The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone Page A

salad stories
.
    The next morning, Mary couldn’t decide what to wear to her mother’s funeral. Already quarter to nine, with the service supposed to start at nine-thirty, and Mary, still wearing her slip, tossed the dresses she’d brought from home, one after another, the wooden hangers clacking, onto her dead mother’s bed.
    Wearing a blue velveteen dress, black tights, and Mary Janes, Becca stood in the doorway, watching. She said, “What about that one?”
    “What did you say?” Mary stopped, dress hanger in hand, staring hard at Becca.
    “That one. The green one.”
    “Could you please get out of here? Am I asking too much of you?”
    Becca went to her father and they waited together in the red dust, and he took her hand and squeezed.
    In her dead mother’s bedroom, Mary adjusted the wide-brimmed hat. She bobby-pinned it to her curls, checking the mirror to make sure the bobby pins weren’t showing. She looked good and thought that if she were thinner, if she had dark hair, and if she weren’t going to her mother’s funeral, she could pass for Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
.
    Who will be there?
she wondered, pulling on her black coat, adorned with the purple butterfly brooch—her mother’s, and her grandmother’s before that, and one day she’d pass it on to Becca.
When Becca’s older and more responsible. Will I know anyone at the service?
she wondered.
What will they think of me? The daughter who never came to visit. Will Old Man John be there? He’s a nice man. Is it an open casket?
She hadn’t thought to ask.
I can’t handle seeing her dead. She shouldn’t be dead
.
    Mary sat in the front pew, head bowed, concentrating on her black pumps. She didn’t want anyone to see her face. She didn’t want to see Claire, who sat on her left. The sisters had hardly spoken. Claire, with her ex-boyfriend Tom’s help, made the arrangements. There wasn’t much to arrange. Edna had taken care of everything. “Tom has been a big help,” Claire whispered as the eulogist walked to the pulpit.
    “What happened with his girlfriend Betsy?”
    “It’s over between them.”
    Mary thought,
That’s convenient, since our mother is dead and there’s inheritance and a farm house
.
    Mary shifted in her seat, crossed her right leg over her left. There was a small snag in her stocking. She fingered it. Claire cried. Becca cried. She should be crying, but she had taken a Valium and sipped from Rowan’s flask in the car. She hoped the snag didn’t spread.
This must be Hank at the pulpit, one of the men
from church that Mother was talking about last summer. He’s also been crying. What is he saying?
As Hank said, “I never met a nicer, more generous woman, and I don’t think I ever will. Make you laugh. Lord, she made me laugh,” Mary thought,
I hate you!
Full of rage, she squirmed again. Hank told one story after another about a woman Mary didn’t know. “I can’t tell you how many times …” He wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “I can’t say she’ll be missed. That doesn’t do her justice.”
On and on. Shut up!
She shouldn’t think that. She decided that she shouldn’t have worn black.
It’s too depressing
. She should’ve bought a new dress, but there wasn’t time.
    Her right foot was asleep. She shifted again and looked to Becca, whose face was swollen with tears, her green eyes flooded, almost transparent. Mary squeezed Becca’s thigh to express to her daughter that it’d be all right. Becca gasped for breath and cupped her face in her hands. Mary tried to take Becca’s hand as Rowan, seated beside Mary with his legs crossed, leaned in. He put his hand on Mary’s shoulder and whispered, “It’s all right.”
    Mary was relieved at his concern.
Maybe we’ll make love tonight. It’s been so long
.
    Rowan thought about his meeting next month with Atkins and Thames. The additive he’d created. The money he might make.
    After the service, the mourners drove to the farm house.