The Blue Cotton Gown (29 page)

“Let me know if I can do anything, Trish . . . I love you.” I’m startled. I’ve never said this to Trish before. I’m still holding my shoe, and Roscoe is sitting there looking at me, with her leash dangling from her collar.

“I love you too,” Trish says.

*

Hadley Road runs for only two miles between the airport and Crocker Creek Bridge, but I can’t find Glen Terrace anywhere. Though Trish told me not to come, I have to be with my friend. A thick fog is pouring into the hollows, and I take a road down behind the adult video store when I see a few trailers, but there’s no trailer park. I almost run the Civic into a ditch.
Slow down,
I tell myself.
Keep it together.
I’m gripping the steering wheel so hard my

hands tremble. I want to find Trish, want to hold her, want to smother her pain with my body.

I head back up Hadley going the other way, and cut behind the Methodist church. In the parking lot, I call Tom on my cell phone. “Hey. Where are you?”

“Just leaving the hospital. Where are
you?
”

“I’m near the Glen Terrace Methodist Church. I’ve got some terrible news.” I don’t know how to say it nice, so I just say it. “Aran was found dead this afternoon. They think she died of an overdose. Trish just called me. She and Dan are going to her trailer to pick up Aran’s things. I don’t know why they have to go now, but the cops have already taken Aran to Charleston for an autopsy, so I guess Trish just needs to see where she died. I was trying to meet them but I can’t find it.”

Tom stops me. “Aran’s dead?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” I take a shaky breath. “I’ve been up and down Hadley searching for the Glen Terrace trailer park. You don’t know where it is, do you?”

“Shit. She’s dead?” He too is in shock. It doesn’t seem real; doesn’t seem possible.

“I’m sorry, maybe I should have called you before. I’m really upset . . . I guess I’ll give up. Trish said she didn’t
need
me to come. They aren’t expecting me or anything. You on your way home?” “Yeah, but I’m coming that way. Keep your cell on. I’ll see if I

can find it.” He clicks off.

Okay, one more time. I circle out of the empty church parking lot. On my first pass back up Hadley I spot a blacktop drive I hadn’t noticed before. There’s no sign identifying Glen Terrace, but there’s no question, either. As I come over the rise, worn trailers are everywhere. Small gravel lanes run to the left and right in no apparent order.

I stop in the middle of the road, wondering which way to go, then take the first turn to the left. How did I think I was going to find Trish and Dan anyway? I have no clue where Aran lived. Then

a dark green Blazer turns down the next street. Is that Dan? I fol-low behind him.

The Blazer pulls to the side, and a skinny old guy in a T-shirt that says
pappy
on the front steps forward to talk to Dan. The old guy points down the lane. Trish leans out the passenger window, sadly lifting her hand to me, maybe expecting I’d be here.

I park in the shallow ditch and jump out. We fall into each other’s arms. I don’t want to let go. Dan gets out and hunches against the Blazer, staring at the trailer but not really seeing. When I finally step back and wipe Trish’s tears off her pale face, I hug him too. He smells like beer, and I feel his sobs through my chest. Then we fol-low the old man, who’s been watching.

Pappy is fumbling with his keys. “Yeah, the cops was here for quite a while,” he says in a raspy voice. “I called ’em. Did you know I was the one that called ’em? Her little girlfriend ran over to my place, pounding on the door, asking for help. I’m the manager, you know. I came right off, and Aran was pretty much gone. I shook her, but it weren’t no good, so I went back home and called nine-one- one. She had some foam coming out of her mouth and there were little rectangle pills on the table. Green pills, you know. The cops took them.” The skinny old man rattles on, his voice like gravel under the wheels of a pickup. I wish he’d shut up.

The room is surprisingly tidy. There’s a worn brown couch against the front wall, a green Formica table on the other side with two chairs, no dirty dishes, a few beer bottles on the kitchen counter, a 1950s lamp. The air smells like mold, or maybe death, I’m not sure. There’s a bedroom at each end of the trailer.

“Yeah, around two in the morning they pulled up in a black Caddy SUV. They been here before. Them’s the
pushers,
you know. Bad dudes . . .” He puts four beer bottles in the trash. “They were partying. Came in and out of the trailer park two or three times last night. I live on the corner and heard ’em. Nothing new around here.” Pappy holds out a small black handbag. “Here’s her purse,” he says, trying to be helpful.

