The Undertaker's Daughter (31 page)

After the wedding, the funeral home grew even quieter. Thomas and Emily had married and moved to another part of the state, hours away, while Evelyn and Lenny stayed in Jubilee. Half of the top floor now belonged solely to Jemma and me, and we settled into a foursome, our lives above the funeral home quieter in the absence of the two eldest.

The landscape of Jubilee’s funeral business changed and as if to punctuate the changes in our family—Alfred Deboe finally died.

Though it wasn’t exactly a surprise, a short shock of energy permeated our house with the news of the death of our rival and what it would mean for our funeral home. For a while, this left only Sonny’s new funeral home and my father’s to compete for the loyalty of Jubilee’s families. But that competition was just as stiff and more personally acrid. It seemed that whenever Sonny’s funeral home won a family over, it stung much more than if it had been Deboe’s.

The town was more or less evenly divided between the two and my father stayed busy, and when the funeral home was busy, the only time I could practice the organ was late at night when the house was closed for the evening. The deceased lay in the chapel in a sliver of light that made its way into the room from the foyer. I sat at the organ just outside the entry to the chapel. Of course I knew the corpse was in the other room, but I couldn’t see it from my organ bench. Hundreds of nights I’d sat here in my pajamas, my fingers sliding across the keys while the dead slept. One night, when I finished, instead of going upstairs, I felt compelled to walk into the chapel and stand by the casket of an elderly man. As was customary, the top half of the casket remained open. I didn’t know him, had never before seen him. I stared at the man for what seemed a long time, then I felt the
atmosphere in the room change. It seemed the air became thicker, and time had stopped. I turned to see if anyone had entered the room. Of course not, yet I felt something hovering, even while I insisted to myself that it wasn’t possible. I looked down at the man again, half expecting him to move. I became entranced with the hair in his nostrils, willing it not to move with a sudden intake of breath. I stared at his chest, thinking that if it rose, I would faint.

I rationalized that my father and mother were only a few feet away. They were watching the late news in the living room right at the top of the stairs. I could even faintly hear the television from where I stood. It was ridiculous, but the thought of turning my back on the man in the casket and turning out the light in the foyer terrified me.

When I could stand it no longer I forced myself to call out, “Daddy! Daaaaaaddy!”—never taking my eyes off the corpse.

I heard the staircase creaking from his footsteps. “What is it?”

“In here,” I managed to say.

“What are you carrying on about?”

I turned to him. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, good grief . . .”

“I don’t know what happened, but I got so frightened I couldn’t turn off the lights.”

I followed closely behind him as he walked through the other rooms and flipped the switches that placed the three of us in darkness.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “After all these years.”

I could understand his confusion. Although I remained squeamish about the embalming room, I’d never been afraid of
anything else in the funeral home before; in fact, quite the opposite.

“That man in there . . . I think he’s still around, Daddy.”

“Good God. You’ve lost your mind. Come on, let’s go back in there.”

He turned the light on again and we walked up to the casket.

“Now,” he said with his arms folded, “what are you afraid of?”

It was gone; whatever vestige of mystery I had experienced disappeared with the sound of my father’s smooth voice.

“Nothing,” I whispered, “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Good. Dead is dead. Remember that.”

I thought about the elderly man the next day and surmised that it must have been a fluke, a moment that defeated me. He would be with us one more night and I was determined to summon more bravery than I had previously shown, so down the stairs I went again that night. I entered the chapel and walked toward the casket. I sat down and gazed at the old man and felt it immediately. It felt as if something inhabited the space with me. The force of it was not as strong as the night before, and I don’t know if that was because I anticipated it, or because the strength of it had dissipated. I had no feeling of the presence being either good or bad. The thought of a ghost, a spirit, or a personality never crossed my mind. Still, it was queer and I was frightened. This time I didn’t call out for my father. I willed myself to turn my back on the casket, and with a fear that crept up my spine, I ran up the stairs as if I were chased by fire.

Before long I no longer needed the added stimulus of night to feel whatever I was experiencing. I found that if I was alone and sat or stood quietly for a short time, I could simply tell the difference when the room was completely clear and void of a presence
and when it was not. Without my thinking about it, it became something of a habit.

