The Funeral Dress (6 page)

When Nolan moved in his sleep, the cot squeaked and whined as if it, too, was wincing in pain. When he was awake, the thick soles of his work boots rubbed against the raw wood floor worn smooth with age. Floorboards were so warped in places, Emmalee spied the dirt ground a few inches below her feet. She never went to sleep without looking underneath her covers first, making sure a chicken snake or a field mouse hadn’t nested in her bed. She fingered the baby’s fine hair, knowing this would be the last morning she would wake in the back of her father’s house.

A harsh, jarring knock came at the door. The baby pulled from Emmalee’s breast and started to whimper.

“Nolan, it’s me, Basil,” a voice called from the yard, followed by a deep, wet cough. The town’s only funeral
home director worked a wad of phlegm into his mouth and spit it onto the ground. The noise rang so clear, Emmalee thought Mr. Fulton might as well have been standing by her bedside, hawking his crud right onto the floor.

Mr. Fulton knocked harder, and Emmalee understood someone in Cullen was dead.

She knew the sound of death, its tone and rhythm, as well as she did that of a popular song played over and over on the radio. At her father’s house, death never acted hesitant or shy. It came barreling out of nowhere, walking straight up to the front door and announcing itself with a bold and repetitive rap.

More experienced in the protocol of dying than her nineteen years would suggest, Emmalee was convinced the precise moment of a life’s passing was determined long ago, probably before the life itself ever took root in fertile soil. And she had come to believe nothing was sadder than someone dying without warning, with no family or friends standing vigil or singing their loved one over to the other side.

Her mama had promised there was nothing sad about going on to heaven. She had talked about a place above the clouds where the streets were lined with gold and gates were crusted with pearls. She said Jesus died hanging on a cross so we all could go there someday. “Dying ain’t nothing to fear,” she told Emmalee. “We all got a beautiful room in a beautiful house waiting for us up there.”

Emmalee never fully understood her mama’s stories. They sounded more like fairy tales told to soothe a child at bedtime or the desperate ramblings of a dying woman,
muttered to ease her own fears about the unknown. But after her mama passed, Emmalee spotted these crosses everywhere. She found them strung on chains around people’s necks and perched on top of the church roofs in Cullen. She saw one tattooed on a man’s forearm and another painted on the rocky face of Pine Mountain. She fixated on these crosses. She wrote them on paper and drew them in the mud long before she made her first one out of twigs. Back then, she hoped they might be some sort of key to that house where her mama had gone to live.

Still Emmalee believed a death was more intimidating in the dark, when the world stood quiet and defenseless and the funeral home director came looking for her father. Mr. Fulton called on Nolan when that sort of thing happened, when someone slid out of this world unnoticed in the deep of night and his passing needed to be officially confirmed and properly noted. A man who had been weakened by an early stroke, Mr. Fulton had come to count on Nolan to do the heavy lifting for him whenever a body needed to be hauled up out of its predicament and carried back to town.

“Nolan,” Mr. Fulton said, calling from outside, “wake up, sir. There’s work to be done. You hear me? You leave me out here in the cold much longer, and you might have another body to contend with.”

Emmalee placed the baby against her thighs and pulled her knees a little closer to her chest, wrapping Kelly in a leggy cocoon. The baby’s wet diaper chilled Emmalee’s skin.

“Nolan!” Emmalee hollered her father’s first name, both of them agreeing years ago anything more would
not suit him well. “Open the damn door! Let the poor man in.”

Nolan was once a good-looking man with a shock of dark hair slicked back against his head. His smile was as honeyed as his talk, and Emmalee imagined he had conned many men into hiring him and women into loving him, including her own mama. But his charm had run thin like his hair.

Another knock echoed at the door.

“You hear me, Nolan Bullard, I’m not paying you twenty-five dollars a call to stand out here in the freezing cold. I can do that on my own dime.”

“Hold on,” Nolan said, shouting back as he fumbled across the floor. “I was dead asleep. What the hell time is it anyways?”

Emmalee glanced at the clock radio by her bed. It read seventeen minutes past two. Then again, it always did. Pulled from one of the garbage cans behind the Ridgeview Trail Apartments, the radio was a rare gift from her father, handed to her on her sixteenth birthday.

