Maude (16 page)

Bud’s fever finally broke, and after a few days,
he grew stronger, but George’s mother slipped away
one night. I tried to comfort George and Lulu, but they
were both grief stricken and would not be consoled.

I hoped my prayers for the old woman’s soul had
been answered. George sent a telegram to his sister
Bessie, but he knew she couldn’t make the trip home.
He wrapped his mother in a blanket, and Lulu tended
to her little brother at home while I rode with George
in the wagon to the cemetery. He had to dig the grave
himself, and I read some verses and prayed over it.

Clara’s family got sick next. Maggie was the
first, but Clara nursed her hand and foot, and she made
it through.

Alfred came home one morning just a few hours
after going in to work at his feed store. The last thing
he said to Clara was that, sick or not, people had to
have feed for their animals, and he felt it was his duty
to provide it. When he came home, he left his horse
tied to the front door and staggered inside. Clara ran to
meet him. His weight was more than she could
support, and he keeled over in the living room, a red
foam running out of his mouth. Clara ran next door to
us to get George to help her get him in the bed, but by
the time they reached the house, he was dead--that fast.
He’d looked fine when he left that morning.

George went into town and got Doug Graham
and another man to help him. They rolled Alfred up in
a bedspread and loaded him in the back of the wagon.
Leaving Lulu home to see to Bud, Clara and I sat in
the back of the wagon and rode to the cemetery.

Maggie’s bedroom was upstairs in the front of
their house. She was still too weak to go to the
cemetery, but sat up in her bed and watched as the
wagon with her daddy’s body disappeared down the
street.

Clara woke with a fever the next day. Still weak
herself, Maggie dragged out of bed and came to get
me. Clara tried to wave me away. “You’ll get sick
yourself, Maude. You go on home, I’ll be all right.”

I paid no attention. I bathed her and sang to her
and prayed over her. “Remember how you took care
of me when Bud was born? This is my time to take
care of you.”

Then I got sick. Clara and Lulu nursed me until I
was better. Except for Lulu, everyone in both houses
had battled the flu and either won or lost.

When his mother died, George had taken to cooking
his own breakfast and stood at the stove, turning the
bacon.

I called Lulu again, but she still didn’t answer.
As I recall, it seemed as if it all happened in slow
motion. George turned to look at me. I met his eyes.
Panic flooded through me, and then my insides went
cold. I walked out of the kitchen and to the stairs,
willing myself to climb them. I pulled myself up the
bannister one step at a time. When I reached the
landing, I was shaking all over. I stopped and called
Lulu’s name again and waited for an answer. No
answer came.

I kept on, finally reaching the top. George stood
in the kitchen doorway, looking up at me. I pushed
myself forward one foot at a time to Lulu’s room and
opened the door.

My beautiful blonde girl lay there, her hair
curling down her shoulders, one hand thrown up over
her head. Except for a thin trickle of bloody foam
running from her mouth and down the side of her face,
she looked for all the world as if she were asleep.

George came in the room carrying Bud. I stood
there, staring at my precious daughter. I was frozen,
and made no sound. George stood next to me, and I
looked down at Lulu for a long time. George didn’t say
anything. It was like he knew nothing he could say that
would console me, any more than he could be
comforted when his mother died. Bud sensed
something wrong. He leaned his head against his
father’s chest and whimpered.

Finally, George wrapped his arm around my
shoulder and patted my back. “I’ll take Bud over to
Clara’s, and we’ll see to burying her.”

I didn’t take my eyes off Lulu. “I want her buried
in a coffin, George. I won’t have her put into the
ground in a blanket.”

