The Tin Can Tree

'She won't listen. So I was thinking, as long as he's away today-'

'Men are like that,' Mrs Hammond said. 'Work is all they think about.'

'As long as he is at work,' Joan said firmly, 'I think maybe Aunt Lou should start working too.'

'Working?'

'Working at sewing. Missouri said -'

'Mrs who?'

'Mrs – never mind. Wait a minute.' Joan switched ears and leaned forward, as if Mrs Hammond could see her now from where she stood. 'Mrs Hammond,' she said, 'I know how good you are at helping other people.'

'Oh, why, I just-'

'I know you could help Aunt Lou right now, if anybody could. You could bring that dress she was working on, that -was it purple?'

'Lilac,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Princess style.'

That's the one.'

'Lou said it would add to my height a little, a princess style would.'

That's right,' Joan said. 'That's the one.'

'Especially since it has up-and-down pinstripes.'

'Yes. Well, I was thinking. If you could just bring it over and get her to work on it for you, just take her mind off all the-'

'You might be right,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Why didn't I think of that? Why, the day before the funeral, when I came -you remember -1 did feel she was doing wrong to sit so quiet. I said so. I have always believed that baking calms the nerves, so I said to her, "Lou," I said, "why don't you make some rolls?" But she looked at me as if I'd lost my senses. After all, I'd just brought two dozen, and a cake besides. Yet I felt she ought to be doing something; that's what I was trying to tell her. You just might be right, Joan.'

'Well, then,' said Joan, 'do you think you could come over sometime today?'

'I'll come over right this minute. I just wouldn't feel at rest until I had. You say your aunt's still in bed?'

'She was a minute ago,' Joan said.

'Well, you try and get her up, and I'll be there as fast as I can find the dress. I'll be there, don't you worry.'

'All right,' Joan said. 'It certainly is nice of you to come, Mrs Hammond.'

'Well. Goodbye, now.'

'Goodbye.'

Joan hung up and sat back to rub her ear, which felt squashed. Now that all that was settled, the next step was to get Simon downstairs. He would have to back her up in this.

Simon was standing in front of his mirror when Joan came in. He was wearing blue jeans but no shirt, and scratching his stomach absently. 'Hey,' Joan said, and he jumped and looked up at her. 'Find yourself a shirt,' she told him. 'Connie Hammond's coming.'

'Aw, gee, Joan. Mrs Hammond?'

'She'll be here any minute. Come on, now. It's a special favour to your mother.

'I bet she'll never notice,' Simon said, but he pulled a bureau drawer open. Joan closed the door and went on to her aunt's room.

Mrs Pike was sitting up against two pillows, fat and soft in a grey nylon nightgown. She had her hands folded across her stomach and was looking vaguely at the two points her feet made underneath the bedspread. 'Good morning,' Joan said, and Mrs Pike raised her eyes silently and peered at her as if she were trying to pierce her way through mist. But she never answered. After a minute her eyes passed on to something else, dismissing Joan like the wrong answer to a question she had asked. Joan came to stand at the foot of the bed.

'Aunt Lou,' she said, 'would you like to get up?'

Her aunt shook her head.

'Mrs Hammond's coming. Do you want her to find you in bed?'

'No,' said Mrs Pike, but she didn't do anything about it. She settled lower into the pillows, with her eyes worrying at the wallpaper now, and in so much dim clutter she appeared to be sinking, overcome by the objects around her. Under Joan's feet were cast-off clothes, everywhere, everything her aunt had been persuaded to put on in the last few days. She had stepped out of them and left them there, returning wearily to her grey nightgown. Mr Pike, on the other hand, had made some effort at neatness. He had laid his clothes awkwardly on the back of the platform rocker, where they rose in a layered mountain that seemed huge and overwhelming in the half-dark. On the bureau were hairbrushes and bobby pins and old coffee cups with dark rings inside them. The sight of it all made Joan feel caved in and despairing, and she went over to raise the window shade but the light only picked up more clutter. 'Aunt Lou,' she said, 'We just have to get organized here.'

'What?'

'We have to start cleaning things up.'

Her aunt nodded, without seeming to pay attention, but then she surprised Joan by moving over to the edge of the bed and standing up. She stood in that old woman's way she had just acquired – searching out the floor with anxious feet, rising slowly and heavily. For a minute she stood there, and then she shook her nightgown out and faltered toward the bureau. 'I'm going to clean up,' she told Joan.

That's it.'

But all Mrs Pike did, once she reached the bureau, was to stare into the mirror. She put both hands on the bureau top and leaned forward, frowning into her own eyes. The alarm clock in front of her ticked loudly, and she reached out without looking to set it farther away. 'Some people stop all the clocks when someone dies,' she said.

'What're you going to wear, Aunt Lou?'

'If Connie Hammond's coming, why, she'll have to turn around and go off again.'

'What dress are you going to wear?' Joan asked, and the sharpness of her voice made Mrs Pike sigh and stand up straight again.

'Any one will do,' she said. She pulled out a small plastic box from a half-open drawer and began putting bobby pins into it. One by one she scraped them off the top of the dresser, working like a blind woman with careful fingers while she kept her eyes on the mirror. Joan watched, not moving. Each bobby pin made a little clinking sound against the bottom of the plastic box, and each time the sound came Mrs Pike winced into the mirror. 'My grand-mother stopped all the clocks,' she said. 'She would also announce the death to each fruit tree, so that they wouldn't shrivel up. But we don't have no fruit trees.' Her fingers slid slowly across the bureau top, and when she found that all the bobby pins were picked up she closed the box and set it down again. Then she went back to bed. She tucked her feet down under the covers and drew the top sheet with great care over her chest.

'No, wait,' Joan said.

'I did what I could, Joan.'

Joan went over to the closet and pulled out the first thing she touched, a navy blue dress with white polka dots. 'Is this all right?' she asked.

'No.'

'This, then.' And she lifted a brown dress from its hanger and laid it on the bed without waiting for an answer. 'It's the prettiest one you've got,' she said.

Outside, a car screeched to a halt and sent up a spray of gravel that Joan could hear from where she stood. She looked out and saw Mrs Hammond's Pontiac swerving backwards into the yard with one sharp turn of the wheel, while Mrs Hammond herself remained rigidly facing forward. The car came to rest right beside James's pickup, within an inch of running over Simon's bicycle. Then Mrs Hammond shot out, clutching bits of cloth and tissue paper to her chest and leaving the car door open behind her. All she needed was an ambulance siren. Joan leaned out the window and called, 'Mrs Hammond?' and Mrs Hammond looked up, with her face startled and worried-looking.

'Just walk on in and come upstairs,' Joan told her. 'Aunt Lou's in bed still.'

'Oh. All right.'

She bent her head over her armload of cloth and started running again, and Joan could hear her quick sharp heels along the porch and then inside, across the parlour floor and up the stairs. 'Oh, law,' she was saying to no one. She sounded out of breath.

But Mrs Pike didn't say a word to all this. She just lay back against the pillows and folded her arms across her stomach again, her face expressionless. When Mrs Hammond burst into the room and said, 'Why, Lou!' as if Mrs Pike had somehow taken her by surprise, Mrs Pike only nodded gently and watched the wallpaper. 'Lou?' said Mrs Hammond.