The Undertaker's Daughter (11 page)

A blond, blue-eyed nurse at the hospital was always happy to have a friendly chat with Frank when she found the time. Our hospital was drab and murky, and her presence brightened the corridors. Barbara Jean was so pretty in her starched white uniform and crisp nurse’s hat that just looking at her made me want to be a nurse—for two seconds, until thoughts rushed in of corpses on the embalming table and the astonishing amount of blood that flows through the human body. I decided against it.

My father bought insurance from her husband and had a hunch that she would be willing to help. He caught her in the hall on a break, and they stood outside the hospital’s snack bar sipping coffee.

“Barbara Jean, you know that woman Mrs. Bellows who died the other day . . . do you remember when I brought her in?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Well, Alfred Deboe is burying her, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Barbara Jean sighed. “Now, Frank, I don’t think we should be having this conversation.”

“Come on, Barbara Jean. I know something’s going on. I’ll find out sooner or later. I’d rather hear it from you.”

She hesitated. “All right. But don’t you let on who told you. I really shouldn’t tell you this, but . . .” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Someone’s swinging the families. Someone’s sending them to Alfred Deboe.”

“Who?”

“We’ve been told, well . . .” She hesitated.

“Barbara Jean, I won’t get you in any trouble.”

“If a family member’s relative has died in the hospital, and they haven’t already requested a funeral home, the nurse on duty is directed to suggest Alfred’s funeral home.”

“You’ve been told to do that yourself?”

“Oh, yeah, many times.”

“Well, where’s it coming from, Barbara Jean?”

“Percy Foley. They’re his orders.”

Straight from the top. The hospital administrator, Percy Foley, a great heap of a man who wore the sweaty pallor of too many Southern breakfasts, had given orders to suggest the Deboe Funeral Home to family members of dying patients. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Percy Foley was a distant relative of Fletcher Hamilton’s and a member of the Old Clan.

“Frank, what you need to do is get yourself down to one of those Hospital Board meetings and plead your case,” Jim Dawson, one of the town leaders who held a less myopic view of Jubilee’s place in the world, advised my father. Most people called him Mr. Jim due to his great height, but he was also great in purpose and strength of heart. When Jubilee needed a diplomat, they most often called upon Mr. Jim.

While my father fumed, he planned to take action to protect his business. Other men in town welcomed new businesses and those who worked hard to establish them. They supported the new funeral director, and they, too, encouraged him to go before the Beacon County Hospital Board.

When Frank Mayfield pleaded his case before the board, he asked that an unfair practice be abolished. He then put all of his cards on the table and suggested that the members of the board seriously consider relieving Percy Foley of his duties as the hospital’s administrator. Foley was not fired; he was not even reprimanded. Even with the support of several established men in Jubilee, Frank’s actions backfired on him. This was Jubilee and the message was clear: This system has been arranged. Don’t try to change things and certainly do not try to run things.

When Foley heard about my father’s attempt to have him dismissed, he became vindictive. Now the employees were instructed to become more aggressive at the deathbeds of their patients. Right at the exact moment of death, when families stood in the darkened rooms whispering and weeping, there was no better moment for hospital staff to say, “Why don’t you let us call Alfred for you?”

It wasn’t always a successful maneuver; some were loyal to my father even when cajoled. But in most cases, it was difficult for a family to back out of their first request. They simply felt too vulnerable. If a family had chosen Deboe in the first miserable moment of death, even if they had second thoughts later, a strong voice within a family was needed to change funeral directors midstream. The damage was done. The Old Clan thought Frank was a fool, too big for his fancy britches and ignorant of how speaking out against a perceived wrong was a privilege afforded only to those whose granddaddies were born in Jubilee. What he needed was an ally in this town, someone who knew how things worked, someone who was established and whose roots ran deep. While he waited for that person to appear, the strain of his endeavors began to show. Mornings began with two white tablets of Alka-Seltzer instead of one, his perfect quiff was thinning, and he was even more short-tempered with my mother than usual. It began to show in other ways, too.

One evening not long after these events, before bedtime I walked through the kitchen, where my father and my mother spoke in heated whispers. I passed by my father and suddenly he grabbed me by my arm and spanked me. It didn’t hurt, but it scared me silly because it came from nowhere. My mother was free with her hand—a slap, a spanking, she made good on her threats to “get the yardstick,” but not him. Usually he never
touched me in anger or as punishment. I knew I’d done nothing to deserve it, but couldn’t manage to say one single word in my defense.

“Go to bed,” my mother said hurriedly.

I hiked up my blue flannel pajama bottoms and fled.

The next morning my mother asked me to come into the kitchen. My father stood at the counter while waiting for his Alka-Seltzer to calm down. I watched the white tablets dissolve furiously in the glass of water, to which he added several ice cubes. I usually asked him for a sip because I liked the taste and the cold shock it gave my throat. I usually laughed as the bubbles showered my face. Alka-Seltzer was one of those things that immediately connected me to my father.
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is
. But not this morning. I didn’t want a sip; I didn’t even want to laugh.

“Your father has something he wants to say to you.” My mother stood with her arms folded.

He leaned back against the counter, as if for support. He looked straight ahead, with not even a glance my way. “Your mother wanted me to tell you—”

“Frank,” she interrupted with a warning in her voice.