I would like to be helpful too, but I don’t know how. Trish heads for the front bedroom. Dan takes the purse in his big fist and moves that way too, but stops, gazing hopelessly around. He’s a tall, handsome, weathered man who’s bent over now, like a boxer beaten by the blows of life.

“Is this where she died?” I ask Pappy, pointing to the sofa.

“Yep, right there. The pills were here on the counter. The cops took ’em. Little green
rectangled
pills is what they were . . . Here’s a picture of her friends.” He hands me a Polaroid. Three handsome young men dressed in baggy pants and long Tshirts stand with their arms around one another, laughing. Were they really the pushers or just some other kids who liked to get high? They don’t look too different from Orion and Zen a few years ago.

Dan takes the photo, glances at it, and tosses it back on the table. “Somebody’s got a bull’s-eye on his back!” he barks and slams the screen door behind him. Trish turns in slow motion, a diver under water.

“Take care of Dan,” she says to me, moving toward the back bedroom. I know what she means. Dan has a temper.
Keep him away from Pappy. Don’t let him get in a fight.
That’s what she means.

“These are my beds,” Pappy is saying. “Both of ’em. And my table. There’s food in the fridge,” he goes on. “And those fans, I bet-ter take those.” He gathers stuff up.

Trish stands at the open door of the second bedroom. I’m be-hind her, with one hand on her shoulder. “Dan was here once a few weeks ago,” she says. “He came to get Aran when we went to Indi-ana, but I’ve never seen it. I had to come.”

A narrow cot with a flowered blue quilt is made neatly, with pillows arranged against the wall like a couch. In the corner a floor lamp stands, with a silk paisley scarf draped over the shade. There’s a bureau and a closet, a chair. That’s all, except one pink high-heeled sandal thrown on the bed.

“This is her room,” Trish says to no one. “I can tell. This is

her
room.” She turns and I hold my friend while she sobs. I stare

back over her shoulder at the lamp, at the paisley scarf. Then we return to the cars with the purse. That’s all we take. We leave the pink shoe.

Down in the darkening road, Dan stands by the Blazer, smoking. The tip of his cigarette moves through the dusk. “Thanks for com-ing,” he says to me. “We appreciate it.” Trish blows her nose. Then we all turn as a silver 4Runner parks in the lane and Tom gets out. Somehow he’s found us. He puts his arms around Trish and gives her a hug. Dan reaches out and they shake hands the way men do, looking into each other’s eyes.

“I was supposed to go first,” Dan says, wiping his tears. “I thought I would die first . . . I always thought I would die first.” Tom nods, understanding. We stand helplessly in the middle of the road. Eyes watch us from the windows of neighboring trailers.

“Do you want us to take you home?” I ask Trish, realizing that Dan is half under the influence and she is half crazy with grief.

“No, we’ll be okay. I’ve got to get home to Melody. The neighbor lady took her.” Her eyes are way too tight at the edges. She reaches for the keys, and Dan passively hands them to her, then we all back down the narrow lane. First the 4Runner, then the Blazer, then the Civic. I’m the last one to leave, and Pappy puts out his hand like a traffic cop. I roll down my window.

“I did what I could,” the old man announces. “I called nine-one- one right away, but there was that pink foam coming out of her mouth.”

“It was probably already too late,” I respond.

“There were little green
rectangled
pills on the table.” “You mean capsules? Long capsules?”

“No, regular pills. You got a pen and paper?” Putting the car in park, I reach into my purse, wondering why I’m still here and what difference it makes what the pills look like. Pappy puts down the fans he’s carrying, and I watch while he sketches, realizing for the first time that he’s been through a traumatic event too and needs to talk about it.

“They were regular pills, not capsules, and they were
rectangled.
” He draws a
triangle
about three-eighths of an inch wide and hands the scrap of paper back to me. “The police took the bottle . . .”

“I’m sure you did everything you could. It was a terrible thing.” “It was those pushers to blame. The cops been in here before ask-ing questions. They should have put ’em in jail. She was a sweet little girl.”

I nod, then we’re quiet.

