The Queen of Sleepy Eye (28 page)

I dreamed I couldn't find my biology class at Westmont. All around me students called out to friends and talked about their summer jobs or the people they'd met on missions trips. I stood in the stream of students like a boulder, only a mild inconvenience to their conversations. I dug through my backpack for my class schedule but found only car wax and window cleaner. My throat tightened. Tardiness earned demerits. My legs were leaden when I tried to run back to the dorm for my schedule. The bell tower chimed. I was late. Every eye turned on me when I finally walked into class.

The scent of Mom's Tabu perfume seeped into my dream world. I wept from gratitude over being rescued.

“Amy,
fofa,
you're having a bad dream,” Mom spoke softly into my ear. “You must wake up. I'm so sorry.” She stroked my hair away from my face. “Something has happened, something horrible. I'm so very, very sorry. Wake up, honey.” She clicked the bedside lamp on.

I sat up. “Wha … ?”

Mrs. Clancy stood behind Mom. She lifted her glasses to wipe tears from her eyes.

“Has there been a death?” I asked her.

Mom sniffed. A rash mottled her eyes, and watery snot threatened to run over her lip. She dabbed it away with a wad of tissues.

My pulse raced. “What's going on?”

Mom blew her nose.

An icy finger of dread rode the ridges of my spine. “Feather? Is it Feather? Mom? Mrs. Clancy?”

Mrs. Clancy placed her hand on Mom's shoulder. “Francie, do you mind? I'd like to talk to Amy alone for a moment.”

I squeezed Mom's hand.

“I think I should stay,” she said.

Mrs. Clancy considered this and said, “Time is of the essence, Francie. Unless you want to help us downstairs … ?”

Mom looked at me with pleading eyes.

“I'll be okay,” I said as convincingly as my stomach allowed.

She embraced me with a ferocity that frightened me and then strode out of the room. Her bedroom door clicked shut.

Mrs. Clancy sat on the bed. “Amy, I need you to be strong. There will be time for mourning when our work is finished here.”

“Who … ?”

She covered my hand with hers and squeezed. “There's been a terrible … incident. Some boys inhaled spray paint up on the mesa. It was meant to be an initiation of sorts. One of the boys—”

I only knew one boy.

Mrs. Clancy clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears. When she lowered her hand, her words were pinched, breathy. “One of the boys was H.”

“Is he … okay?”

“Sheriff Thompson anticipated there would be partying tonight, what with football tryouts completed and school starting Monday, so he patrolled the usual gathering spots.” She removed her glasses to staunch the flow of tears with a hankie and sucked in a shuddering breath. “The sheriff tried to resuscitate him, but H was already gone.”

“But I just saw him. He gave me a ride to Leoti's. He was fine.”

“I know. I can hardly believe this has happened, especially to H.” Mrs. Clancy pulled me into her chest. My tears answered her sobs. She rocked me, humming in my ear until my tears drenched her blouse. She loosened her embrace. “Amy, Charles is attending a mortician's seminar in Denver. The sheriff will delay H's parents until I call. His death will be hard enough for them. They shouldn't have to see him looking like this.”

I nodded.

“Can you help me clean him up? We don't have much time.”

I nodded again, only because part of me disbelieved H needed cleaning up at all. Like the Mexican man, there had been a terrible mix-up. Someone else lay in the preparation room.

“Put some clothes on. I'll be in the kitchen making phone calls. There's no time to spare.”

Once dressed, I followed Mrs. Clancy down the basement stairs to the preparation room. She stopped midway and turned to speak in her usual punctilious manner. “I must warn you. He's a mess. There's black paint around his mouth and nose and on his hands, and, of course, his shirt. Thank God, the nights are cool. Besides the paint, he looks good.”

She looked down at her shoes for a long moment. When she spoke again, my heart nearly burst. “I've known H since the day he was born.
I lived with my sister and her husband for a month after his birth. She'd lost a good amount of blood during delivery. I took care of him, got up in the middle of the night to feed and change him. I loved him like a son, I did. But we have to put our feelings aside to do our job. Remember, the H we knew is gone. Only a shell remains. He's with the Lord. I'm sure of it.” She met my eyes. “We'll see him again, and he'll be laughing at us for taking our good time about joining him.”

