Melody (4 page)

It was snowing the day we buried Daddy, but I didn't feel the cold flakes on my face or the wind blowing my hair when we walked to the church or afterward, when we walked behind the hearses to the cemetery.

Daddy's and the two other miners' caskets were side by side at the front of the church, one casket really indistinguishable from another, even though I knew Daddy was the tallest of the three and the youngest. The church was filled with miners and their families, store owners and Mommy's friends and co-workers at Francine's Salon, as well as some of my school friends. Bobby Lockwood looked very uncomfortable. He didn't know whether or not to smile at me or just look sad. He shifted in his seat as if sitting on an ant hill. I gave him a tiny smile, for which he looked grateful.

I heard lots of sobbing and noses being blown. Way in the rear of the church, someone's baby cried. She cried throughout the service. It seemed fitting.

Papa George said there should have been more representatives from the mining company there and that the
mine should have been shut down for a few days in honor of the dead. He and Mama Arlene walked beside Mommy and me when we followed the hearses to the cemetery. Except for the crunchy sound of everyone's footsteps on the snow and the far-off wail of a train carrying away the coal, it was terribly quiet. I actually welcomed Papa George's stream of complaints.

He said that if there hadn't been an oil embargo to put pressure on the coal miners, my daddy wouldn't have been killed.

“Company saw the dollar signs,” he charged, “and pushed them miners too far. But it ain't the first time, and I'm sure it ain't gonna be the last.” We passed under the granite archway to the cemetery. Angels were carved in the stone.

Mommy kept her hood over her head, her eyes down. Every once in a while she released a deep sigh and intoned, “I wish this was over. What am I going to do? Where do we go now? What am I going to say to all-these people?”

Mama Arlene had her arm through Mommy's and patted her hand gently and muttered back, “There, there, be strong, Haille. Be strong.”

Papa George remained close to me when we reached the grave site. His flecked brown eyes filled with tears before he lowered his head, still thick with hair and as white as the flakes that flew into our faces. The other two miners who had been with Daddy when the walls caved in were being buried on the north end of the same cemetery in Sewell. We could hear the mourners singing hymns, their voices carried by the same cold February wind that tossed the flakes over the West Virginia hills and the shanties under the gray sky.

We raised our heads when the minister finished his prayer. He hurried off to say another prayer over the other two miners. Although Mommy wore black and no
makeup, she still looked pretty. Sadness simply lit a different candle in her eyes. Her rich maple-brown hair was pinned back. She had bought the plain black dress just for the funeral and wore a hooded cape. The hem of the dress reached only a few inches below her knees, but she didn't appear cold, even though the wind whipped her skirt around her legs. She was in a daze even deeper than mine. I grasped her hand much more tightly than she held mine.

I imagined that if Mama Arlene and I were to let go of Mommy's arms she would just float away in the wind, like a kite whose string had snapped. I knew how much Mommy would rather be anywhere but here. She hated sadness. If anything happened to make her unhappy, she would pour herself a gin and tonic and play her music louder, drowning out the melancholy.

I gazed at Daddy's coffin a final time, still finding it hard to believe he was really shut up inside. Soon, any moment, the lid would pop open and Daddy would sit up laughing, telling us this was all his little joke. I almost laughed imagining it, hoping for it. But the lid remained shut tight, the snowflakes dancing over its shiny surface, some sticking and melting into tears.

The mourners filed past, some hugging Mommy and me, some just pausing to touch our hands and shake their heads. Everyone said the same thing, “Sorry for your trouble.” Mommy kept her head down most of the time, so I had to greet people and thank them. When Bobby took my hand, I gave him a small hug. He looked embarrassed, mumbled something, and hurried off with his friends. I couldn't blame him, but it made me feel like a leper. I noticed that most people were awkward and distant around us, as if tragedy was something you could catch like a cold.

Afterward, we all walked back from the cemetery more quickly than we had walked to it, especially Mommy. The snow fell faster and harder, and now that
the funeral was over, I felt the cold cut right through to my bones.

