The Center of Winter: A Novel

by Marya Hornbacher

  I went out and sat down across from Kate again. She was eating the crusts off her toast, saving the buttered center bites to dip in her egg yolk. One piece of her toast was smeared with raspberry preserves, and this she ate in delicate spirals from the outside edges in. Opa set another cup of Folgers in front of me and put his hand on my shoulder. Oma lifted the three-minute egg from the water with a spoon, put it in the cup, tapped and chopped the hat off neatly, set both cup and hat on Kate’s plate. Kate put her toast down and scootched up to sit on her feet so she could peer directly down into the egg as she salted and peppered it carefully, adding a tiny dab of butter, never once chipping the shell.

  “Well, somebody tell her, then,” Oma said quietly, her back to us. She scrubbed out a pot and set it in the rack to dry.

  Opa was leaning up against the rust-colored refrigerator. He took a swallow of coffee and sighed. “Salamander Suzie, now, you know your dad’s gone and died.”

  Arnold’s absence stepped into the kitchen, a fifth body, and pulled up a chair.

  I watched my daughter’s face. She put her spoon down and wiped egg from the corners of her mouth. She sat back in her chair and played with the white cotton lace that hemmed her dress. She was wearing a yellow-checked dress that Oma had made for her, a summer dress, one of her favorites. Carefully, she turned the hem over, picked at it a moment, then took her fork and ripped it. She stood up and twisted herself around slowly, pulling the hem completely off, and then she sat back down with a fistful of lace. Using her fork, she tore the hem into inch-long bits and set them in a pile by her plate.

  The three of us watched her pick up her spoon, peer into the egg, begin eating again.

  I looked at Oma, who shook her head and shrugged.

  “Well, okay, then,” Opa said, turning to the coffeepot.

  “Do you want more juice, kleine?” Oma asked.

  “No!” Kate shouted.

  “Katie,” I said. “Don’t yell at your grandmother.”

  “It’s all right,” Oma said, pouring Kate more juice.

  “I don’t want any more juice!” Kate shrieked.

  “Katie!” I said, shocked.

  “Fine,” Oma said, whisking the juice away and pouring it back into the pitcher. Kate looked sadly at the place where her juice had been.

  “Say you’re sorry,” I said.

  “You’re sorry,” she muttered.

  “Very clever,” I snapped.

  Kate dipped her toast in the egg repeatedly, and wiped her eyes with her fist. She hunched over her egg and wouldn’t look up at anyone.

  Opa went over to her and tugged one of her braids. “Life’s no fun sometimes, hmm?” he asked. Kate shook her head and nibbled her toast. “No fun,” he repeated.

  I watched a couple of tears roll off the tip of her nose and into the egg. She stirred them in with a spoon.

  We were quiet while she finished eating. She didn’t seem to mind the three of us staring at her. She sat back in her chair to survey the tidy wreckage of her breakfast: the unbroken eggshell, the grapefruit rind, a few crumbs and a smear of red preserves on her plate. She stood up and took all her silverware to the sink, then returned for each dish. Each dish, both hands. Each dish up to the sink, then over the side.

  I found her smallness oppressive.

  She climbed onto Oma’s step stool and leaned in to wash her hands. The threads of her lace hem dangled down; I noticed that her white tights were on backward, bagging at the back of her knees.

  Climbing down, she said with weird formality, “I am having a nap,” and walked out of the kitchen. Down the hall, the door closed.

  At least there are rules.

  There are rules for what you do when someone dies, and better ways to die, and better times of day to die. It is better when someone dies at night, like this. When my mother died, it was one o’clock in the afternoon on a bright spring day. A southern spring day. There were lilacs, a sprig I’d cut from the bush outside the front door and put in a glass by her bed. I was alone with her. She was sleeping. She woke up, called for me, and I went in with her lunch on a tray, but she was dead. I looked at the clock, and it was only one. A whole day with the lilacs, the uneaten lunch, the spring sunshine coming at me like a wall falling down, a wall she had been holding up with her breath. I set the lunch down by her legs and pulled a chair up next to her and brushed her hair, and then I read a book all day until I could see through the drawn blinds that it was getting dark, and then I called a funeral parlor from the phone book.