“Maude, you know there aren’t any coffins to be
had. We’ll have to do what we can.”
With my head lowered like a charging bull, I
turned to look at him. Grabbing his shirt with one
hand, I pushed my face into his and almost growled,
“You’ll make her a proper coffin if you have to take
the planks off the side of the barn, and you’ll start it
right now, and you won’t stop until it’s finished, do
you understand me?”
George drew back as far as my grip on his shirt
would let him. “All right, Maude,” he said, and he
handed Bud to me and left the room. I pulled the chair
up to the bed and sat there with Bud on my lap.
I could hear the sound of sawing and then
hammering coming from the barn. The noise didn’t
matter to Bud, and he fell asleep. After a few hours,
George came back. “It’s ready, Maude.”
I held Bud out to him. “Take him over to Clara
and tell her about Lulu. I’ll get her ready.” George
didn’t answer me, just lifted the sleeping baby out of
my arms and left.
I washed Lulu and combed her hair. I looked
through Lulu’s dresses and then went to my own room
and came back with the embroidered dress I’d worn
when I married James and his plaid shirt I’d brought
with me from Tennessee. I dressed Lulu in the dress,
put her father’s shirt around her shoulders, and waited.
After a few minutes, George came back. “Clara
wanted to go with us, Maude, but I told her she wasn’t
well enough yet. The best thing she could do is to look
after Bud. Is that all right?”
I nodded. George lifted Lulu and carried her out
of the room. I pulled the white quilt Bessie made off
of the bed, picked up Lulu’s Bible from the table, and
followed him down the stairs. The coffin sat on the end
of the wagon. Clara waited on the back porch. Bud
slept in her arms. Maggie stood by her side, both were
sobbing.
George went to lift Lulu’s body into the coffin,
but I called out, “Wait.” George stepped back. I spread
out the white quilt in the coffin with the edges folded
over the sides and nodded at George. “Go ahead.”
He laid Lulu’s body in the coffin, folded the quilt
over her, put on the lid, and nailed it shut.
George helped me up onto the wagon seat. We
made the trip to the cemetery without a word. I waited
in the wagon while George found an empty space and
dug the grave. He lowered the coffin as gently as he
could.
I climbed down from the wagon and stood next
to him. I held the Bible in my hand, my mind searching
for the right words. Finally, I opened it and leafed
through several pages until I found the verses I wanted
in First Thessalonians. I read it in a voice so loud,
George jumped.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with
the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise
first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

I closed the Bible and nodded at George. He
picked up the shovel and filled the grave. He took a
wooden cross from the back of the wagon with the
name he’d painted on it, Lulu Connor Foley, and used
the hammer to pound it into the dirt.

I said a prayer, and he helped me back onto the
wagon. When he climbed up onto the seat, I asked,
“Where did you get the wood?”

He nodded and shook the reins. I gripped the
Bible in my lap so hard, my knuckles were white and,
after a while, my hands were numb. We made the
return trip the way we came, without speaking.

I let myself get to where I didn’t feel much of anything
and slipped into a separate world. The war in Europe
officially ended, but I heard the news as something
apart from my life. I went about my daily routine in a
trance. I cleaned, and I cooked, and I did the laundry.
I tended to Bud and saw that he had what he needed.
Without his sister and grandmother to pamper him, he
clung to me, but instead of finding comfort in the child
I still had, I kept my distance. Bud went to George for
affection, and George gave it to him. Couldn’t anyone
say he didn’t love his son.

When Bud heard the clip-clop of his father’s
horse coming home in the evening, he would run to the
back porch, yelling, “Daddy, Daddy.”

George poured all the love he had into the boy,
who was a copy of himself. Bud grew taller and
slimmer by the day, his baby fat melting away into the
same form as his father’s.

George found very little comfort in my arms.
There was still no warmth in his touch when he turned
to me in the night. Aware of my duty, I submitted.
Submission and duty were all I had left to give to him.

Clara tried to get me to come out of my sorrow,
but was unable to make a dent in the thick cloud of
grief that hung over me. I stopped visiting her and
stayed in my own house. I had George bring home
what I needed from the stores in town. I’d never
missed a Sunday service since the day I was born, but
I even stopped going to church. I lived my life on the
five acres that were George’s property.

Usually up with the first rooster’s crow, I took to
sleeping late. George didn’t say anything. He would
fry his bacon and make the coffee for himself. When I
put Bud down for his nap, I would lie down myself,
and let sleep take me away from my pain until my son
woke me.