I began to get the idea that maybe certain people hung around for a while, that perhaps some refused to leave or were confused and could not pass over—a thought by which I was completely flummoxed. The concepts of heaven and hell had been drummed into my head from such an early age that I had not considered that something might exist in between, if only for a short time, a kind of waiting room, or—blasphemy—perhaps there was nothing at all after death. It was a lonely thought, but one I could not shake.

Left to our own devices in a small town with little entertainment, we told ghost stories, consulted the Ouija board, and held séances to relieve the monotony, because it’s fun to be scared—but not too scared. There was a line. Not one of us actually wanted a ghost to materialize. We never really hoped the Ouija board would tell us whom we would marry, and if one of our great-grandmothers had actually appeared during a séance, what a mess of terror that would have been. But perhaps even more frightening was the fear of the unknown. Because no one can reveal what it’s like to die. It remains the biggest mystery, and therefore one of the biggest fears to face.

I never mentioned my experiences to my father again. It never occurred to me to speak to anyone else about it, either. A rumor was making its way through my classroom that I had seen a dead person sit upright in a casket. And there were always lame jokes: “Hey, wasn’t it your daddy who put the
fun
in
funeral home
?” My father’s American Express card didn’t provide enough space for the words
Mayfield & Son Funeral Home
. Instead, it read
Mayfield & Son Fun Home
. I made the mistake of telling one person, and
the next day it might as well have been reported on the local news. So it didn’t seem a good idea to try to explain an eerie experience that was true and real to me.

It seemed a small thing at the time, to keep that secret. When something unusual happens and you have no one you may confide in, you are a keeper of secrets. But at some point, when the secrets build and build, you become an outsider. A part of me knew, in a strange and small way, that for the rest of my life there would always be someone who would move to the other side of the room upon discovering that I grew up in a funeral home. It would be
distasteful to the person, creepy, even abhorrent. Those uncanny and inexplicable experiences did make me feel somewhat of an outsider, but an irreversible event of my own choosing was what cemented my creation of another life, a secret one.

It happened in the spring.

I tried my best to find some healthy alternatives to sitting around the funeral home. I sought relief by filling my afternoons, evenings, and weekends with speech- and drama-club activities and various school choruses. I tutored young children, maintained my relationship with Miss Agnes, visited the elderly in the nursing home, and did everything but collect alms for the poor. I ran away from home, but came back every night for dinner and a warm bed.

Despite all the hours swallowed up by ceaseless activities, I remained restless. Jubilee began to feel like a pair of shoes that I’d outgrown. One would think that the ever-watchful eye of a preacher, the threat of being pummeled by a gang of girls, and the risk of causing a riot and ruining my father’s business would have been quite enough to keep me off the dark and evil path to interracial damnation. But the more fierce the odds stacked against me, the more compelled I felt to leap over another boundary.

During this unusually hot April, the revival at our church descended on me like a rash. Revivals made me impatient and claustrophobic. Every night for a week a guest preacher, usually a frustrated actor, spread his wings and flew to our church on his spirited ego. He screamed with an anguished face into the dim light of the stained-glass windows, his fists clenched and his mouth spurting saliva. It was enough to strain anyone’s nerves. As Southern Baptist congregations go, ours was usually tempered with a less frenetic atmosphere, but this was the final night of the revival and our gusty preacher reveled at a fever pitch. I sat in a pew waiting for the service to end, and I was nervous, nervous, nervous. My palms were sweaty and my stomach turned over at the thought of what I was about to do.

I had carefully plotted my alibi. It was not elaborate or outlandish, just a simple lie: “I’m going to Jo’s house after church.” I didn’t attend to my appearance in any special way that night. After watching my father dress so fastidiously over the years, I trusted that some organic transference had occurred. I possessed a naive confidence that everything in the areas of hair, makeup, and clothing must have been at least passable, though I knew I would never look like Julie Christie, my father’s idea of the perfect woman.

I’d planned the loss of my virginity for several weeks. Noah and I had parted ways some time ago—I think he had become frightened of all of the possibilities for disaster our relationship opened up and was secretly relieved. I didn’t blame him; I had already found a more daring alternative.

