Yo cancer actin up?
Lula Mae looked at Sheila, her secret revealed. She had hidden the cancer for five years. I didn’t want yall to worry, she said.
In the following months, she waited patiently for death. This cancer gon kill us all, she said. Now she had passed, moved on to the world to come.
The bridge was steel and stillness and silence. A pyramid of rails and cables. Memphis this side, West Memphis the other. The river below was bright and clean, rocks on the bottom distant but clear, large and white as plates. Just a ways down the river, the dog track sat like a giant oil silo in the sun. Memphis’s best greyhounds chased circular rabbit motion. Real rabbits once. But that too had changed.
The yard across the road was peaceful now, no longer crowded with scurrying chickens. A colorful rooster or two. You would go there and buy fresh brown and green eggs. Now it stood empty and yellow. And on this side of the road where Lula Mae lived an empty field had replaced John Brown’s house. Both the man and his house gone — Brown first then the house — many years now. The promised construction had never begun. John Brown dead a good ten years or more already. Sheila couldn’t say for sure. John Brown would stand in the yard and point up into the tree. See the monkey. See the monkey.
Shell-shocked, Lula Mae said. But he treated her good. Took her anywhere she needed to go in his old pickup truck (gray? blue?), shaking and shuddering and steaming like a train. He believed it to be the only vehicle of its kind in Memphis or West Memphis.
Sheila let Gracie go first on the splintery wood placement — like an old railroad plank, which perhaps it was — that offered a skinny path across the grass-covered drainage ditch. Gracie opened the chain-link fence and charged through the yard as if it all had ordinary meaning to her. Sheila watched from the sidewalk and fought to still her insides. A half-circle of spokes poked through the grass, straighter than peacock feathers. Wrought-iron lawn furniture, painted silver in the sun (Lula Mae hid the red rust with seasonal coatings of silver paint), was positioned in front of the green-and-white two-story house — well, the second story with the miter-shaped roof was an attic — for the right combination of sun and shade. A motherly awning reached over and sheltered a snug little concrete porch. No sides or banisters. Barely room for a chair. A porch for looking, not sitting.
TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING.
I will.
Make sure Hatch has everything he needs.
I will.
You know how he forgets.
You don’t have to remind me.
And try to get here Friday night at the latest. The funeral gon be Saturday morning.
We’ll come well before that.
Don’t be in such a rush. Give your father chance to return.
We will.
Maybe that damn fool John’ll be with him.
More than likely.
You take care and I’ll see yall when you get here.
Okay.
Bye.
Bye. Oh, Mom.
What?
Should we tell Jesus?
You decide.
THIS WAY, Reverend Blunt said. The young and handsome reverend took Sheila by the elbow. He led her down the hall. Sheila looked back to see Gracie still standing at the front door, her Bible tight at her side.
Aren’t you going to come? Sheila said.
The reverend never stopped walking.
No, Gracie said. I’ll see her later.
Well, stay away from that sun, the reverend said, looking back, still walking.
Gracie looked at him as if he’d spoken to her in a foreign language.
I’ll have my boy bring you some tea.
Keep it, Gracie said.
The words caused the reverend to blink. Please, ma’m, keep over there in the shade or you’ll catch heatstroke. Outside, the day’s heat was still rising. Gracie didn’t budge.
The reverend took Sheila where he needed to take her, then stopped and stood sentinel-still. I’ll wait here, ma’m.
Sheila entered the room. She saw the body, open in a casket already chosen. Lula Mae’s face was gray as the quilt that covered her. The dew of death on her breath. Sheila searched for the old image in the sunken face. Searched but did not find. The body had been emptied of both life and memory. She stayed as long as she needed to stay, then she went out.
We gon make everything perfect, the reverend said. He retook Sheila’s elbow. Miss Pulliam already made all the arrangements. If there’s anything you want to change or add … We’ll bring her over to the church Friday evening for the viewing. Come on in here and we can go over everything. I’ll just need you to give me cash or a certified check. My credit-card machine ain’t seem to be workin today. His hand was a crane lifting her up at the elbow. Boy, bring her some cold tea.
Yes, suh.
And check on that lady out front there.
HOW SHE LOOK? Gracie said. She was a long time rising.
Fine. They did a fine job.
How she look?
LULA MAE WOULDN’T LIKE THAT CASKET, Gracie said. She returned the brochure to Sheila.
Well, we can go back and you can help me find one that you like.
It ain’t about what I like.
It’s the one she chose.
They sat for a long time. Sheila felt the silence all around her. When she spoke her voice was lost. Well, I guess we better be gettin on to the church.
Gracie leaned forward. She put both hands to her face. She sat like that, both shoulders moving.
THE SLOW GRAY PREACHER took Sheila’s elbow to help her negotiate the collapsed steps leading up to the church. Gracie followed behind, carrying her heavy Bible like a suitcase at her side. The preacher took them into the small chapel and showed them all there was to see. The wake and funeral would be held here, the church that Lula Mae had attended just blocks down the road from her house.
Why we got to have it here? Gracie said. It’s old. Dirty. Unclean. Stinks.
Lula Mae wanted it here.
I don’t see why.
SHE WOULDN’T WANT TO BE BURIED IN THAT DRESS, Gracie said.
This is the dress she told me, Sheila said.
Well, she didn’t tell me that.
She didn’t have to tell you.
You know everything.
It’s what she wanted.
You always right.
Gracie, what’s wrong with you?
You always gotta have everything yo way.
I TALKED TO BEULAH. She’ll be here tomorrow.
They driving? Gracie said.
Yes. Rochelle’s husband rented a van.
That’s a long drive from St. Paul to here.
I know. But that’s the only way they can afford to come.
Beulah can’t stand no long drive.
I offered to send for her but—
That’s a long drive. Too long. Beulah is ninety—
Yes, well, Jacky and Lil Judy coming too.
Gracie half turned to her with some new complaint.
WASN’T NO LAUNDROMATS in the old days. Jus soap, water, and yo two hands. Wash the clothes in a big steel tub, scrub them hard across the scrubbing board, and lay em across the line to dry in the sun. Took a lot out of a person. That was the way Lula Mae had washed. That was the way Sheila was washing now. After she finished the laundry, she started on the floors, walls, and windows. She took little time to rest. Then she ironed the outfit she would wear Saturday, cut, color, and fabric chosen many months before. (She would wear it with Lucifer’s gift, the yellow bird made of unidentified Brazilian stone.) That done, she went on to her next task. She knew what she needed to do beyond knowing, and knowing, knew that she had turned knowledge into obligation, duty, and the fulfillment of that obligation and duty.
Her hands are anything but idle. She must put the house in order. The house will be rocking with people come Saturday. And she has to sort through Lula Mae’s belongings. What will she keep for herself? Those things dearest to her heart. Can she lug it all back to the city? What she doesn’t keep Gracie and Lula Mae’s friends can have. Whatever they don’t want, she will try to sell. She will—