The Flicker of Old Dreams Read online

  I wanted to ask about breakfast, but a different question pushed it out of the way.

  “Tell me, Mary. What?”

  I looked into his face, dented and nicked from a rough-and-tumble boyhood, worry lines between his brows as he waited for me to speak.

  “I wanted to know, can I touch the foot?”

  A smile formed. His new smile that showed the sorrow and the strain he’d absorbed that tragic summer.

  “Well,” he said and paused a long while. “I don’t see why not.”

  His smile became an unsure laugh.

  “No,” he said as if finishing an argument in his head. “No reason at all.”

  He took my hand and we moved closer to the table. But I pulled back, not so sure anymore.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “This fella won’t wake up.”

  Slowly I reached forward, first with my whole hand but then with only my pointer finger. And I touched the foot—prodding the heel, then the fat pad closer to the top, and finally the very bendable big toe. It felt like a trout we’d caught and kept in the cooler. I broke out into giggles, hysterical nonstop giggles.

  When I could breathe again, my question felt squeezed tight. “Is there only a foot under there?”

  “No, Mary. There’s more.”

  He pulled the sheet upward to expose a yellow, bruised slab I only recognized as a leg when I noticed the coiled hairs. This time, laughter exploded through my closed mouth, the sound strange and wet. I poked my finger into the doughy flesh, allowing my mind to connect this leg, this foot to my father’s work. Maybe this was someone he would help bury.

  “Is there a hand?” I asked.

  I kept my poking finger extended, as if to keep it far from the rest of me. Pop was already reaching beneath the sheet. When he lifted the wrist, the dull yellow fingers curled forward. Though he held it still for me, I would not touch it.

  The hand, somehow, made me understand that the body had once been a living thing. This was a hand like Pop’s, something that held a mug of coffee in the morning, that petted my hair when I was close by and being a nuisance. I shook my head fiercely and stepped back from the table, losing a slipper, the shock of cold tile rocketing through my foot.

  It was after midnight when Pop and I sat at the kitchen table eating pink cereal.

  “Just because you’re hungry,” he told me, “doesn’t mean it’s morning.”

  The room felt unfamiliar with its black windows, and the heat set low for the night. I prodded at my cereal, watching the pink slip away into the milk. I had never noticed it doing that in the daytime, maybe had never eaten it slowly enough to discover that the thin pink coating was a trick, as if nothing in my world was what I’d thought.

  I let my spoon sink into the bowl.

  “Maybe it’s time to call it a day,” Pop said.

  He took my hand and helped me from the table. He guided me through the darkened first floor, past the clouded mirror and plastic flowers. I watched my wool slippers climb each step to my room.

  Death was starting to mean something more concrete to me. It meant the troubling change in our town’s grown-ups, who forgot to ask where you were during the day or how you got so dusty. It meant angry men standing against buildings with nothing to do. It meant the foot you touched in the basement could have belonged to someone like Eddie.

  I remained silent as Pop kissed my forehead good night and closed my door.

  I was glad to be under the covers again, my father’s footsteps creaking down the hallway to his room. But as I lay there with the night-light casting my walls in orange, I felt alert to every shadow in the room, every noise, and through the bedroom wall, a woman’s voice, sharp with disapproval.

  “You’re just coming to bed?”

  Many of these women over the years tried to sneak in and out of my father’s bedroom without my noticing. His status as a widower attracted caretaker types, who longed to nurture him. I don’t remember all the women but Bernice, whose voice I heard that night, was starting to feel permanent. Pop’s answer was soft-spoken, contrite. If he’d ever had an excuse for working into the night, forgetting time, forgetting his latest girlfriend, he’d already used it up.

  I heard only murmuring, laughter, more murmuring. Then Bernice snapped, “Touched a foot?”

  Pop finally raised his voice, arguing that I’d soon get used to it.

  And Bernice practically shouted the question that would come to define my place in Petroleum, “Do you understand what a strange child she’ll be if this becomes normal to her?”

  After that night, I couldn’t forget the body in our basement, two stories below my bed, one story below our kitchen table. I began to notice the rhythm of the work that went on in our household. The phone call. The arrival of the body beneath a sheet. Pop’s late nights in the basement. The house filling with old men in suits, hunched like crows, old women trembling in pretty hats. The sound of ladies weeping in my father’s arms and his soothing voice, how he sounded like he did on the commercial.

  Maybe he felt relief finally showing me his workspace, ending the trickery to hide it all those years. To my father, this was honorable, tender work. A part of his life, a reality of our home.

  “You’ve forgotten that death is rare and traumatic for most people,” Bernice told him. “You might want to keep it that way for Mary.”

  Their relationship was serious enough that she occasionally tidied up our house and kept an eye on me as Pop worked. She cleaned in knee-length dresses and my father’s mucking boots, which she liked to wear because they were several sizes bigger than her feet and she could step into them even if her hands were full, moving from room to room with rags and sprays and handfuls of the various things we had dirtied.

  She dusted around us while I sat beside Pop on the sofa, choosing casket fabric from the fat three-ring binder. I loved to touch the swatches of taffeta (though customers always chose polyester). My favorite colors were named after flowers: buttercup, orchid, peony, magnolia. I loved to open the tackle box, where he kept makeup. He let me paint thick, putty-colored grease on the back of my hand.

