The Funeral Dress Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the knee. “Don’t go falling asleep on me. We’ll be leaving sooner than you think.”
    Leona’s tone spun softer. She felt guilty she had talked so harsh to Curtis since he picked her up at the factory. Truth be told, she’d noticed Curtis acting more forgetful lately, and she was ashamed to admit she found his declining memory more frustrating than worrisome. Her days were tiring enough as they were, and she could not bear to think what her life would be like if Curtis lost his mind to hardening of the arteries like Burnett Daws, who wandered out from his house in the middle of the night. His wife found him the next morning facedown in a pond about a quarter mile from the road wearing nothing but his underclothes. Surely Curtis was too young for that, she reassured herself and turned the oven down to three hundred and seventy-five degrees.
    “You hear me? I mean it. Don’t go falling asleep. We’re going to need to be on the road here soon.”
    “I’m just resting. I cut near a half cord of wood today.”
    “I saw that. You got a buyer?”
    “Most of it promised to the preacher,” Curtis said.
    Leona rolled her eyes, knowing Curtis’s day’s work would not earn him one dollar, only another jewel in that damn heavenly crown he talked about all the time.
    “Bring me a glass of water, girl. Not sure I can get out of this chair right yet.” Curtis pushed the recliner back farther and released a deep sigh.
    “Don’t have no ice. Or any chilled for that matter.” Leona held up the empty jug. “You know you can fillthis and put it in the refrigerator as good as I can. It sure ain’t going to fill itself. You’d think I was the only one on earth that knows how to work this faucet.”
    “Don’t matter. Tap water’ll be fine. Too cold for ice today anyway.”
    Leona handed Curtis a glass of water filled from the kitchen sink.
    “Is that all? Water? No sugar?” Curtis feigned an exaggerated frown.
    Leona couldn’t help but laugh. Curtis had always been able to do that, to make her laugh when she felt more like crying. She did love that about him. She really did. She took a step back toward her husband and kissed his bald head. He’d do anything to make her happy, even if it meant agreeing to let a young unmarried collar maker and her baby come and live with them for a while. It had all happened so fast, and maybe Leona had made the decision in haste. But for the first time in years, she found herself looking forward to something, not back. Leona leaned down and kissed his head again.
    “That’s more like it,” he said and grinned, his blue eyes bright after all these years. Leona laughed and held her blistered finger to her mouth. She turned back to the kitchen, her foot gliding across the thin metal strip separating the green carpeting from the kitchen’s linoleum floor. She chose a sharp paring knife from a drawer, and with the confidence of a master sculptor approaching a block of stone, she whisked away the potatoes’ dirty skins.
    Mayonnaise, creamed chicken soup, onion, salt, and grated cheddar cheese—she measured the ingredients by sight and tossed them into the large yellow bowl. Shespooned the mixture into a Pyrex dish greased with a thick layer of Crisco and admired her work before sprinkling the top with the entire box of cornflakes, well bathed in a stick of melted margarine. Leona set the casserole in the hot oven.
    “See, Ona, I knew you could do it,” Curtis announced. “You could make them potatoes with your eyes shut.”
    She smiled, knowing that indeed she could.
    Leona turned to the sink filled with the brown peelings. She reached for the counter and stared into the thick stand of white oaks, maples, and pines insulating their property from the main road. A mockingbird darted across the field, pecking at the remnants of her summer garden, a few stalks of withered corn fluttering in the evening’s breeze. She spied another redbird and puckered her lips. She was certain this