“Well, I wanted to say that I’m sorry about last night. I had a little too much to drink. Things have been a bit stressful and . . . well, I won’t do it again.”

I felt sick to my stomach. He’d never before had to apologize to me for anything. And I’d never seen my mother give him a direct order. She didn’t apologize to me when she spanked me unjustly, so why would she make him do it? Everything was topsy-turvy. Suddenly I found the linoleum on the kitchen floor extremely interesting. I thought about how many times I’d seen Belle’s bucket and mop on this floor. I didn’t understand what he
was saying to me, but I nodded as if I did. The tone of his voice, uncomfortable and shamed, was foreign to me. Embarrassed for him, I didn’t look at him directly.

I didn’t know one soul who drank alcohol, except for Bobby, and he went to jail because of it. Did this mean my mother was going to have to get my father out of jail, too? She would never allow alcohol in the house, and both my mother’s and father’s families back in Lanesboro were teetotalers. Beacon County was dry. There were no liquor stores for miles. Did he go to a bootlegger?

I waited for more of an explanation. I waited for the fun, wisecracking father I loved to show his face. But he stood there, his head bowed, as if he found the floor as interesting as I did.

There was no easy way to learn that my father was not who I thought he was. Or rather, was much more than I had ever imagined.

I wondered where this drinking took place. Being an undertaker in a small town, someone at the funeral home, at least one person, always had to know my father’s whereabouts. God forbid anyone should die and Frank Mayfield not be found.

My mother always had two words on the tip of her tongue: “Where’s Frank?” I’d often hear her quiz Sonny, or whoever was on duty. The answers varied. Sometimes they stumbled a bit. “Err . . . I guess he’s at the hospital.” Her face would often cloud over and her whole body would stiffen as she waited for an answer. Lately, one of the most frequent answers was “He’s gone to see Miss Agnes.” Her face would relax then, and she’d nod and seem relieved.

I’d heard the names of many of Jubilee’s citizens as they cropped up in funeral-home conversation, but recently none was tossed into the air as frequently as this one. Miss Agnes Davis,
currently just a name to me, would soon prove to be the very definition of a friend and ally.

Mysteries were brewing at the funeral home. I could feel them in the air.

We knew nothing about him other than he was wholly fascinated with the dead. He was the Mr. Average sort, average in height and weight, and was middle-aged. He never wore a suit or a tie as a pretension, nor tried to pass himself off as a relative or a friend of the deceased’s.

My father opened up shop at seven thirty each morning. When we had a body, the townspeople who couldn’t call in at any other time dropped by before work to pay their respects. Sometimes they spent a moment in the chapel, but often they just signed the register and rushed out. As was customary, the deceased’s family didn’t arrive until after lunch.

By midmorning there was usually a lull in traffic. Like clockwork—and I wondered if he lurked around the corner waiting for people to leave—The Visitor appeared. He cast a long shadow on the sidewalk, and his lone figure seemed to creep up the front steps. After he nodded to my father, he proceeded to the chapel, walked straight to the casket, and stood before it, enthralled.

The rows of chairs set out for the family and friends were of no interest to him; he never sat down. If other people who actually knew the deceased strolled in while he was there, he stepped to one
side whenever they approached the casket. The Visitor was careful not to be accused of dominating the view. He spoke to no one.

He wasn’t a professional mourner, for his demeanor lacked any sign that he was emotionally affected by his visits. When he was alone in the chapel with the body, an air of steady coolness surrounded him, and held by his fascination, it seemed he did not breathe. He appeared absolutely rooted to the spot.

One day after the first few visits, my father opened the door to him and held out his hand.

“Good morning, Mr. . . .”

“Arnold, Mr. Arnold.”

“How are you today, Mr. Arnold?”

“Fine, thank you.” He walked on past my father.

When he crossed the threshold of the chapel, he strode over the invisible line where any small talk ended. The Visitor was safe, for he knew that out of respect for the dead, the undertaker would not pursue him with questions while he was in the chapel.

This then was the dance between the two men. One, who coveted anonymity, to be left alone with his obsession, and the other, who felt a little used and wanted to know more about the man who wished to remain anonymous. His name meant nothing to my father, and after a feeble investigation, no one seemed to know who he was or where he called home.

There was never any sound reason to ban the man from visiting. He timed his arrivals perfectly and was careful not to overstay his welcome. He never attempted to touch anything—or anyone. My father kept an eye on him, of course. I wondered if one day he might crack and try to climb on top of a closed casket or kiss a corpse or run out with a wreath of flowers in his arms,
REST IN PEACE
emblazoned across his chest. Sometimes, when the funeral home was busy like a train station with hats and coats flowing in
and out, his mysterious bearing faded and he seemed entirely normal, just a regular visitor caught in the morning rush.

The Visitor and my father never became friends, never shared even the smallest of conversations. That’s what made his presence so unsettling, and that for thirteen years he never missed a visitation until, one day, he disappeared.

We pondered what had happened to him and years later spoke of his probable death. I imagined his own portrait of repose: his face restored with cosmetics to appear alive, his closed eyes, his hands folded upon his chest. I wondered, too, if someone fixed a stare upon his corpse as he had upon so many others.

 CHAPTER 4