The other two miners' families and friends were getting together to eat and comfort each other. Mama Arlene had made a pot roast thinking we would all be there, but as we left the cemetery, Mommy told her she wasn't going. She couldn't get away from the sadness fast enough.

“I can't stand any more sad faces around me,” she wailed and shook her head.

“Folks need each other at times like this,” Mama Arlene explained.

Mommy just shook her head again and quickened her pace. Suddenly, Archie Marlin caught up with us in his imitation patent leather shoes and his shiny gray suit, with his glossy red hair parted in the middle.

“Be glad to drive you home, Haille,” he offered.

Mommy's eyes brightened and more color returned to her face. Nothing could cheer her up as quickly as a man's attention. “Why thank you, Archie. That's very kind.”

“Ain't much. I wish I could do more,” he remarked, flashing me a smile.

Behind us I saw Alice widen her round eyes even more.

“Come on, honey.” Mommy reached for my hand, but I stepped back.

“I'll walk home with Alice,” I told her.

“That's silly, Melody. It's cold.”

“I'm not cold,” I said, even though my teeth wanted to chatter.

“Suit yourself,” Mommy said and got into Archie's car. Two large cotton dice hung from the rearview mirror and his seats were upholstered with an imitation white wool that shed on your clothes. The wiry threads were sure to get all over Mommy's black dress, but she didn't care. Before we had left for church, she told me she expected to throw the dress in the garbage the moment she took it off anyway.

“I don't intend to spend weeks mourning and wearing black,” she declared. “Sadness ages you and it doesn't bring back the dead. Besides, I can't wear this black thing to work, can I?”

“When are you going back to work, Mommy?” I asked, surprised. With Daddy's death, I thought the world would stop turning. How could our lives go on?

“Tomorrow,” she said. “I don't have much choice. We don't have anyone supporting us anymore, do we? Not that it was much support anyway,” she mumbled.

“Should I go right back to school?” I asked more out of anger than a desire to return.

“Of course. What are you going to do around here all day? You'll go crazy looking at these four walls.”

She wasn't wrong, but somehow it didn't seem right to simply go on with our lives as if Daddy hadn't died. I would never hear his laughter or see him smile again. How could the sky ever be blue or anything taste sweet or feel good? I would never again care about getting hundreds on tests or parading my newfound knowledge. Daddy was the only one who cared, who was proud of me anyway. Mommy gave me the feeling she felt education was frivolous for a girl. She believed once a girl was old enough to catch a man, nothing else mattered.

Walking home from the cemetery with Alice, I felt my heart had turned into one of those large chunks of coal Daddy used to hack out of the walls hundreds of feet below the earth: the coal that had killed him. Alice and I barely spoke while we hurried toward the trailer park. We had to keep our heads bowed because the snowflakes were streaming down from the gray sky and into our eyes.

“Are you all right?” Alice asked. I nodded. “Maybe we should have gone in Archie Martin's car, too,” she added mournfully. The wind howled. It screamed.

“I'd rather walk in a storm ten times worse than get in his car,” I said vehemently.

When we entered Mineral Acres, we saw Archie
Martin's car parked at our trailer. And then, as we drew closer, we heard the sound of my mother's laughter.

Alice looked embarrassed. “Maybe I should go home.”

“I wish you wouldn't,” I said. “We'll go into my room and close the door.”

“Okay.”

When I opened the door, we found Mommy sitting at the dinette with Archie. A bottle of gin sat on the table with some mixers and ice.

“Happy now that you froze your feet walking?” Mommy asked. She had already taken off the black dress and wore a blue silk robe. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She had put on more lipstick.

“I needed the walk,” I said. Archie looked at Alice and me with a grin.

“There's water on the stove if you want some tea or hot chocolate,” Mommy said.

“I don't want anything right now, thank you.”

“Maybe Alice wants something.”

“No thanks, Mrs. Logan.”

“You can tell your mother everything's clean in my house,” Mommy snapped. Alice was nonplussed.

“She didn't say it wasn't, Mommy.”