Mrs. Clancy turned sharply and walked toward the preparation table where H lay covered with a sheet. I stared at the peaks that were surely his feet while she peeled the sheet back.

“We'll use mineral spirits to remove the paint. I'll work on his face. You start on his hands.”

Mrs. Clancy tied a rubbery apron around me and shoved protective gloves onto my hands. I kept my head down to avoid looking at H's face. “You're not going to hurt him,” she said, “so do what you must to remove the paint before his folks get here. We'll have to wash him too. He smells like a paint factory.” She opened the door to the ramp. The predawn air heaved a sigh, and I shivered. “We'll be happy to have the fresh air once we start working.”

I doused a handful of cotton with the mineral spirits and studied H's hand. The paint had flowed into the lines and folds of his skin and into his cuticles. This hand had wrapped Dr. Masterson in a sheet, and pulled Feather from the canal, and nearly crushed my hand as we ran from Jim Warner.

Mrs. Clancy stopped her work to look at me. “Amy?”

“I've never touched a … a …”

“The sheriff got him here fast. He isn't stiff yet. The gloves are thick enough. You shouldn't feel any change in temperature.” She swallowed hard. “Can you do this?”

Can I?
“I think so, yes. Yes, I can.”

Mrs. Clancy scrubbed furiously at H's face, grunting and sniffing as she worked.

I picked up H's hand, surprised by its weight. The harder I scrubbed, the angrier I became—angry at Jim Warner, whom I pictured egging H on, and angry at my mother for hijacking me to Cordial in the first place. And angry at H for not listening to me … and for being a guy.

How crazy is that?

Curiously, I wanted to call H to tell him about the death call that had woken me in the middle of the night because, more than anyone, he'd understand. And there I was, preparing him for burial. How jagged runs the line between life and death, hope and reality. A verse I'd memorized for a gold star came to mind:

I'd clung to the affirmation in these lines when I wearied of mothering Mom. God knew how I had toiled and all about the open wound of disappointment I bore. Who more than God knew what he was doing? I would be a stronger person, I'd reasoned, because while other girls attended to frivolous things like dances and boyfriends and how to escape their parents' watchful eyes, I developed usable life skills. I knew when the utility bill was due, and how to tiptoe around someone with a hang-over, and above all else, how to polish a car. But the affirming words turned to platitudes as I swabbed paint from under H's fingernails.

So, God, this was your plan for H, to be snuffed out by an ignoble
act? He deserved better. You saw how he treated Leoti. You watched him
protect me from Jim. He loved his parents. He was so proud of what his
father had accomplished—

“I think you can move to his right hand, Amy,” Mrs. Clancy said close to my ear, like she didn't want to disturb H in his sleep.

Mrs. Clancy cut H's T-shirt from the hem to the neckline and down each sleeve. The shirt fell away to reveal his still chest. My heart beat like a drum roll as I lifted my gaze to his face. Pale. One eye partly opened as if he were squinting. I gasped. Mrs. Clancy adjusted his eyelids to look more natural, like he were sleeping, but already his face, pale and fixed, was more mask than flesh. No wry smile played at his lips. The sun would never glint off his eyes again. There would be no more bold requests for a kiss. His face, with its straight nose and strong chin, was as still as stone. My eyes burned to cry.

“Amy, his parents will be here any minute.”

I scrubbed at the paint on his right hand, playing with the irrational belief that I could rub life back into him. His hand slipped from my grasp and hit the table with a thud. I stifled a sob.

“I know this is terribly difficult.” Mrs. Clancy combed H's hair into place, although she parted it on the wrong side. “You're doing a great kindness for his parents, Amy … and for me. Thank you.”

