The Funeral Dress (10 page)

“And you got to take good care of yourself so you can take good care of her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know I buried one no bigger than yours right before Christmas the year I married Mrs. Fulton. Tore my heart out. We kept the casket there by the Christmas tree in the living room.”

“Under the tree?”

“Right next to it.” Mr. Fulton smiled. “Funny thing though, Hester wanted no part of tending to the dead back then. I asked her to diaper that baby for me, said I didn’t know the first thing about working a diaper. After she did it, I looked at her and said, ‘There, now you’ve touched a dead person.’ She was fine after that. Been doing most of the makeup for me ever since.”

Mr. Fulton leaned against the kitchen counter as if he had forgotten the purpose of Emmalee’s visit. “Sorry, I’m talking to no end. Ask your father, I do that when I haven’t had enough sleep.”

Emmalee cradled the baby in her arms, careful to keep her child’s face from Mr. Fulton’s view.

“You look pretty certain about this, Emmalee.”

“I am.”

Mr. Fulton squinted at the clock above the oven and set his mug on the counter. “You need to understand that once you’ve seen her, there’s no taking it back. No erasing it from your thoughts. It’s there for good. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“Yes, sir,” she said and sat a little taller.

Mr. Fulton set his mug on the counter. “Okay then, come on.” He motioned for Emmalee to follow him this time down a short, dimly lit hall running off the back of the kitchen. “You know the wife and me were supposed to be leaving in another hour to drive down to Destin for a week of deep-sea fishing.” Mr. Fulton tapped the blue-colored fin of a large fish mounted on the wall. Emmalee had never seen a fish that size in the creeks around Cullen. “Mrs. Fulton hates that tuna. Makes me keep it back here hidden from plain view.”

“You caught that?”

“Sure did, back when my arm was good.” He pretended to cast a fishing line into the water. “This one was just too pretty to eat, don’t you think?” Mr. Fulton turned to a closed door. “Seems every time we plan another fishing vacation, someone in Cullen ups and dies. Usually Claiborne’s over in Jasper’ll cover for us, but they’re short-staffed this week. My brother and his wife are already down in Destin. Called me a few minutes ago to remind me to bring the ice chest.”

“Destin?” Emmalee asked.

“Florida, hon. Ever been to Florida?” he asked and pulled a set of keys from his robe’s pocket.

“No, sir.”

“Water’s so blue and clear. You can see the dolphins
swimming right by your boat. Maybe one day you’ll get down there.” Mr. Fulton winked and scanned all the keys before easing a smallish silver one into the lock set above the knob.

Emmalee noticed a photograph hanging on the wall next to the door. Mr. Fulton stood in the water on a sandy shore. His chest was broad and his skin, tan. A small boy was perched on his shoulders, dangling a tiny fish next to Mr. Fulton’s ear. Emmalee saw Kelly in the boy smiling back at the camera.

“You recognize that man?” Mr. Fulton puffed his chest out big. “Believe it or not, that was me. Long time ago, but it was me.”

“I believe it,” she said and winked like Mr. Fulton had.

“You’re sugar talking me now,” he said and gripped the doorknob tight. His knuckles washed a pale white. “Look here. I don’t want to be scooping you up off the floor. So if you feel lightheaded, you let me know. Nothing to be embarrassed about. You won’t be the first to faint,” Mr. Fulton said. He stooped a bit and looked straight at Emmalee. “You know, I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for your daddy.” Emmalee’s eyes widened. Being Nolan’s daughter had never served any obvious advantage, and she tried to reconcile this thought with the fresh bruises already coloring her arms and legs.

Mr. Fulton opened the door into a small room, the only light coming from a long fluorescent tube mounted on the ceiling. Emmalee quickly covered her nose with her left hand while keeping the baby snug in her other arm. The smell was odd and discomforting, more disturbing
than that of a dead animal left to rot underneath the house.

“That’s formaldehyde you’re smelling,” Mr. Fulton said. “Always in the air. It’s a preservative.”

Emmalee mashed the palm of her hand against her nose.

Two stainless-steel tables stood in the middle of the room. Leona was on one. Curtis, the other. But each was covered with a crisp white sheet, and Emmalee could not tell them apart. Both tables were positioned at a slight angle, a small pitch forward, just enough to leave the feet of the deceased several inches closer to the ground. Whatever washed over or flowed from the bodies spilled into large stainless toilets mounted on the wall, one at the foot of each table.