  But this was better, since he died at night. This way we could just refer to him as he, as in he died yesterday. This way it was yesterday. As in, it took place in the past. It is something that happened. It is no longer happening.

  Now it was time for arrangements.

  Oma washed the dishes and Opa dried. Then Oma pulled off her blue rubber gloves and said, “Get dressed, dear. We need to make arrangements.”

  You do not make arrangements in your bathrobe.

  Arrangements are what you make when someone dies or goes mad. Arrangements are orderly. They are the answer to chaos. I have myself made many arrangements, I am good at it. I got dressed.

  I went into the guest bedroom. It took me a moment to remember what I was doing there. I remembered that I was getting dressed to make arrangements for the burial of my husband, who had died the night before. Had killed himself the night before. Because of what I said. Because of me. The remembering of this caused a wave of profound exhaustion, and I faltered at the side of the bed, suddenly able to taste the coolness of the sheets, as you can when you have the flu. Instead I opened the dresser, where we kept spare clothes for long weekends, and put on underwear, a brassiere, and stockings.

  Then I stood looking at myself in the mirror, thinking, I am only thirty-eight.

  I smoothed my hair and went to the closet for a suitable dress.

  Oma sat in her chair under her fold-out leather lap desk, which contained seven separate compartments for paper (everyday paper, list-making paper, formal letter paper, liner papers, note cards, calling cards, and etvas paper for jotting), three compartments for envelopes, one for her stack of return-address stamps, one for postage stamps, pen compartments on the left and right, an inkwell, a pencil sharpener, a blotter, a diary, an address book, a calendar, and hanging from the lid so that it faced her, a daily Scripture passage and attendant prayer. At the top of each sheet of paper was printed:

  Mrs. Elton Schiller

  14571 County Road 19 Nimrod, Minnesota, 94782

  Job 1:21–2: The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away.

  Blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

  The lap desk had been a wedding present from her mother-in-law forty years before. She polished the leather and brass locks every time she used it, and she used it every day, when she wrote her letters. She’d get comfortable in her chair and Opa would carry it over and set it on her lap; when she was done, he’d fold it up and take it off her again.

  She sat there looking efficient and licked the tip of her ink pen. “Sit down, dear,” she said, and I did.

  “What first, mmm? Flowers,” she said. “Flowers. Nothing showy, but nothing cheap either, no. We’re not going to hide our heads under our arms in shame, no,” she went on, her pen scratching against the heavy paper. “So then. We’ll have Dot do the flowers then, ja?”

  “That sounds fine.”

  “Ja. Okay. And what colors? White, some. But some color too. Too showy, all white.” She lifted her pen and looked at me.

  “Roses?” I ventured, sitting up straighter, wanting to be part of the arrangements.

  “You know, and I have gotten so sick of the lilies,” she announced. “At Easter, with the lilies, and then again they sell the lilies for the young people’s mission, and then more lilies at Christmas and Epiphany, all year the lilies.” She motioned with her pen. “Nowhere in the Bible does it say the lilies.”

  “‘C
onsider the lilies,’” Opa said. He was sitting with his back to us at the dining-room table, reading the paper.

  “‘Consider the lilies,’” Oma conceded, after a pause.

  “No carnations,” Opa said, taking advantage of his opening.

  “Why not?”

  “Hated ’em.”

  “No.”

  “Yes he did. The man hated carnations.”

  Both Oma and I stared at his back.

  “Swore he was never going to one more baptism, wedding, confirmation, graduation, or funeral if it meant he’d have to wear another damned carnation in his buttonhole.” Opa set down his paper and turned in his chair. “No carnation in his buttonhole, neither.”

  He looked at Oma until he was pretty sure she wouldn’t go and stick one there when he wasn’t looking. Then he turned back and picked the paper up, shook it out, and started reading again.

  “You knew this? Your husband hated carnations?” Oma asked me. I shook my head no.