A bar of Ivory floated in a tub of warm water. She scrubbed the bar of soap until the washcloth frothed and stopped, listening. “They're here.” She dropped the washcloth back into the tub and removed her apron. “You're going to have to finish. Wash his face and hands and cover him with a clean sheet just to his shoulders. When I hear the basement door close, I'll know H is ready. Do you think you can do that?”

No!
“Yes.”

I washed his hands and arms up to his elbows. His arms were surprisingly heavy. “You had to go and pump up your muscles, didn't
you?” I said to his impassive face and thought better of it. “Oh, I didn't mean … you look good … strong, I mean. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that before.” I washed his face and bent close to sniff. He smelled like the night we'd gone to the drive-in. In life and death, H bathed with Ivory.

“There's something else I never told you,” I whispered close to his ear. “I wanted you to kiss me, especially when we hid in the hay field. You didn't need to tease about it or ask, just kiss me. I wouldn't have minded.” I bent closer. “I owe you this.” I touched my lips to his. His lips were cool, not like being outside on a fine fall day, but cool from the inside. I jumped back, ripping the gloves from my hands to scrub at my mouth with the hem of my T-shirt.

The door at the top of the stairs opened. Mrs. Clancy said, “We're coming down, Amy.”

I ran up the ramp into the surrendering night. A halo of gold as soft as fleece outlined Logan Mountain. My flip-flops slapped against my feet, too loud for the unraveling day, so I slipped them off and left them on the sidewalk. I must have run down the hill and across Pinion Road, but I didn't remember anything until I lay facedown in the hayfield, making mud of the rich earth. I beat the ground with my fist to enunciate each word of the question that distressed my soul.

“What were you thinking?” I repeated over and over, not giving God a chance to answer because there wasn't an answer I wanted to hear. I rolled onto my back, watching the colorless sky bloom to blue. If God wasn't going to perform per my expectations, I felt justified in making him feel guilty. “You know, H was a good guy. He could be maddening at times, true, but he had a good heart. He was earnest, a regular guy, the salt of the earth. You need guys like that, don't you?”

Maybe God didn't. Maybe God preferred the likes of Jim Warner.
After all, Jesus called Paul, a murderer, to the mission field and impetuous, ever-the-bungler Peter, a party guy for sure, to preach to the Gentiles. In the early days, had Jesus held Peter's head while he vomited from drinking too much wine? Mary Magdalene's soul had housed seven demons. Thomas doubted Jesus' identity after three years of intimate friendship. And Judas—Judas was Jim Warner, someone who had garnered H's trust only to strip him of his dignity and life.

Over the course of the next few days, Mrs. Clancy, Mom, and I performed our duties like repelling magnets, all positively charged with an unspeakable grief. Feather dropped by daily to fill the refrigerator with eggs from her hens and bread that Butter had baked. I thanked her, but my heart was wrapped in cotton. Kindnesses and ill-spoken condolences dropped to the floor noiselessly. Mrs. Clancy asked me to sing at the funeral.

“I know his favorite song,” I said.

She hesitated only slightly before she said, “Anything you choose will be fine.”

I sang “One Tin Soldier” to a packed church, but mostly to Feather and her family in the back row and to Leoti because they would understand the song and why H loved it so.

When they lowered his casket into the ground, I cried and couldn't stop. Although I know it hurt her, I pushed Mom away and took long walks down country roads, past the sprightly green of irrigated fields and onto the desert mesas. I listed all of the things H would miss, like the cheering crowd at football games and graduating with his class and going to college and falling in love and getting married and having babies.

Grief turned to shame when I realized the sorrow that swaddled me wasn't as much about missing H as it was about me. I felt vulnerable, fragile. I had believed God would protect me. Now I wasn't so sure. My head accepted the idea that I would die someday, when I was old and worthless. Everyone died. H's passing made death my next-door neighbor, hard to ignore and prone to loud parties that kept me awake at night. That may sound funny coming from a girl who lived and worked in a funeral home, but death is very, very different when it takes a friend, a friend whose breath I'd felt on my face.

If God wasn't my protector, who was?

