The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett - 41

W hen I try and picture the last few days, I see the pages that cousin crayoned in the coloring book. Where she took the first color she could grab and ran it furious across the paper. No matter that it did not match how the world ought to look.

Some folks came by the house. The ones I knew were Marybeth’s and Gloria’s mamas. Lucille stood in the doorway in a daze until they worked their way into the house. Nobody called her white trash, and she did not tell Marybeth’s mama she could stand to skip a meal or Gloria’s that she won a ugly contest. It takes a man dying to make some folks behave. Instead, those Christian mamas got Lucille upstairs and finally changed out of that old white nightgown and a bathtub going. They know how to run things. Talking about Jesus and what Lucille needed now was the Lord Jesus Christ to help her and Tom’s mama and daddy get through this.

The doctor’s worried about Isabelle. Big Tom’s worried too , Marybeth’s mama said. Lucille, let us take Meg home with us for a while until you feel a little better—

No! Lucille cried. I want Meg to stay here with me! I don’t want to be alone. She sounded scared to death, so the ladies backed off. I tried to be relieved that she didn’t plan on returning me right away, but the thought of staying here without Tom made me want to set my head down on something and cry.

Which I have not done. It is strange. But how I wish I could. Maybe because I pushed the crying for that other one down so hard, it will never come unstuck again. I just feel cold and shaking all over.

Gloria’s mama said she would send her girl over to tidy up the kitchen and make sure we had plenty to eat. That Willy May wouldn’t hardly leave Tom’s mama’s bedside. When their maid came in that afternoon, she hardly said two words or much more since. She wiped down the kitchen, set out some soups with rice, stews, things soft on the throat.

I couldn’t seem to make my mouth speak much anyway. It made me think of the Orphan and how sometimes it would shut a girl up. For weeks sometimes without saying a word. All this noise inside us and we cannot make a damn sound.

Whenever Lucille saw me, she would close her eyes, like maybe I would disappear if she kept them shut long enough. Mostly she just stayed up in bed.

When she didn’t come out a whole afternoon, I tried sliding a note under her door. It said, Hello.

I did not get a note back.

After a while I put another one under there that said, How are you? I am fine. In case she had forgot I was here, I did another that said, This is Meg.

When there was still nothing, I started to worry she was in there planning something. I just hoped it did not involve rocks. That was all I needed was them both dead. That’d be a fast ticket back to the Orphan.

Finally, Lucille came downstairs to answer the telephone. I stood there listening and learned there would be a funeral in a couple days’ time. Small, just for close family. Without her face made up, Lucille looked old but also like a girl. Her hair laid flat and stringy. I still didn’t like her, but I did wonder how long since she had eaten something.

When Lucille put the talker down and was just sitting there staring, I asked, Where did they put Tom?

They’ve got him laid out at the big house until the funeral , she said, and then, Course they had to take him to his damn mama’s.

Did Lucille want them to bring him here? Lay Tom out dead on the vegetable sofa? I sort of wished they had, it sounded better than to think of him in that big cold living room, Mrs. Heidelberg crying over his body.

Will we get to see him again? I asked.

I don’t know, I don’t know, I just want to be alone.

She went back upstairs while I was thinking, We might be all we got left and you want to be alone? But she closed her door, leaving me standing at the bottom of the stairs.

The day before the funeral, Willy May comes in with some food. She hugs my head to her and asks, How you doing, Meg?

How do you even answer something like that? That a terrible wind is blowing in my ears? That I hear dogs snarling and snapping at something nightly?

Is Mrs. Heidelberg— I’m too afraid to ask what I really want to know.

Willy May shakes her head. She in a bad way, Meg, laid up in bed sick. I got to tend to her all day now.

I know Mrs. Heidelberg blames me for what happened, and I don’t blame her. I blame myself too.

If only I had told her about the drinking. Tom might still be alive.

She has brought us covered dishes she calls casseroles , which is what you eat when you can’t think straight. The meat and the vegetable and gravy and cheese all throwed into the one dish to keep it simple. She shows me how to light the oven careful and tells me to make sure I eat something. Sort of as a side note she says, And Miz Lucille.

I ask her what about school, it started a few days ago. She says, All the cousins be sitting out this week. I am glad to hear that. Least it won’t be just me trying to catch up.

Before she leaves, she gives me a good long hug. It is the first good one I have had since Tom died. It all finally comes rushing out, the tears and the ache. The wind stops blowing quite so terrible. She rubs my back and even though I don’t even know Willy May’s last name, I ask, Can I come home with you and stay?

No, baby, I got to look after Miz Isabelle now. Everbody got they hands full. And like it is a damn shame, Last I heard, Miz Lucille want you to stay on here with her.

I don’t get to go to Tom’s funeral. At first I figure it is because Mrs. Heidelberg can’t stand the sight of me. But Willy May tells me it is on account of Tom killed himself that they don’t let the younger folks go.

I would liked to’ve gone. I think Tom would have wanted me there. Instead I watch from my window as Mr. Oney totes Lucille off in a black dress, shoes and hat to match. You got to give it to Lucille, even in funeral times, she’s got style.