When Clara came over to see me, I talked in
short, sharp answers to Clara’s questions. After a few
weeks of being hurt by the way I was acting, Clara
said, “Maude, I love you but I know you’re still
grieving. When you need someone, you know where I
am.”

One morning, about six months after the
epidemic was over, it occurred to me that I hadn’t the
faintest idea how Clara had been getting along. She’d
lost her husband, and I didn’t even know how she was
providing for herself.

I stirred myself and knocked at Clara’s back
door. She looked so happy to see me there. She threw
open the door and grabbed me in a big hug. “Let me
pour us some coffee, Maude. I’m so glad to see you.”

We sat at the familiar table, and I said, “I feel bad
that I haven’t been to see you. How have you been
getting by without Alfred?”

Clara shrugged. “I hired Billy Simmons and
Gregory Hawthorne from the church to help run the
store. They’re doing all right. I go in and place the
orders and do the bookwork once a week.”

“Who’s going to take care of the man’s work
around the house for you?”
Clara’s place was almost a mirror image of
George’s, set on the outskirts of town, five acres, a
large two-story house and a big barn that housed a cow,
two goats, and the horse. Next to the barn was a
henhouse.
“I’ve been doing what I always did. I made a big
garden, and I can feed the livestock, but it is a handful,
really. It’s too much. I’m worn out from all of it.
Maggie helps, but I don’t want to take away her
childhood having her work around here. If something
falls apart, I guess I’ll hire it done. I’ve got enough
money coming in from the store to pay someone.
Alfred was always careful with money. It used to make
me mad sometimes when he wouldn’t get a new suit
or something new for the house, but I guess he knew
best. I’ve been thinking about getting a regular hired
hand. He could fix up the shed out back in exchange
for a place to live and take care of the livestock for me.
Do you think that would be all right? You know how
people are to talk about someone.”
“I know better than most how people talk, Clara.
It’s how I wound up being married to George. I
wouldn’t give them any shadow of reason to gossip
about me if I were you.”
“You’re right. Maybe I’ll ask the pastor what to
do.”
“Pastor? Did we get a new pastor?”
“About a month ago. We got Brother Aimes to
come out from St. Louis. He’s young and new to
preaching, but he’s doing fine.”
“What did we do for a preacher before that?”
“We all just met and the men would take turns
reading scripture and then we would sing and pray.
There’s not one family in the church that didn’t lose
someone, Maude. It was terrible.”
I had to look away. “I’m ashamed of myself,
Clara. I didn’t give a thought to what anyone else was
going through. Losing Lulu took the life right out of
me. I guess I haven’t been a very good Christian, not
to think of the others.”
“Come back to church, Maude. We all need each
other.”
“I will. How have you been getting there? Do
you walk all the way?”
Clara laughed. “I learned how to hitch up a
wagon when I was a little girl. Maggie helps me with
it. We’ve done all right.”
“I’ll be going with you Sunday.”
When the rooster crowed that Sunday morning,
I jumped right up out of the bed. I went downstairs and
cooked George’s favorite, and only, breakfast and
scrambled some eggs for myself and Bud. Then I went
back upstairs and shook George’s arm. “Get up.
Breakfast is ready.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me with a
curious expression, but got out of the bed without a
word. He woke Bud and brought him downstairs,
carrying him on one hip. I smiled at him when he sat
down. It was the first time he’d seen a smile on my
face since that sad funeral.
“I’m going to church this morning, George,” I
said.
He smiled back at me. “That’s good, Maude.”
“I want you to go hitch up the wagon. I’ll take
Clara and Maggie with me. It isn’t right for her to have
to do that by herself.”
George didn’t argue. I put a tone in my voice that
told him to do what I said. It must have reminded him
of his mother, and for some reason, I think he found
that comforting.
My fellow church members greeted me so
warmly that I was ashamed of myself for staying away
so long. The comfort of the church, and the hymns,
prayers and the fellowship of others who understood
my loss, was exactly what I needed.