"Well, we did find he was drinking some, ma'am. There was a bottle of bourbon in the boat. Guns and whiskey just don't mix," he added. Another valuable lesson.
Mammy just stared up at him. I looked at the floor. The words were all jumbling in my mind, stacking up and sprawling out like some product on an assembly line in the Lewis Foundry going awry.
"You're sure there's nothing we can do for you?" the second patrolman asked.
Mammy shook her head, her eyes so glassy they looked fake.
"Please accept our condolences, ma'am."
They stood there a moment and then both turned and walked out the door. We heard them open the front door and close it behind them. I looked down at the plastic bag containing Daddy's things in my hand. Mommy followed my eves and stared at it, too.
She reached out and took the bag, plucking the ring gently from the bag and turning it in her fingers.
"Charles," she said and she started to sob, deep rasping sobs emerging from her throat, but no tears yet from her eyes. It was all taking hold slowly, but firmly, the realization, the reality that this was not some nightmare. This had just happened.
I saw the words and the thoughts forming in her eyes. Her husband was gone.
I took a deep breath. I had to let reality in, too. I had to let the thought take shape.
My daddy was gone.
3 Secrets
After my daddy's death, the nightmares and bleak thoughts that had shadowed our lives for so long finally took more solid shapes and crossed over the line between the darkness and the light. One discovery after another descended on our small, fragile world with the force of a sledgehammer. Mammy made the shocking discovery that Daddy had neglected to pay his life insurance premiums. Somewhere along the rough and uneven line of our lives, he had simply overlooked it, or in his inimitable fashion had decided, why worry about dying?
Thinking back now, I realized we never spoke much about death in our house. My father had become so estranged from his parents that he didn't attend his own father's funeral. He did go to his mother's, but he didn't take me or my mother along. It was almost just another business trip because he attached an interview with a prospective new employer to his itinerary and when he returned had nothing to say about his relatives.
My mother's parents had long since disowned her and put all their attention and love into her younger brother and sister. She tried to restore a relationship, but my grandfather was a stubborn, unforgiving man whose reply and philosophy was "You made your bed. Now lie in it."
I had only vague memories of both of them, and the one picture Mammy had of her father was of him staring at the camera, almost daring it to capture his image. Mommy told me he didn't believe in smiling for pictures because it made him look insubstantial and foolish, and he hated being thought anything but important. Looking at him in the picture frightened me so much, I had nightmares.
Neither he nor my grandmother responded to the announcement of my father's death and more importantly didn't offer any assistance. It compounded my mother's sorrow and laid another heavy rock on her chest.
The only time I could actually recall my father talking about death was when he said, why talk about it?
"As I see it, there are things over which you have some control and things over which you don't. Rose. Just forget about the ones you don't. Pretend they don't exist and it won't bother you," he told me.
However, for us, that translated into all sorts of big problems beginning with no money for a real funeral, a grave site, or a tombstone. When Mammy lamented about these things. I wondered why she had permitted it to happen, too, why hadn't she insisted on facing realities? Why hadn't she seen to it that these things were addressed? Why did she bury her head in the sand Daddy poured around us? I wanted to scream at her, demanding to know why she had put up with all of this irresponsibility.
But how do you ask such questions and say such hard things to a woman who looked like she was being dragged over hot coals by a cruel and indifferent Fate? Was there any way to have such a sensible conversation with someone who looked stunned, who barely could eat or talk or dress herself in the morning? She was always a woman who paid attention to her appearance, and now, she didn't care how washed-out and haggard she looked.
Fortunately for us. Mr. Kruegar decided he would pay Daddy's salary for two more months and help with the funeral costs. Apparently, he really did like Daddy and enjoyed his company at the
dealership. As soon as the news of Daddy's death was out. Mr. Kruegar was the first one to come calling, and that was when he made all these offers.
"We got a lot of new business out of sponsoring you in the beauty contest," he told me as we all sat in our living room. It was so still and quiet, it did seem as if the world had been put on pause. "I'm glad your father asked me to do it."
I simply stared at him. How could he talk about something like that at this horrible time? I wondered.
He smiled at Mommy. She nodded, but she looked like she would nod at anything, even if he merely cleared his throat.
"You know, next month is Kruegar's twentyfifth anniversary. I'm thinking of having a big celebration. Refreshments, balloons, little mementos to give out, special discounts on the new cars and used cars, stuff like that. I'm going to have the local television network there and a radio station
broadcasting from my site. I'd like you to come down and be one of my hostesses." he told me. "Maybe you could wear that beauty contest swimsuit and do that hula-hula dance you did. You'll be on television.I'll pay you a hundred dollars a day that weekend." he added. Mommy raised her eyebrows and looked at me.
"I don't feel much like parading around in a bathing suit and dancing, Mr. Kruegar."
"Oh, I know that. Not now, but next month. Give it some thought. okay? I'd like to do what I can to help you people. I'll miss him. Great guy, great salesman. Broke a record in March, you know. I gave him that thousand dollar bonus for it."