  “Well, what in the Pete’s sake are we going to do, then? We’ll ask Dot, she’ll know. But then, I don’t want her doing all showy and flashy. What colors. Maybe some nice blue? He liked a good blue suit.”

  “Name me a blue flower, Oma,” Opa said.

  “Iris.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  “Looks like a—” She stopped, scribbled, and ripped off a paper. “Show him,” she said to me, and I took him the drawing. He studied it.

  “Hmph,” he said. “Besides that.”

  “Hydrangea,” she said proudly, already waiting to hand me the next sheet of paper.

  “Looks like a damn fluffy bowling ball. Okay, blue. Blue, fine.”

  “What about some roses?” I asked. “For some—extra color?”

  It was very important right then that I be allowed to have some roses.

  Oma was making a list of blue flowers.

  Opa read his paper.

  Finally he turned his page. “No roses,” he said. “Can’t do roses.”

  “People would talk,” Oma added.

  Opa closed his paper and stood. “Making a little coffee, I think,” he said, and went out of the room.

  Oma looked up at me brightly. “Now!” she said. “The casket.”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling dizzy. “The casket.”

  That night, after we had made the arrangements and were sitting all together in the living room watching the news, a shot went off on TV.

  I screamed and covered my mouth. Oma patted my arm. Opa got me a brandy.

  Kate, who was sitting on her knees two inches from the screen, did not move or appear to blink, either when the shot went off or when I screamed.

  Opa turned off the television. Oma went to fetch our lists, so we could review the arrangements, so I could get to sleep.

  Pioter Gustofson ran the funeral home. “A good man, he is,” Oma said from the passenger seat in front of me as we drove toward Staples. She wore her good blue coat and gripped her black leather pocketbook in her lap. Kate gazed out the window, craning her neck to look at a herd of cattle that stood knee deep in snow.

  She turned to me. “Do their feet get cold?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  We drove. She gave up on me, leaned forward, and patted Opa on the shoulder. “Opa, why not?”

  “Why not what, snickerdoodle?”

  “Why don’t cows’ feet get cold?”

  “They ain’t got toes.”

  “They don’t?”

  “Nope. No toes. Can’t get cold feet without toes.”

  She settled back to think this one over for a while.

  “Pioter Gustofson has been very good to us, hasn’t he.” Oma looked out into the blowing snow that went skidding across the county highway.

  “Yes, he has.” Opa put his hand on Oma’s gloved hands and squeezed.

  Kate tipped over and put her head on my leg.

  “What else doesn’t got toes?” she asked.

  “Snakes,” said her grandfather. “Spiders. Creepy crawlers.” Kate giggled and wiped her nose on my knee.

  I looked down at her. My snotty little beast. I picked her up and settled her into my lap and she put her arms around my neck. She smelled of milk. She gazed out the rear window and I counted the tiny white bones of her spine that showed above the collar of her dress, each an imperfect pearl pressing up through her thin skin.

  She shifted and sang under her breath, “Snakes, spiders, creepy crawlers, creepy crawlers, snakes and spiders, snakes and spiders.” She took a deep breath, and sighed.

  Out in the middle of nowhere, a green sign said WELCOME TO NIMROD—POP. 561.

  The circular drive in front of the funeral parlor and the wide steps up to the double doors were shoveled with precision. The two-story sandstone building sat with a sort of modest grandeur at a corner in the center of town, as if presiding over the redbrick town hall, the library, and the steepled Methodist church, none of whose walks were shoveled nearly as well.

  We were expected.

  Pioter Gustofson met us at the door and ushered us into the dark, silent, heavily carpeted foyer. The smell of lilies was overwhelming.

  “Madge,” he said, holding Oma’s elbows and looking at her intently. She bowed her head as if she were being blessed. “And Elton.” He gripped Opa’s shoulder. Opa shook his head slowly and made a sound, as if to say, Damned if I know.

  “And you’re Mrs. Schiller,” he said, reaching for my hand, which he clasped with both of his. “I am very, very sorry for your loss.”

