The Cotton Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

plenty. A military guard and a few nice words from the pastor would be quite sufficient.”
    “Every Hoffman who has ever died in McKinney has had their funeral at the Lutheran church,” Mama Hoffman informed me. “We can’t do less for our Tom.”
    “I’m not asking you to do less,” I insisted. “I’m asking you to do different.”
    “It would look like we were ashamed of Tom,” his brother Carl said.
    “Anyone who would think something like that is beneath the notice of this family,” I told him.
    My words were useless. They wouldn’t hear of it.
    “Well, at least we don’t have to bury him in some anonymous nondescript cemetery in town,” I said.
    “What?”
    “You have your own cemetery, here on the farm,” I pointed out. “Tom took me out there, where your grandparents are buried.”
    “That place is full,” Papa Hoffman said. “We’re not burying anyone else out there.”
    “Why not?”
    “That little top of the hill with the tree was perfect for a graveyard,” Alfred, another brother, said. “But it’s full of graves. There’s no room for more.”
    “You could expand it,” I said. “There’s miles of cotton fields all around it.”
    “That’s good cotton ground,” Papa Hoffman said. “We don’t waste good ground for burials. He can be buried in town.”
    “No one ever goes to that old plot,” Mama Hoffman said.
    “I would,” I assured her.
    They held their ground, literally.
    But there was one point where I got my way. One detail that I wouldn’t give way on.
    “Laney will not be at this funeral.” I stated it unequivocally. There was no room for argument, but argue they did.
    “The child has to be at her father’s funeral,” Mama Hoffman said.
    “Why?” I asked.
    The entire Hoffman clan was staring at me as if I’d lost my mind.
    “Because Tom’s her father,” Skipper, the youngest of the Hoffmans answered. “I’d want to be there for my father.”
    “And you are an adult,” I pointed out. “Funerals can be traumatic for children. I don’t want Laney to have to go through that.”
    “Well, of course you don’t,” Mama Hoffman said. “None of us want that for her. None of us want it for ourselves. Do you think I get any pleasure out of burying my own son? I’d love to just pretend that this funeral is not happening, that my boy is not gone, that his future has not been wiped out. I could just go on about my life, like I didn’t know. That would be a whole lot easier. But I’ll go there and I’ll publicly mourn my son. It’s my duty out of respect for his life. Laney must do her duty, as well.”
    “Laney is four years old!” I told her.
    “But she’s a Hoffman,” Papa said. “Hoffmans aren’t sniveling whiners. We face what we’ve got to face.”
    “You don’t know what she’s facing,” I insisted. “None of you buried your parents when you were children.”
    The argument went on and on. But, I was not giving in. I began wearing them down.
    “Lurlene and I were going to keep the youngers home with us anyway,” Carl’s wife, Grace, said finally. “She’s about the same age and one more won’t be any trouble.”
    Neither of the elder Hoffmans liked the solution very much, but they were exhausted and could fight me no longer. I didn’t feel particularly victorious.
    “I don’t know how you could put Mama and Papa through that,” Tom’s sister Jean Anne whispered to me angrily as she was leaving. “They are burying their son tomorrow. Did you forget that? You’re always just thinking about yourself.”
    I believe that up until that moment I’d thought myself welcomed into the Hoffman family. But right there, I felt the welcome mat being rudely snatched from under me. If a family doesn’t allow the widow to think about herself and her child, then I’m not sure I know why anyone would even want a family.
    Clearly it was, “me and Laney against the world.”
    The funeral was everything that I hate. The family seated in the