  Bernice helped wash it off. She scrubbed too hard. Later, she scrubbed the house with bleach and sprayed with Lysol to cover up what she called the “smell of death.” Afterward, she lay down in a dark room, complaining of headaches she believed were from the formaldehyde and my father believed were from the cleaning products.

  The problem with dating my father was that you also had to take on his business and me. If he had ever fretted about whether a woman could learn to love his mood swings, his drinking, his habit of going to work early and finishing late, this set of baggage (our home and me) was the hardest sell.

  Bernice came into my room one day, wearing my father’s boots and carrying a stack of folded clothes. She sat on the bed, holding the laundry, and watched me at play.

  “I washed an outfit you might want to wear for school,” she said. “I added a bow to it. Would you like to see?”

  But I was like my father; it was hard to break my attention when I was at work.

  I folded sheets of tinfoil into shiny metal beds and placed my plastic dolls on them. I whispered words like Glory and Our Little Angel, then draped them head to foot in Kleenex. I played wearing latex gloves, powdery inside, loose on my hands. I heard Bernice draw a breath. I looked up to see her mouth open as if to speak. I peeled off a long piece of tinfoil to make a second metal bed. Bernice closed her mouth, hugging the stack of clothes to her chest. And I could feel the shame of the strange child I’d become.

  7

  Usually the first person downstairs in the morning starts the coffee. But today, still in his pajamas, his hair unwashed, Pop stares at a table littered with paperwork and bills.

  “Oh,” he says. “I didn’t see you there.”

  He gets up, opens the can of coffee beside the sink, scoops out two heaping spoonfuls.

  “Did you even sleep?” I ask.

  “Little bit.”


  While he pours water into the back of the coffeemaker, I look for a space at the table where we might eat breakfast.

  Much of his paperwork has to do with making death official: starting a file to get a death certificate, submitting a notice to the newspaper, canceling Social Security benefits. He keeps prospective budgets for customers trying to decide on caskets, flowers, music. But I also see a list of our clients who haven’t paid their bills, and I know Pop has a grueling day ahead filled with delicate bargaining that will cause financial harm to both the client and to us.

  “Did you use all the cotton batting?” he asks as he flicks a switch to start the coffee.

  “I did,” I say. “For Mr. Mosley. Is that all right?”

  “I just wasn’t expecting you’d use all of it,” he says. “I had plans to fix a chair.”

  “I didn’t know,” I say.

  He sits at the table.

  “I’m just trying to get all the numbers right.”

  I can see him doing calculations in his head. Always, as my father works the numbers, I see his anxiety about being the next business to fail. The uncertainty of tomorrow, a resignation to the general direction we’re all headed in this town.

  “Things will turn around,” I tell him.

  We say things like this from time to time. Whoever is feeling down, the other chimes in with optimism. Usually we at least pretend to perk up, but Pop just stares at the mess.

  I look for a place to sit—my usual chair is piled with papers—so I take the spare next to his. I can’t put my elbows on the table, and Pop is so close I hear him swallow.

  “I haven’t given any thought to breakfast,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “I can put something together.”

  Then we both turn toward the front door because someone has just walked across the squeaky board on our porch.

  “I’m not ready to see anyone just yet,” Pop says.

  The doorbell rings.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Say I’m in the shower,” he says. “Get a phone number.”

  The doorknob turns and footsteps enter the foyer.

  “Hello?” a man calls.

  “Hello?” I answer, looking into the hallway and seeing Robert Golden.

  Pop whispers, “Send him along.”

  “I didn’t know if I was supposed to walk right in like I would at any place of business,” he says. “I hope I did this right.”

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  “Send him on,” Pop whispers.

  “My father’s in the . . .”

  “Oh, Mr. Crampton, hello,” Robert says, peering into the kitchen.

  He extends his hand.

  Pop stands, reluctant, and shakes it.

  “Coffee?” I ask Robert, pouring.

  “No, thanks.”

  The room feels smaller, hotter with Robert in the doorway and Pop bristling in the corner.

  “I came to pick up those papers,” he says. “Preplanning forms?”

  I set the cup on the table, embarrassed I’d forgotten to take care of this.

  “I’ll drop by this afternoon,” Pop says, stepping in front of me. “We can go through all the arrangements then.”

  “To be honest,” Robert says, “I waited for the papers all yesterday. My mother is dying. I don’t have endless time here.”

  “I’ll get them right away,” I say.

  “Mary.”

  It’s all my father says, and when I turn to face him, my hip rams the corner of the table, knocking over the cup of coffee.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I say. “Someone pass me the paper towels.”

  “Here.” Robert rushes in with a dish towel, everyone trying to reach the table at once. I stretch past my father, finally spotting the roll of towels.

  “Mary, let it go!” he shouts. “Can I have a little space in my kitchen, please?”

  I rarely hear him yell like this and never in front of a customer. The papers soak up the coffee.

  “This obviously isn’t a good time,” Robert says. “But I’d like the papers by this afternoon.”