They are supposed to bury him at the little church over by town. I almost hate to think of the look Mrs. Heidelberg will give Lucille at the funeral.

So far, I have only been by myself in a house twice, once when she left for good and now for Tom’s funeral. It gives me a bad case of nerves to think what else could happen. I lie on the floor in the library and look up funeral in the F encyclopedia. Least let me see what I am missing.

It says at the Heidelberg kind of service, which is Christian, they will pray for Tom’s soul and stick him in a wood box and bury him in the earth until he is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That is not really that much to do by comparison.

In a place called Mongolia, they chop you up and let the vultures carry you off.

The Sulawesi folks bury you, then dig you up to check on you every couple years.

A lot of places just burn you up to nothing.

I wonder what Tom’s body must’ve looked like coming out of the water that day, sagging with all those rocks. I worry his glasses are still at the bottom of the lake. Those were important to him. He always took them off careful and set them aside before swimming, but does a person do that before they jump in for good? There is no book on earth to look up a answer like that.

In a place called Philippine they would dress Tom up in a fancy striped suit and prop him up next to the front door. Give him a plate of food to snack on and stick a cigarette in his mouth. They had a photograph for the example.

After a while I wished I had not looked at that photograph so long. Once you see one like that, it will be hard to unsee it when it’s time to go to sleep.

When Lucille comes home from the funeral, I am deep in The Call of the Wild . It has been a relief to go somewhere else for a while. But here she comes, stomping in the house and goes straight to the kitchen. I ask her were people praying for Tom’s soul. She is shaking all over, holding herself up at the sink.

This family treats me like I am dirt under their damn feet. I was his wife, for Christ’s sake. She takes a hunk of ice from the icebox and starts hacking at it. Who does she think she is—the damn queen of England? Somebody had to set her straight. So I said it. I told her, You killed Tom, you kept him a child and a fool … She goes to the china cabinet and takes out a bottle, still talking, pours the whole thing into a pitcher. And do you know what she did before God and everybody? Ripped the earrings right off my ears, saying they were family heirlooms and I wasn’t good enough to wear them!

That must’ve been like a damn ride at the fair, getting those off Lucille. It is almost too awful to imagine.

She takes the pitcher and a glass and pushes past me, goes upstairs to her room. I hear the bedroom door slam. The casserole is in the icebox. I stare at it, but I am not hungry. Instead, I go upstairs, fill the bathtub, and listen to the echoey sound the water makes in the room. Then I slip under the water and hold my breath and I think about Tom.

If I had gotten to go to the funeral, I would have snuck him his favorite Fitzgerald book. Slipped it in under the lid of the coffin and told him one last time, Sleep well, Tom.

A few mornings later, Lucille gets on the telephone. She asks to be connected to such-and-so law firm in New York City. After fifteen minutes or so, the thing rings back. I stay near to listen. I got nothing better to do but also in case it has anything to do with me.

I can’t hear everything that is said inside the black talker, but I gather this: When somebody dies, a man gives you money that goes by the name of Will, but you got to be in good with Will to actually get the money, unless Tom did some planning.

After Lucille hangs up, she picks the telephone up again and says, Connect me to the Heidelbergs at number fourteen please. Lucille tells Mr. Heidelberg she would like to come speak to them tomorrow.

The next morning Lucille gets all dressed up and fixes her hair with the big red curl on the side. She hollers for me to come button her up the back. It has been so long since I have been spoke to, I am glad to be of use.

I’ll be back , she says.

When? I ask. That is a habit of mine. But also a reasonable thing to ask a woman who has barely looked you in the eye coming up on a week.

I’m going over to the big house to talk to Isabelle and Big Tom. She takes a deep breath. Wish me luck.

Good luck , I say, because she is going to need it.

Not a hour later, she slams the front door so hard the pictures on the wall rattle. Seems like nobody ever has anything good to say when they walk in this house anymore. She is nearly in tears again. She jerks her gloves off and slaps them down on the table.

Well now I know exactly what this damn family thinks of me.

Did she have doubts about that?

Tom didn’t leave a will. Nothing’s in our name, not a house, not a car—all he left me with are some clothes and a goddamn typewriter! Her tears start streaming down as I follow her into Tom’s office where she flings open his top desk drawer. She rummages around in there. I said, Well what do you expect us to live on? Me and my young daughter?

It is kind of awful to hear it put in those words. But I keep my mouth shut.

And they said they need some time until they can “better assess the situation.” What the hell does that even mean? She slams the drawer closed, flings open the next one and starts going through it too. So I guess it’s just you and me, Meg , she says, while they take their time making a decision about our lives. You and me under their thumb without so much as a damn cent.

Least that thumb is attached to somebody rich is my opinion. When she has gone through all Tom’s drawers, the closet, the bookshelf and is sure there is nothing of value, she goes to the cabinet and makes a martini. Drinks it, pours another one. Drinks that one down too and on it goes. At hardly ten o’clock in the morning.