A stainless cart footed with wheels and loaded with an array of oddly shaped knives, scissors, spatulas, and a spool of thick cotton thread stood ready between the two tables. Emmalee studied the draped bodies and then the cart, not wanting to speculate on these instruments’ purpose or past use.

Mr. Fulton stood beside the table closest to the door. He looked at Emmalee as if asking for permission to proceed. She nodded, and he lifted the white sheet only far enough to expose another covering. This one was made of a thick plastic, but Emmalee could already see bits of Leona’s gray curly hair, matted with a mixture of dirt and blood.

Mr. Fulton peeled the plastic sheeting from the body, revealing Leona’s head and bare shoulders. Her skin was
pale, almost white, drained of all life and color. Her lips were too full and colored a grayish blue. Her forehead was split from her right eye clear to her left temple, leaving an open wound, wet and raw. Her eyes were swollen shut, her right cheek twice its normal size. Emmalee had seen death before, but it had never looked so wounded. She did not shrink away. Instead she nuzzled her nose against her baby’s head and drew a deep breath, trying to fill her head with the infant’s sweet scent.

“Can you fix her?” Emmalee asked as she further studied Leona’s face.

“I’m going to do the best I can.” Mr. Fulton held Leona’s chin between his forefinger and thumb and turned her head slightly toward him. “Life never was fair to you,” he said in a melancholy tone.

“What?”

“Oh nothing. She may not look perfect is all,” Mr. Fulton said and straightened the sheet covering Leona’s body. “Most families want an open casket, although I’m not sure what they’ll do in this case. Mr. Lane’s worse off, and I don’t know how it would look to have one open and one closed. We’ll see how he turns out before making any final decisions.”

“They got family here?”

“Not really. Not anymore,” Mr. Fulton said. “Mrs. Lane doesn’t have any relatives in town. She had a brother out in Oklahoma, but he died a couple of years ago. I believe she’s got a younger sister somewhere in Virginia.”

“Does she know?” Emmalee asked, not taking her eyes off Leona.

“Not sure the preacher’s gotten word to her yet.”

Mr. Fulton rested against the other table. “Mr. Lane’s mama is here, over in Jasper, but she’s nearly ninety-eight. I’m not sure she’s been told either, and if she’ll even really understand what’s happened. I hear her mind’s been slipping.” Mr. Fulton patted Curtis’s arm. “Preacher will stop by the convalescent home and talk to her later today.”

Emmalee spotted a navy dress, folded neat and placed on the counter behind her. She stroked the fabric and lifted its collar. The collar looked no different from those she and Leona had made at the factory, except the cloth was a little heavier than the lightweight cottons they used most often at Tennewa; and this collar was soaked with blood, shaded brown under the room’s harsh light. Emmalee imagined this was Leona’s best dress, and she wondered if the frugal woman who ate bologna-and-tomato sandwiches most every day had anything else hanging in her closet appropriate for eternity.

“What are you burying her in?” Emmalee asked, rubbing the collar between her fingers.

“Don’t know. Hadn’t given it any thought. Family usually brings something,” Mr. Fulton said. “Of course, given the circumstances, I’ll probably go up to their trailer later today and look around.”

Emmalee held on to the collar.

“But we got some dresses here that’ll do fine if we can’t find something of her own that’s suitable. As I was saying earlier, Mrs. Fulton helps with the hair and makeup. So I usually leave these kind of decisions to her.”

Emmalee fingered the small band of lace stitched beneath the collar’s edge. She had never seen Leona wear anything so frilly or fine. She came to work most days
in one of the cheap cotton housedresses they made there at the factory, the same ones that were shipped to Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penneys and sold to the public for no more than twelve dollars apiece. In the colder months, sometimes she’d wear a hand-knitted sweater with a thick cotton skirt, although the same pair of canvas loafers covered her feet summer or winter unless the ground was wet or buried deep in snow.

“Let me do it,” Emmalee said fast, breaking the silence blanketing the small room. “Let me make her something. I want to do it. I want to make Leona something special for burying.”

“That’s not necessary, Emmalee. Like I said, we’ve got dresses here if need be. Come on, I’ll show you.” Mr. Fulton led Emmalee out of the room and to a closet door at the other end of the hallway. “Let me see here,” he said and pulled a pale pink chiffon dress into the light. “See, this’ll work fine. It’s even open in the back, no buttons or zippers. It’s actually made for this kind of thing.”

