Read Online The Funeral Dress by Susan Gregg Gilmore - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Gregg Gilmore
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Leona grinned as she tiptoed behind him, stopping at the first bedroom door. Curtis admitted it was a tiny room, but Leona did not see it that way. He promised by the time their first child came along, their house would be finished and the nursery would be at least twice this size. Leona already imagined a baby sleeping sound in his crib tucked in the corner near the window. “It’s perfect,” she said and walked on behind her husband.
“This is our room.” Curtis said. He tugged on Leona’s skirt again. She giggled as she gently pushed his hand away.
A bed was placed against the far wall. It was made up and draped with a creamy white cover. “You done all this?” she asked while she stroked the cover with her hand.
“All for you.”
“Nobody’s ever been so good to me,” she said.
Leona suddenly spotted the blue sky outside the room’s window. She crawled across the bed to get a better look. “It’s so pretty here. The valley. The sky. It’s all so beautiful,” she said and pointed out the window. She pictured herself floating on a passing cloud.
Curtis told her that on a clear day, like this one, she could see all the way to Kentucky. She leaned closer to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Kentucky bluegrass from her spot there on Old Lick.
“Take me there someday, Curtis,” Leona said and collapsed on the bed, pulling her husband along with her. “You know my mama told me not to marry some poor boy from Old Lick. She can’t imagine anyone with any sense wanting to live way up here. Said it’s twenty minutes farther to everywhere but heaven.” Leona petted Curtis’s cheek. “Mama said only people up here are no-good fools. Are you a no-good fool, Curtis Lane?” Leona whispered in his ear. “Tell me now.”
E MMALEE
R ED C HERT
A band of fast-moving clouds slid in front of the moon, shrouding the Bullards’ land in darkness. But the dark did not scare Emmalee. She had grown up there at the head of the holler, when even on the brightest days, long shadows crossed the mountain’s folds.
Wrapped in a quilt thinned with age, she raised a flashlight and cast its beam across the clearing. The neon-lit eyes of a wandering possum, spotted low beneath a patch of rhododendron, lanced the otherwise pitch-black night and reminded Emmalee she was not alone. She lowered the light and huddled on a stool under the plywood porch cover extending across the front of the house. She relaxed her shoulder against a broken-down refrigerator Nolan had hauled home before she was born. It was only good for leaning against.
Emmalee was drawn outdoors whenever Nolan wasdriving for Mr. Fulton. Whether she knew the dead or not, she believed it was a somber time. And she felt comforted behind the copse of tall white oaks and pines even on a cold night like this when the trees’ branches danced above her head and the valley prepared for its winter’s sleep.
She raised her arms above her head and stretched her back. Her spine creaked and popped as if her bones belonged to an ancient hag, not to a teenaged girl left to mother a child of her own. Her breasts hung heavy and ached from the weight of too much milk, yet she did not dare disturb the peace of her baby sleeping in the back room. She pulled the quilt up around her waist and stroked the fabric, a kaleidoscope of faded hues. She wondered if there was anything left of Cynthia Faye Bullard among these worn threads.
Emmalee didn’t carry many memories of her mother anymore, other than those final ones of her lying sick in bed—her skin a pale yellow stretched loose across her bony frame, her lips split and dry, her eyes vacant. Sometimes, when she was real quiet and alone in the back room, she felt her mother’s lifeless body next to hers or smelled the sour scent of urine and death tainting the air. But even after all these years what haunted Emmalee most was the silence that came at the very end.
Nolan said Emmalee “liked to drove him
Leona grinned as she tiptoed behind him, stopping at the first bedroom door. Curtis admitted it was a tiny room, but Leona did not see it that way. He promised by the time their first child came along, their house would be finished and the nursery would be at least twice this size. Leona already imagined a baby sleeping sound in his crib tucked in the corner near the window. “It’s perfect,” she said and walked on behind her husband.
“This is our room.” Curtis said. He tugged on Leona’s skirt again. She giggled as she gently pushed his hand away.
A bed was placed against the far wall. It was made up and draped with a creamy white cover. “You done all this?” she asked while she stroked the cover with her hand.
“All for you.”
“Nobody’s ever been so good to me,” she said.
Leona suddenly spotted the blue sky outside the room’s window. She crawled across the bed to get a better look. “It’s so pretty here. The valley. The sky. It’s all so beautiful,” she said and pointed out the window. She pictured herself floating on a passing cloud.
Curtis told her that on a clear day, like this one, she could see all the way to Kentucky. She leaned closer to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Kentucky bluegrass from her spot there on Old Lick.
“Take me there someday, Curtis,” Leona said and collapsed on the bed, pulling her husband along with her. “You know my mama told me not to marry some poor boy from Old Lick. She can’t imagine anyone with any sense wanting to live way up here. Said it’s twenty minutes farther to everywhere but heaven.” Leona petted Curtis’s cheek. “Mama said only people up here are no-good fools. Are you a no-good fool, Curtis Lane?” Leona whispered in his ear. “Tell me now.”
E MMALEE
R ED C HERT
A band of fast-moving clouds slid in front of the moon, shrouding the Bullards’ land in darkness. But the dark did not scare Emmalee. She had grown up there at the head of the holler, when even on the brightest days, long shadows crossed the mountain’s folds.
Wrapped in a quilt thinned with age, she raised a flashlight and cast its beam across the clearing. The neon-lit eyes of a wandering possum, spotted low beneath a patch of rhododendron, lanced the otherwise pitch-black night and reminded Emmalee she was not alone. She lowered the light and huddled on a stool under the plywood porch cover extending across the front of the house. She relaxed her shoulder against a broken-down refrigerator Nolan had hauled home before she was born. It was only good for leaning against.
Emmalee was drawn outdoors whenever Nolan wasdriving for Mr. Fulton. Whether she knew the dead or not, she believed it was a somber time. And she felt comforted behind the copse of tall white oaks and pines even on a cold night like this when the trees’ branches danced above her head and the valley prepared for its winter’s sleep.
She raised her arms above her head and stretched her back. Her spine creaked and popped as if her bones belonged to an ancient hag, not to a teenaged girl left to mother a child of her own. Her breasts hung heavy and ached from the weight of too much milk, yet she did not dare disturb the peace of her baby sleeping in the back room. She pulled the quilt up around her waist and stroked the fabric, a kaleidoscope of faded hues. She wondered if there was anything left of Cynthia Faye Bullard among these worn threads.
Emmalee didn’t carry many memories of her mother anymore, other than those final ones of her lying sick in bed—her skin a pale yellow stretched loose across her bony frame, her lips split and dry, her eyes vacant. Sometimes, when she was real quiet and alone in the back room, she felt her mother’s lifeless body next to hers or smelled the sour scent of urine and death tainting the air. But even after all these years what haunted Emmalee most was the silence that came at the very end.
Nolan said Emmalee “liked to drove him
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