“Well, I’ve got to go, Pappy.” His gnarled hand rests on the open window. For a second I think of touching it, but Pappy pulls back and gently pats the roof of the Honda two times, then picks up his fans. “See ya,” he says, and walks up the hill.

“Yeah, see ya.”

aran

The Toyota winds slowly up the narrow snake of blacktop. “It’s beautiful up here,” I say to Tom. “No wonder Trish loves it.” We follow the narrow road up Perry Mountain. In the woods graceful white trillium line the forest floor. On either side of the ridge, green pasture falls away revealing a view of more mountains and then of rolling hills toward the west. As usual, we’re running late. “Do you even know where Faith Chapel is?”

“They told me it’s a mile past Trish’s house.” Tom’s wearing a blue shirt and a tweed sport coat and tie. He doesn’t own a regular suit. I wear black slacks and a white silk long-sleeved blouse. This is the best we could do for mourning clothes.

“But do you know where her house
is?
” I get like this when I’m

nervous.

Tom gives me a look. “I was here that time we borrowed their power washer. Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” I stare at the envelope in my lap. I stayed up past midnight writing a eulogy for Aran’s funeral and I wonder if I’ll have the courage to read it. I don’t want to cry in front of an audi-ence.

At the top of the ridge is a small stone church with a white spire. It crosses my mind that it would be a romantic spot for a wedding, only Aran will never
have
a wedding. I wonder if this has occurred to Trish too.

A tree-lined gravel drive winds up to the country chapel where pickups and SUVs are parked everywhere among the old oaks. A funeral director in an elegant black suit motions us to the rear of the church, and we find seats on a well-polished pine bench next to Celeste and Abby.

The organist is already playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and if I stretch my neck I can just see Trish and Dan in the front pew. They’re four feet from the polished oak coffin that holds Aran’s beautiful dead body displayed like Snow White. She’s wearing a sim-ple light blue dress, but she looks so sad. And no matter how many dwarfs cry for her or how many princes kiss her, she won’t ever wake up. Half the people in the congregation are in their late teens, young people Aran went to high school with, probably partied with. A large-breasted soloist stands up and begins “Faith of Our Fathers” in a nasal contralto. I glance again at the envelope.

Tom elbows me. The preacher asks, “Would anyone like to say a few words about the deceased?”

“Are you gonna do it?” Tom whispers. I shake my head no. What was I thinking? I couldn’t get halfway through my eulogy without breaking down, not just shedding a tear, but falling apart completely. I open the envelope and read to myself as the congregation begins the last hymn.

The death of Aran has shaken all of us; partly because she was so young and beautiful and bright, and partly because we

cannot understand it. Somewhere she lost her way. She fell into a place where no one could help her. Not Trish and Dan or her family or her friends or her health-care providers.

When bad things happen I always want to learn something from the situation, maybe something that can prevent a similar circumstance from happening. That’s the trouble with Aran’s death. I don’t know what the lesson is.

All I can say is, we should appreciate each other now, every day, because we don’t know how long we or they will be here.

Aran left us her baby girl, Melody, and the many good memories we have of her.

I like to think that she is now an angel guarding other young mothers and babies, holding us all in her love, as we hold her in ours.

I’m ashamed of myself for not being able to stand up and read my eulogy. I tighten my mouth and fold the piece of paper four times. Then the congregation gets up to leave.

We are nearly the last to greet the family on the way out. Trish stands bravely, wearing a slim black dress with a white collar, shaking everyone’s hand. Her sandy blond hair is pulled back with a gold clip and she has on small gold hoop earrings. I wonder if she had to go shopping for funeral clothes. I wonder if she took the Valium Tom sent over with Donna and Linda when they brought casseroles to her house.

Dan’s eyes are red from crying, his face redder still, and he looks as if he hasn’t slept for days.
Life isn’t fair,
I think for the hundredth time. The world has tilted too far off balance and I’m not strong enough to right it. I cry only when we file past the coffin and I reach over and touch Aran’s blue dress.

Betrayal

At five when Tom calls, I can tell by his voice what kind of day he’s had. “I’m on my way home,” he says. That’s all. Not good. Outside the kitchen window, the crescent moon is already sitting on the edge of the frayed purple sky.