  He lets himself out and the door clicks shut. I can’t stand to look at my father or all this smeared ink.

  “I wasn’t ready for company,” he says.

  “He’s right that he doesn’t have endless time,” I say. “Let me grab those papers.”

  “No.”

  “Pop, is there some problem I should know about?”

  “I don’t want him to fill out any paperwork.”

  “What?”

  “I took care of it a long time ago,” he says, trying to pat everything dry. “I planned the whole service and secured speakers, singers, everyone who will be involved.”

  It’s not unusual for my father to plan services for widows and people who are without local family.

  “I see how that makes things awkward,” I say.

  “No one expected Doris’s son to return,” he says. “And to be honest, I know her needs better than he does.”

  “Well, now that he’s back, I guess you’ll have to cancel those arrangements.”

  “It’s complicated, honey,” he says.

  “No, it’s not,” I say. “He’s next of kin. This is his right.”

  My father grows quiet. He tries so hard to keep our business afloat, tries every way he knows to keep our customers and potential customers happy.

  “He’s a bad memory for this town,” he says, carefully choosing his words. “I think our neighbors will feel relieved the less involved he is.”

  “We have to do what’s right for the customer,” I say.

  “We have to do what’s right for the town.”

  “I won’t do anything unprofessional, Pop.”

  “Let me handle it, then. It’s really a matter of making strong suggestions to him. Things will go better if we don’t disrupt the plans.”

  If my father could see himself right now, hair slick with grease, the agonized look in his eyes as he leans helplessly over the drenched papers, I’m not sure he’d trust himself to make a rational decision.

  “He asked for my help,” I say.

  “And I’m going to step in,” he says.

  “Pop, don’t. Don’t treat me like a kid who’s not allowed to let go of your hand.”

  He dabs the papers with the towel again.

  “Listen,” he says. “How about we get breakfast at the Pipeline?”

  “I’m okay waiting till your work is done,” I say. “We can eat here.”

  “No,” he says. “Look at the mess I’ve made of this table.”

  He picks up one of the dry papers with his hurried writing, like thought spasms, going up the side of the page.

  “All right,” I say. “We can go as soon as you’re dressed.”

  “Why don’t you head up there and save me a seat?” he says. “A few of these folks are early risers, and I can get some calls out of the way.”

  “Pop, I can wait. We’ll walk up together.”

  “No,” he says. “Give me a few minutes by myself. Anyway, it’s good for you to get out of the house. Talk with the neighbors.”

  I fetch my coat, my hip throbbing where I smacked it against the table. I hear my father’s first phone call, his cautious request for payment, the clear resistance on the other end. And I know, after the call, his best efforts will put us a little further in debt.

  I zip my coat, and then, because it feels right, I wind my way through the obstacle course of his office and choose a handful of papers from the file cabinet. My father, seeing them in my hands as I leave out the back door, covers the mouthpiece on the phone.

  “That’s a girl,” he says. “Might as well get it done.”

  8

  One great thing about covering your windows with tinfoil is the surprise you find when you open the door to last night’s moon and this morning’s sun hanging together in the sky. As I walk toward the road, I see Robert in his driveway, inspecting the side of his truck
.

  “Hey,” I say. “That wasn’t my father’s best side you saw this morning.”

  I reach into the bag slung over my shoulder and grab the preplanning papers.

  “Thank you,” he says as I hand them over, though there’s still a touch of prickliness to his voice.

  And now I see what Robert had been inspecting so intensely—the long, deep gouge on the side of his truck.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “People can be so petty when it’s not a time for pettiness.”

  “I’m close with the sheriff,” I say. “I’ll mention it to him.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time left with my ma,” he says. “I can’t waste it arguing about the paint on my truck.”

  “How’s she doing?” I ask.

  “She’s tired,” he says. “Short of breath if she does too much. It’s worse if she lies down.”

  “My pop says she wasn’t a smoker.”

  “Just bad luck,” he says.

  “I knew her a little from when she worked at the school.”

  “Was she a good teacher?”

  “I didn’t take chorus,” I say. “But I’d see her at all the holiday performances.”

  “Shame she can’t sing anymore,” he says. “She tries. But she doesn’t like how her voice has changed.”

  “You took off work for this?”

  “I don’t want her to die alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “About your mom and the truck.”

  From his driveway I can see into the backyard. For many years, Doris would be out there, throwing grain to her chickens, the yard in constant motion. All day they clucked and left their droppings across the yard.

  In the end, they were too much work for her, but the yard is still a maze of wire mesh. Beyond the unused hutch, I see something I hadn’t noticed before: a little tree house is built into the gnarled crabapple, still standing after so many years.

  Robert looks at the papers in his hand. “I ought to get started on these,” he says and offers a half smile.

  “Yeah, I have to get going, too.”

  The preplanning forms I gave Robert don’t appear controversial: Who should take custody of the body? Where will the body be buried? How will the ceremony be conducted? Who will be invited? Who will make a speech? But Pop always cautions me how quickly simple decisions can turn contentious in our business. Family members are often surprised by their feelings of jealousy and entitlement, weighing who was most loved and who carried the greatest burden.