home.”

  “Well, I ain’t. I ain’t making the same mistakes Mama did. I ain’t leaving my baby girl, and I ain’t raising her in Red Chert.” Emmalee lifted the loose corner of Kelly Faye’s blanket back up to her head, protecting her baby from the wind and cold.

  “Hell, girl, your mama didn’t leave you. She died. What kind of fool gibberish are you talking?”

  “I’m talking the truth. Mama gave up on me long before she died. You’d already sucked everything out of her. It wasn’t me.” Emmalee was shouting now and the baby had begun to squeal. “You didn’t give her no choice but to die. And you ain’t doing that to me. Leona planned something better for me and for Kelly Faye, and I ain’t letting her down. So like I told Mettie, go on. Leave me be.”

  Mr. Fulton cleared his throat and Nolan looked up to see him standing there with the preacher by his side. Emmalee jostled the baby in her arms, and her cries hushed. Nolan stuck his hands in his pockets and raised his eyes to the sky. “Hell, you’ll die in Red Chert, girl, just like your mama. You ain’t no different than her.” He shot another wad of spit and walked on to the hearse.

  “Nolan,” Emmalee called after him, but he did not look back.

  The women huddled around Emmalee once again.

  “Honey, you done the right thing,” Cora said.

  “That’s right,” Wilma said. “You did the right thing by you and your baby girl. You see that, Doris? You see what she did?”

  But Emmalee knelt o
n the grass and bent her body over little Kelly, who was rooting for her mama’s breast. The preacher knelt beside Emmalee and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’ve been praying for you,” he said and pressed his hand firm against her back. “You got to know God helps in unexpected ways sometimes.”

  The preacher opened his Bible and ruffled through tissue-thin pages. Right then Emmalee would have taken help from anybody, especially God, but she dreaded the sound of the preacher reading Scripture to her, reciting all those words that never seemed meant for her.

  The preacher flipped to the back of the Bible and pulled out a crisp white envelope. “It’s important to have faith in God, Emmalee, but you’ve also got to believe in yourself. Now let’s have a look at what’s in this envelope.”

  LEONA

  OLD LICK

  Three Days Ago

  “Sorry I snapped at you, Curtis,” Leona said. She looked straight ahead as Curtis steered the truck down Old Lick. “I’m tired is all. I worked too many bundles today. I even barked at Wilma for sewing the wrong thread. It wasn’t none of my business. She don’t even work collars.”

  Curtis shifted into a lower gear. “Wilma knows you don’t mean nothing by it. But I know you, Ona. You’re worried about something else. I can tell by the way your mouth is turned down.”

  Leona shook her head. “You cannot.” She leaned across the seat and shifted the rearview mirror toward her. She smiled, erasing any obvious signs of worry.

  “You can’t fool me,” Curtis said as he readjusted the mirror and glanced behind him. “We’ve been married too long for that.”

  “Oh, hush up.” Balancing the casserole on her lap, she rested her head against the rear window and stared out at the open sky and the full moon rising in the east.

  Curtis reached for Leona’s hand. “You sure you not wanting to change your mind about Emmalee and the baby coming tomorrow?”

  “Oh no, it’s not that.” Leona spied Venus shining bright overhead as she thought of the bedroom in the trailer ready for Kelly Faye and Emmalee. She had spent most of the money saved in her shoebox on pretty things for the two of them—clothes, fabric for new curtains, plastic diapers, bottles, a stuffed teddy, even a college savings bond for Kelly Faye. Curtis never once asked how she funded her generosity.

  “I always wanted a baby,” Leona said. “You know that.”

  “But that ain’t what I asked you, Ona.”

  “I know,” she said and looked at Curtis. Leona placed her hand on his thigh. “You know better than anybody I always figured a baby was the one thing I was missing. The one thing that’d make me happy. Damn near drove me crazy not having one.”

  Curtis raised his eyebrow at her cussing.

  “Sorry,” she said and flashed a weak grin.

  Curtis turned the steering wheel sharp to the right as he guided the truck farther down Old Lick Mountain. He pushed the accelerator and eased into the turn; then he slowed his speed as the road straightened out. He nodded at Leona but was careful to keep his eyes fixed ahead.

  “Maybe I got so used to wanting something,” Leona said, “that somewhere along the way I didn’t realize I didn’t need it no more. That make any sense?”

  Curtis glanced at Leona. “We can do it, Ona. You ain’t alone. You never have been.”

  “I know that now.” She closed her eyes. “I love you, Curtis Lane.”

  Curtis reached for Leona’s hand. “I love you, too.”

  EMMALEE

  OLD LICK

  Mr. Fulton had told Emmalee the logger headed up Old Lick the night of the accident took Curtis’s and Leona’s deaths real hard. They had to carry him to the hospital over in Chattanooga, and the doctors pumped him full of drugs to calm his nerves, the whiskey the sheriff had given him earlier in the night not proving enough. He admitted he had drifted into the other lane but thought he righted his rig in plenty of time. Mr. Fulton said the Lanes’ pickup had four bad tires, and the poor trucker could not be blamed for that. From studying a long stretch of the road, Mr. Fulton believed the Lanes cut too far to the right and got caught up in a patch of loose gravel. There were no tire marks indicating otherwise.