Julian was also black, and older by two years. Whenever I passed him in the hall at school, I felt a rush of prickly energy envelop me. I began to pursue him in a timid, yet, I hoped, clandestine way. I approached him about meeting up, in secret, the only
way we could meet. Julian was handsome and Julian was cool. He wore his smile sparingly, which made it that much more appealing. He walked slowly down the halls, as if he were considering every step and might change direction at any moment. He played sports and was known for his talent, yet few knew he harbored a desire to play music and quietly practiced at home. In his room he plucked a guitar and sometimes played and sang to me over the phone. Bluesy riffs poured out of him and I was besotted.

We met secretly for months. My body responded instantly to his touch. It was electric. We teased each other until we were frenzied, and I believe I grew more frustrated than he. I burned each time I was with him, and whenever I thought of him. I called Julian a few nights before the end of the revival and arranged our Sunday-night meeting. I told him that I had made a decision; he should bring protection. I thought that if hell existed, I was going in a handbasket, and I might as well go on the last night of the revival.

The days were getting longer. By the time I reached the destination, twilight had settled. Another minute would have been too early, the dusk’s light would have told on us. Julian and I had been in this spot before. This was where we met to talk, kiss, and fondle. This grassy courtyard was surrounded by school buildings. It was completely private, yet it had a drawback—we would be trapped if anyone came back here. There was only one exit. There wasn’t any reason for anyone to come by this area of the schoolyard on a Sunday night. We were as safe as we were going to be.

I waited for him, my back pressed against the brick wall. I almost turned to leave when I heard him.

“I’m worried . . . I’m worried that I won’t know what to do,” I whispered out of nervousness as much as necessity.

“Shh. Don’t worry. I think you’ll know what to do. Just respond.”

Julian was kind, and when he knew that I felt safe and that I was wanting, not shrinking, he lost himself, too. He had the strong, firm body of an athlete. He was right. I responded. The sex was great. I walked home in a blue-black night. When darkness fell upon Jubilee, the feeling that anything was possible existed. No judging eyes or wagging tongues were visible, most safely quiescent inside the houses I passed. The air was cool, the night turned liquid around me.

Jubilee was almost unrecognizable to me on this night. Someone’s front yard released the odor of a recently mowed patch of wild onions. Mrs. Newman’s dog barked. A car passed. Yet everything was different now. I thought of Julian, walking back in the opposite direction. It was sex of the dangerous and forbidden sort and it possessed me. It lapped me up like an unforgiving dry-tongued dog and did not loose its hold for ages. I remembered something I read, I couldn’t recall where: “He has taken her to the fire.” As I drew closer to the funeral home, the thought of my parents shot through me and a momentary feeling of “What have I done?” descended. Suddenly I didn’t know who I was. Was I the high-achieving student by day and the vampire of love at night? The blessings of the nonvirginal gods were upon me when I returned, and no one paid much attention to me. I bolted to the bathroom. A grass stain on the back of my yellow dress startled me; I couldn’t believe how green it was. A bright red spot of blood glared at me from the white cloth I used to wash myself.

A stack of
National Geographic
magazines sat in the corner of the room Jemma and I used as a TV room. I found the one I was looking for and took it to bed with me. In the issue a journalist wrote of a tribe in Africa in which the girls married at the age of twelve. A photograph showed a bare-breasted young girl holding her baby. It made me feel a little better, a bit more sober. At least
one girl out there in the world was younger than me when she lost her virginity. I would be fifteen in a couple of months. Forget the handbasket, I was going to hell propelled down the fastest chute available. The guilt of defying the dictates of history was almost unbearable. I swore I would stop seeing him. And even as I swore it, I knew I would go to great lengths to see him again. It was about a preference, an attraction, that I couldn’t ignore or understand. An awful dichotomy presented itself: that of desiring and doing one thing, when society’s expectations impressed upon me that it was wrong and would only end in disaster. I had no rebellious thoughts, no secret wish to be discovered, and I did not set out to hurt anyone. It was a private matter.