  “My dad died,” Kate announced loudly.

  We all looked at her. She stared at him suspiciously. She didn’t like men she didn’t know. “Kate,” I said, “This is Mr. Gustofson.”

  “Hello, Kate.”

  “Hello.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Eleven.”

  “She isn’t,” I said to him, startled.

  “Yes I am. I want to go now,” she said, and turned for the door.

  “Kleine,” Oma said very gently. Kate turned around and hid behind Opa’s leg.

  “Let’s go down to my office, shall we?” Mr. Gustofson said.

  I sat in a chair by the window with Kate around my neck like a monkey. She was heavy, seemed to be making herself heavy on purpose. She needed a nap. I squinted. The glare off the snow through the leaded-glass windows made it impossible to tell where Nimrod left off and the sky began. All flat white. The dingy clapboard Methodist church seemed suspended in midair, a black iron cross above the black iron bell dangling somewhere against sky or snow.

  “Cardinal,” Kate said into my ear. “Two cardinals.”

  I took the cup of coffee Gustofson offered me. Oma and Opa sat very straight in their chairs, and Gustofson sat down at his desk. He shuffled papers for a moment, then pushed them aside and leaned back.

  “Well, damnation,” he said.

  “Darn right,” Opa concurred.

  Oma and I sipped our coffee.

  “Known you folks, what, forty-odd years?”

  “’Bout that.”

  “Tough times, these are.”

  “Hard times.”

  Gustofson studied the silver pen in his hand, his mouth turned down at the corners in concentration.

  “Good man, Arnold,” he said.

  Opa nodded slowly, stretched his fingers out in front of him, studied his nails. “That he was. That he was.”

  “Loved his family.”

  “Yes he did.”

  Kate shifted in my lap. “Can I take my shoes off?” she whispered. I pulled her Mary Janes off her feet, and she curled up completely, her head against my chest.

  “How’s the little girl, then?” Gustofson asked, nodding toward Kate. “Not so good, I don’t think. Taking it pretty hard,” Opa said. “She’ll be all right,” Oma said. “Of course she will,” Gustofson assured her. “Give her a little time, of course she’ll be just fine. This young, may not even remember
it.”

  Oma nodded. “Maybe not.”

  I stared out the window and went over it again to be sure. I heard a sound: It was the shot. I ran. I caught Kate running down the hall, her arms lifted up. I doubled over, tucked her into my rib cage. I pushed her skull into my right shoulder as I turned. She did not see. Her skull fit perfectly into the palm of my hand.

  “Blue jay,” she said, and I turned to look. She giggled. “Silly. There’s no blue jays yet.”

  I was fairly sure she did not see.

  A small figure in a black coat walked out of the Methodist church, pulled its collar around its neck, and tucked its nose into its scarf. Slowly, with a cane, it made its way down the steps and out of view.

  Arrangements were made. My coffee cup was filled. The flowers would be white and blue. There would be no lilies (the scent of them was making me dizzy even now), and there would be no carnations. The senior pastor at Grace Lutheran would speak, not the strange new one from out east, but the old one who knew them.

  “Baptized Arnold, he did,” Opa said.

  “‘Ashes to ashes,’” Oma said, nodding in agreement. “It’s fitting.”

  “Yes it is,” Gustofson said.

  The pastor would speak of hope, and would not speak of sin or Hell, which would cause talk. In lieu of flowers, donations should be sent to the Shriners’ Children’s Hospital, which also seemed fitting. The reception would be held at Oma’s house directly following. The obituary would say he was a good man who loved his family and lived in the faith of Christ. It would not mention that he would be missed, which would seem to belabor a point. He was preceded in death by his sister, Rosalina Schiller, and survived by his mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Elton Schiller, his loving wife, Claire Jacobs Schiller, and his two children, Esau age twelve and Kate age six.

  An open casket would not do.

  Readings with references to death would not do.

  Roses would not do.

  They were looking at me expectantly. I looked back at them.

  “Dear, what do you think about music? ‘Amazing Grace’?” Oma asked.