  Now heading up the mountain in the backseat of Easter’s Buick, Emmalee remembered that conversation, and she imagined Leona sitting in the truck next to Curtis with the hash brown casserole on her lap. Curtis probably rubbed his stomach and told her how good her cooking smelled. She surely thanked him and took his hand in hers. Emmalee hoped so. She had seen Leona talk harshly to Curtis too many times when he came to the factory, but she liked to imagine things differently there at the end.

  Wilma slowed the Buick and tapped on her side window. The two white crosses stuck in the dirt by the mountain road were nearly swallowed whole by fresh and artificial flowers, ribbons and balloons, teddy bears, even a large wreath made of collars.

  “Look at all that,” Wilma said, stopping the Buick in the middle of the road. “Everybody in Cullen must have come up here to leave something.”

  “It’s a shame Leona ain’t going to see this,” Easter said. “She’d never believe it. What do you think of that, sweetie?” Easter shifted in the front seat so she could look at Emmalee. “You been mighty quiet back there since we left the church. You doing okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m doing good,” Emmalee said and scooted to the edge of the seat. Kelly Faye sat next to her, buckled in a brand new car seat, a gift from Mr. Fulton. He even tied a pink ribbon around it and told Emmalee his granddaughter was not riding around town in a cardboard box anymore.

  Emmalee tickled Kelly Faye’s belly and then leaned against the front seat. She held the white envelope the preacher had given her in her hand. “Easter, you think the deacons’ll approve me staying in the trailer for a while?”

  “It does say right there on that piece of paper Curtis wanted the church to use the trailer to help those that need help. I’d say you’re one of them.”

  Wilma steered the car on up the mountain.

  Emmalee studied the trees passing by. “It’s all so beautiful up here.”

  Emmalee woke in the back bedroom. The window’s metal frames clattered one against the other as the wind pushed its way up Old Lick. She had slept off and on during the night. Her thoughts drifted from the dark folds of Red Chert to the days ahead there on the mountaintop. Emmalee pulled the baby closer.

  Leona had prepared the room down the hall especially for Kelly Faye, but the wooden crib, decorated with frilly pink-and-white bedding, stood empty. Emmalee wanted the baby next to her.

  Kelly Faye’s eyes were closed while her tongue suckled at something that wasn’t there, and Emmalee wondered where her baby’s dreams had taken her. She kissed Kelly’s head and eased out of the bed. She tucked the blanket around Kelly Faye’s body and then placed a pillow on either side of her baby. Emmalee tiptoed down the hallway past the photograph of Leona and her family and what was left of Leona’s silver spoons.

  Easter and Wilma had offered to stay with her the first night or two, at least till she felt comfortable mothering on her own. Emmalee thanked them both but admitted she was looking forward to waking in the trailer just her and Kelly Faye. Still, Easter and Wilma promised to be back soon, admitting there would be plenty of need for their help in the days to come. Emmalee already pictured them standing in the kitchen reminding her not to wander off too far what with the baby sleeping there alone.

  Emmalee slipped on her wool coat and stepped out the door, eager to see the sun rise big and full over the valley. The trailer was beautiful to Emmalee, and she swore it sparkled there underneath the clear blue sky. She looked to the bluff and the sun popping over the horizon and wondered if she might see some Kentucky bluegrass after all. She looked toward Leona’s garden and pictured her own crop of tomatoes and beans growing there soon. Emmalee imagined herself walking through the cool grass come spring, carrying Kelly Faye in her arms. By then, her baby girl might be crawling.

  Dry cornstalks clapped around her. Would she h
ear Leona there, like she had heard her mama calling to her among the pines down in Red Chert? Emmalee hoped Leona might take her time leaving that place, leaving her and Kelly Faye.

  Emmalee searched the ground around the garden plot and collected twigs, snapping some in two as she put them in her coat pockets. She kept an eye on the trailer as she walked closer to the bluff, picking up more sticks. In Red Chert, the sun had not been surrounded by nearly so much sky as on Old Lick.

  With her pockets full, Emmalee ran back to the trailer and placed her collection of twigs on the counter. The baby was still quiet. She shaped two crosses from her bounty and bound them with crimson thread.

  The binding done, she took a ballpoint pen she found near Curtis’s reclining chair and carved a name on the back of each cross. Curtis on one. Leona on the other. Emmalee reached for her mama’s cross, which she had kept safe inside an old sweater since leaving the holler, and arranged the three crosses on the kitchen counter.

  Whatever happened in the days to come, Runt and Mettie would always be casting their eyes on this mountain, waiting for Emmalee to fall short.

  Emmalee looked at the damask slipcovers needing to be finished. Cora promised to come up in the next few days and show Emmalee how to shape the slipcovers Leona had started. When the hateful woman in the green suit showed up at the trailer next, Emmalee would be ready for her. Cora said if the woman was pleased, she’d spread the word. Cora promised Emmalee could make decent money with that kind of work.

  The baby whimpered, and Emmalee walked back to the bedroom. Kelly Faye slurped her mama’s milk, making sweet notes, draining away the worry.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  During its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s, the shirt factory in Dunlap, Tennessee, employed more than seven hundred seamstresses. It was the largest employer of women in Sequatchie County at the time. Many of the female employees worked for twenty and thirty years as collar makers, hem setters, top stitchers, and lapel makers. Often daughters, mothers, and grandmothers worked side by side. Those living and interviewed for this book never spoke of the boredom of routine. Instead they talked of community and self-reliance. This book is written in honor of their commitment and determination to improving their own lives and those of their families.