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Evelyn Grace is dead. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Well, it was to be expected. Smug,
self-satisfied bastards. I didn't even know her, Tim thought, but I'm a better
231
friend to her now than all those people ever were.
"She never wrote to us," Mrs. Grace said to Tim.
"Oh, she did too, Mommy," Mr. Grace put in gently.
"Never wrote, never called," Evelyn's mother continued. "We never knew where
she
was or what she was doing."
"She sent postcards," Mr. Grace said. "And she did call us on the telephone
every now and again. Let us know she was okay."
"Once a year?" his wife asked challengingly. "Once a year, at best," she
explained to Tim.
"Some people are like that," Tim rationalized. "'Me, I can't write a letter
to
save my life."
It was a terrible choice of words, he realized immediately, but fortunately
Mrs.
Grace was already on another wavelength, and Mr. Grace merely nodded
agreeably.
A few minutes before nine, when no one else had arrived for more than half an
hour, Mrs. Grace whispered something urgent to her husband.
"Tim, would you mind hanging on here a minute while I take Mommy to the can?"
"Uh, sure."
No sooner had the old couple left the room than one of the young funeral home
flunkies glanced in, checked the wall clock against his watch, and left.
Charge
by the minute, Tim thought sarcastically. He stood up and walked to the
casket.
It seemed very strange to be alone with Evvy--at her wake. Once again he was
struck by how attractive she looked. And death shall have no ... dimension?
He
vaguely recalled a line from a poem in high school English class.
Without thinking, Tim reached to Evvy with his right hand, knowing that his
body
shielded the gesture in case anyone came into the room. He hesitated briefly,
afraid he would make a mess of the cosmetics if he touched her face, afraid
her
fingers would grasp at his if he touched her hands. Trembling, he let his
palm
settle on her breast. The experience was so confused between the real and the
imagined that he wasn't at all sure what he actually felt, a pleasantly firm
young female breast or something harder and dead, a mixture of sawdust and
embalming chemicals. When
232
he removed his hand he felt a jangling rush of guilt and excitement, but he
was
more pleased than ashamed. He'd had his little moment of intimacy with Evvy,
who
had always been not only untouchable but unapproachable to him.
"You will be there tomorrow," Mr. Grace said when he and his wife returned.
It
was a plea, not a question. "Won't you?"
"Yes, of course," Tim replied, although he hadn't planned to attend the
funeral
as well.
"We had to pay the funeral home for pallbearers," Evelyn's mother said.
"Twenty-five dollars apiece."
"Mommy, please."
"I'll see you in the morning," Tim said, trying to smile comfortingly as he
shook hands with them.
"Thank you," the Graces both said as he left, "thank you."
Tim called the bottling plant in the morning and told them he was taking a
sick
day. It was crisp and clear outside, with a hint of thaw in the air. He felt
good and had slept well, which Tim attributed to the kindness he'd shown Mr.
and
Mrs. Grace by sitting with them for two hours and promising to attend the
mass.
It wasn't often he had the chance to do something nice like that for a couple
of
old folks. His own parents had died within three months of each other several
years ago, and his only living aunt and uncle were in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Mr.
and Mrs. Grace needed him last night and this morning, almost as if he were a
son or a nephew or an old family friend.
But it was not just altruism on Tim's part that pleased him. The bleak
circumstances of Evvy's death, the fact that virtually no one had come to her
wake, the way her parents had assumed him into their tiny circle, and the
feel
of her breast in his hand-- all of these things combined somehow to bestow on
Tim a curious share in Evvy's life, and, however peculiar that might be, he
genuinely liked it.
There were more people at the funeral mass than had attended the wake, but
Tim
was sure that most if not all of them were just the usual band of daily
churchgoers. One of the pallbearers wore a green bowling league jacket. Aside
from the funeral home crew and the priest, Tim and Evelyn's parents were the
only ones at
233
her grave side. Mrs. Grace turned wobbly and started to moan when it was time
to
leave, while Mr. Grace struggled to maintain a semblance of glassy-eyed
composure. Tim helped them both walk along the gravel path to the cars.
"You will follow us back to the house, Tim," Mr. Grace said as he stood by
the
door of the funeral home Cadillac.
"Oh, no, thank you, but--"
"Please, Tim, come on along for a little while. We'll have some coffee and
pastry." He put his hand on Tim's shoulder and gave a beseeching squeeze.
"Mommy
was up till after midnight, cooking. She couldn't sleep at all."
Tim sighed inwardly. It didn't seem right that Evvy's folks should have to
return directly home alone. It was bad enough for them to have to forego the
normal postfuneral reception with its sustaining presence of family and
friends,
but to have no one, no one at all, even to share a cup of coffee with, after
they'd just buried their daughter--that was simply too much.
"Sure," Tim agreed. "I'll follow you."
The Grace home was a cramped little asbestos-shingled house of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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