I discovered that summer why people said they'd “lost” a loved one. I turned constantly to share a story with H, or an aggravating tidbit about Mom, even an observation about life in Cordial. And he wasn't there. He would never be there again, but my heart kept forgetting.

When Feather came to tell me she was moving to North Carolina, an abyss threatened to draw me into its darkness. I felt abandoned. Coming to Cordial had withered my dream of college and freedom, and now I was losing yet another friend.

Later, I gathered my Jane Austen books and delivered them to her cabin as a going-away present. She handed me Vernon and packed the books in a Michelob box.

Straw sat on a stump by the door with his head in his hands. Frog and Mule peeked into the cabin, more serious than I'd ever seen them. They saw me watching and disappeared. Inside, I held Vernon while Butter and Feather filled cardboard boxes with clothes. Little Lamb napped on his parents' bed.

“Just take what you need for the trip, no more than three days' worth. We'll buy new things when we get home,” said a woman dressed in a sailor-like short outfit with tennis shoes so white they seemed blue. She stooped to sort through the clothes. Some she threw to the ground. “There's absolutely no reason for my grandchildren to dress like ragamuffins, Deborah.”

Deborah?
Deborahs barked orders and demanded loyalty with a blood sacrifice. Butter was soft and golden.

“Mom,” Butter said, and there was a warning in the way she said it.

“I'm sorry. I know I promised. It's just that—”

“Remember, staying with you is only temporary,” Butter said. “Once I've gotten a job and saved some money, we'll find a place of our own.”

Straw strode into the cabin. He took a pair of scissors from where they hung on the wall. I stepped back. Butter's mom edged away until she bumped into Feather's bed. The twins returned, somber-faced, holding hands. Straw fell to his knees in front of Butter. He grabbed a fistful of his beard, and cut the clump of hair with the scissors.

“What are you doing? Stop!” Butter screamed.

Feather ran to her father, placing her hand on his arm, but he shook it off. He pulled another fistful of hair straight up from his head and cut close to his scalp. Clumps of his yellow hair littered the cabin floor.

Butter dropped to her knees to look Straw in the eye. “Please! Straw! What are you doing? Stop!”

“My name is Steve.” His voice was a roar. He worked the scissors through another clump of hair.

Vernon wailed. I patted his back. I should have left the cabin, so the family could work out their problems in private, but I was too curious. Instead, I busied myself appeasing Vernon.

Butter pleaded with Straw. “Why are you doing this?”

“I'd do anything to keep you and the kids with me. I'll get a job off the homestead. Maybe the bank needs a—”

“Not the bank!”

“I'll harvest peaches by day and stock grocery shelves by night. Anything, Butter, I'll do anything.”

His scalp bled where he'd nicked himself with the scissors. He looked like one sorry mutt, but Butter looked at him with pliant eyes. Straw dropped the scissors to open his arms to her. They clutched at each other. Butter's mother inched closer.

“Deborah, winter is only a few months off, and you'll be stoking the fire every hour to keep the children from freezing. And you know, dear, Rebecca needs to see a specialist. The university hospital draws the best doctors in the country. Your father has been asking around. There's a neurologist doing research with new drugs. They look very hopeful.”

Straw held Butter at arm's length. “They're hiring at the mine. I can make $25.00 an hour, plus benefits.”

“That goes against everything we believe in.”

“If I don't dig for coal, someone else will. Feather could see a specialist in Denver. And earning that kind of money, we could insulate the cabin and buy a better stove. And maybe we could get an electrical line hung to the house.” Straw held Butter's hands to his chest. “Babe, we made the right decision coming here. We're better for it. It's been tough, but we've survived the hardest years together. We can be the people we want to be. The money Feather found paid the mortgage for another month. Will you give me that long? If I don't have a job, and Feather hasn't seen a doctor, I'll drive you to your mother's myself.”

We all waited for Butter's answer. She ran her hand over the stubble of hair on Straw's head and chin. “Kids, put your things away.”

Straw howled and kissed Butter.