Emmalee held the sleeve of the dress in her hand. “This ain’t Leona. She’d never wear something like this, and I can sure enough tell you she’d never wear pink.”

“It doesn’t have to be pink. We got them in yellow, blue, peach, and a real pretty shade of green. I think Hester calls it
celadon
.” Mr. Fulton pulled another dress into the light. “Hester picks them out. I think they’re shipped from New York City or Saint Louis. These are very nice dresses, Emmalee.”

“I ain’t arguing that. But Leona’s earned better than this. She should have a dress with meaning. It should be special. Real special. It shouldn’t come from New York
or somewhere else or made by somebody she ain’t ever seen.”

Tears streamed down Emmalee’s cheeks, dripping onto the baby’s pink blanket. “Leona sat next to me every day, Mr. Fulton. She looked after me like nobody else ever done.” Emmalee caught her breath and wiped her face dry. “Let me make her burying dress. I really want to do this for her. I want her to have something special, and if it don’t work out, you can use one of these here. Please.”

Mr. Fulton thumped the palm of his hand against his forehead. “These are real nice dresses, hon. Maybe nicer than anything Mrs. Lane ever bought or made for herself. And she gets to wear this one for the ages.” He waved the hanger and the celadon-colored dress fluttered in the air. “Besides all that, you’ve got a new baby to care for. You don’t have the time to be making a dress. Or the money. Where are you going to get the fabric?”

Emmalee shifted the baby onto her shoulder and patted her bottom. “I got plenty of time for Miss Leona. Just tell me when you need it. And the fabric … I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. Maybe she’s got some scraps of something up at the trailer. She had extra sewing most every night. I can use anything I find up there, can’t I?”

“I guess so.” Mr. Fulton rested his forehead in his hand. He stood silent like that till Emmalee wondered if he had dozed off. “Okay, listen to me,” he finally said as he focused on Emmalee. “I’m going to need this dress at the very latest by Sunday morning. We’d like to get the visitation under way later that afternoon with burial on
Tuesday.” He hung the dress back in the closet. “That’ll only give you a little more than two full days. Can you manage that? Two days?”

“Yes, sir.” Emmalee’s smile grew wide.

Mr. Fulton stood quiet for a moment longer. He looked at both bodies and then back at Emmalee. “We don’t need anything fancy here.”

“Oh thank you, Mr. Fulton. Thank you.” Emmalee hugged his neck.

“Don’t get too excited. I got to see it first. But you go ahead and get started,” he said and straightened his robe. “Like I said, we don’t even need a zipper down the back. It’s actually easier if there’s not one. Nobody’s going to see it no how. Remember, people are only looking from the waist up. Something simple is usually best, and Leona Lane was definitely a woman of simple means.” Mr. Fulton walked back to the kitchen. Emmalee followed him. “Lord, I hope Mrs. Fulton don’t skin me for this. So keep it real tasteful, hon, or you and me both are going to be in trouble. Big trouble.”

“Yes, sir, tasteful.”

Mr. Fulton reached for the coffeepot but stopped and lowered his head, and Emmalee wondered if he might be falling asleep standing there in front of the counter.

“Mr. Fulton, you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He waved his hand but kept his back to Emmalee. “Can’t believe what all has happened. Some sure to say this is God’s plan, but I don’t know about that.” He poured a fresh cup of coffee and turned toward Emmalee, a bright smile returning to his face. “Here, you might need this,” he said and reached for a key with a
rubber band looped through its head, hanging on a nail by the kitchen door. “This here is to the Lanes’s trailer. Don’t think they ever locked it, but take it with you just in case. See what you find. There may be a perfect dress already up there in her closet. If not, maybe I can sneak you a little money for fabric if you need it. But let’s keep that to ourselves.”

Mr. Fulton handed Emmalee the key. “Have you been there before? To Leona’s?”

She looked out the kitchen window toward Old Lick, knowing if Leona had not died during the night, she would be on her way to the trailer now. She would be sitting between Curtis and Leona. Leona would be holding the baby on her lap, cooing at Kelly Faye and gushing on about her bright eyes and fine hair. She’d only stop long enough to remind Curtis to slow his speed around those mountain curves so as not to make the baby sick. Then she’d talk more gibberish to Kelly Faye and tickle her cheek with the tip of her finger.