“No, really, Mrs. Logan, I—”

“It's okay,” Mommy said with a tiny ripple of nervous laughter. Archie smiled and poured two more drinks.

“We're going to my room,” I said.

“Maybe you should have gone to the wake, Melody. I don't have anything for dinner, you know.”

“I'm not hungry,” I said. I marched down the short corridor to my room, Alice trailing behind. After I closed the door, I threw myself on the bed and buried my face in the pillow to smother the anger building in my chest as much as my sobs.

Alice sat on the bed, too frightened and amazed to speak. A moment later we heard Mommy turn on the radio and find a station with lively music.

“She's just doing that because she can't stand crying
anymore,” I explained. Alice nodded, but I saw she was uncomfortable. “She says I should go right back to school.”

“Are you? You should,” she added, nodding.

“It's easy for you to say. Your daddy's not dead.” I regretted saying it immediately. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.”

“It's all right.”

“I know if I live like nothing happened, I won't feel so sick inside. Only, what will I do when it's time for Daddy to be coming home from the mine? I know I'll just stand out there watching the road every day, expecting him to come walking over the hill as usual.”

Alice's eyes filled with tears.

“I keep thinking if I stand there long enough and concentrate and hope hard enough, all this will never have happened. It will just seem to be a bad dream.”

“Nothing will bring him back, Melody,” Alice said sadly. “His soul has gone to heaven.”

“Why did God put him in heaven?” I demanded, pounding my small fists on my thighs. “Why was I even born if I can't have a Daddy when I need him the most? I'm never going back to that church!” I vowed.

“It's silly to think you can hurt God back,” Alice said.

“I don't care.”

The look on her face said she didn't think I meant what I was saying.

But I did mean it, as much as I could mean anything. I took a deep breath, the futility of my outbursts and anger washing over me. “I don't know how we will go on without him. I'll have to quit school maybe and go to work.”

“You can't do that!”

“I might have to. Mommy doesn't make very much money working in the beauty parlor.”

Alice thought a moment.

“There's the miner's pension and social security, too.”

“Mommy said it won't be enough.”

We heard a loud outburst of laughter come from both Mommy and Archie Marlin.

Alice grimaced. “My father doesn't know how Archie Marlin keeps out of jail. Daddy says he waters the whiskey in the bar.”

“Mommy's just trying not to be sad,” I said. “She'd entertain anyone right now. He just happens to be around.”

Alice nodded, unconvinced.

I picked up my fiddle and plucked at the strings.

“Daddy loved to hear me play,” I said smiling, remembering.

“You play better than anyone I know,” Alice declared.

“Well I'll never play again.” I threw the fiddle on the bed.

“Of course you will. Your daddy wouldn't want you to give it up, would he?”

I thought about it. She was right, but I wasn't in the mood to agree with anything anyone said right now.

Another peal of laughter from Archie Marlin reached our ears.

“The walls of this trailer are made of cardboard,” I said. I put my hands over my ears.

“You're welcome to come to my house,” Alice said. “My brother's the only one home.”

Alice lived in one of the nicest homes in Sewell. Ordinarily, I loved going there, but right now I felt it was a sin to do anything enjoyable.

Suddenly we heard Mommy and Archie singing along with a song on the radio, followed by their laughter again.

I stood up and reached for my coat. “Okay. Let's get out of here.”

Alice nodded and followed me out of my room and down the short corridor. Mommy was sprawled on the sofa now and Archie was standing at her feet, holding his drink in his hand. They didn't speak, then Archie reached to turn down the volume on the radio.

“I'm going to Alice's house.”

“Good idea, honey. Daddy wouldn't want you moping around the trailer.”

I wanted to say he wouldn't want you laughing and singing and drinking with Archie Marlin either, but I swallowed my words and pounded my feet over the thin rug to the front door.

“Don't be late,” Mommy called after me.

I didn't reply. Alice and I walked away from the trailer, the radio music turned up behind us again. Neither of us spoke until we rounded the turn toward Hickory Hill. The Morgans lived at the top and from their living room and dining room windows could look down on the valley and Sewell proper.