“Here,” he said and jumped into his truck and sped down the dirt drive winding its way out of the holler.

Nolan searched through other people’s garbage like a miner panning for gold, but Emmalee always considered the clock radio one of his better acquisitions. It picked up a couple of stations from Jasper and one from Chattanooga if the weather was good, and it always glowed bright enough so she could see her hands out in front of her even when the moon hid behind a dark sky. Besides, keeping time didn’t really mean much to her anymore. In
that way, she believed she was no different from the dead her father drove about town.

Another knock. Nolan fumbled with the latch, and the two men exchanged a quick hello. Emmalee rolled onto her other side and pushed her bangs from her eyes. She inched to the edge of the bed and lifted her head, struggling to make sense of the conversation in the next room.

“Listen here, there’s been an accident on the other side of the valley,” Mr. Fulton said. “Sheriff called about twenty minutes ago. A trucker from up near Manchester was hauling logs over the plateau and saw a pickup fly off the side of Old Lick. Trucker admitted he drifted out of his lane but thought he righted his rig in time.”

Emmalee cupped her left hand over her mouth. She forced a fierce cry back down into her belly and pushed her face into the pillow. The baby squirmed against her back. Emmalee twisted toward Kelly Faye and slipped her pinkie finger in the baby’s mouth, hoping to soothe her before her crying took hold. Kelly Faye suckled her mama’s finger.

“Who from Old Lick?” Emmalee only mouthed the words. She was frantic to know who had passed, always finding it easier knowing than wondering. But it was foolish to think it was Leona and Curtis. They weren’t the only two people who lived on that mountain, and Curtis was surely a careful driver. Besides, when a passing came sudden in the night like this, it was more often than not a teenaged driver racing too fast up and down these narrow mountain roads, chasing some fleeting thrill eluding him there in Cullen.

Mr. Fulton cleared his throat. “That poor trucker said he won’t ever get that picture out of his head. Upset him so much he ran his own rig into a shallow ravine on the other side. Sheriff said it took three shots of whiskey to calm him down enough to talk.” Mr. Fulton’s voice grew louder with each bit of news he shared. “Rescue team’s been there most of the evening. Sissie Boyd’s headed out with the wrecker. Preacher Herd’s probably already there. Runt’s clearing trees.”

“Shit, what’s the sheriff calling Runt for? I can handle that chain saw better than anybody in Cullen. Runt knows it too.”

“You may not care for your brother, Nolan, but there’s nobody quicker at taking down a tree.”

“That ain’t so.”

“Look, Nolan, this isn’t about you. They’re not reporting any survivors. But you know the sheriff—always remains hopeful to the very end. He’s got to move fast. Get the best team together he can. And now we got to do our part.”

Nolan shuffled toward the door.

“I’m just glad we don’t have those heavy rains we had last week,” Mr. Fulton said.

“Muddy as hell, ain’t it?”

“True.” Mr. Fulton quieted another phlegmy cough. “Only other problem I see is the rescue squad’s taken the ambulance over to Chattanooga with Arbutus Spangler’s boy. His fever spiked, and he started convulsing. So if there is a survivor at this point, we might be running the hearse over to the hospital ourselves.”

Mr. Fulton stepped a few feet further into the room,
his right foot dragging across the floor. “You know something about all this reminds me of that night back in sixty-nine when those three Signal Mountain boys out riding in that brand new convertible ran right under that semi. Remember? Two of them got their heads shaved right off.” Mr. Fulton’s voice rang as light and friendly as it always did. He could talk of mangled and broken bodies all the while smiling and nodding sweet. Emmalee figured he had spent so much of his life comforting the bereft that his face and voice just got stuck in that reassuring way.

“Give me a minute to get the fire going here,” Nolan said. “Got to keep the baby warm.” Nolan stepped outside, and Emmalee knew he had gone to steal another piece of wood from an unsuspecting table or chair he had carried home and tossed along the side of the house.

“How is Emmalee? Sure was surprised to hear she had a baby,” Mr. Fulton asked, raising his voice.

“Yep,” Nolan said as he returned to the stove.

“I guess you knew Hester delivered her.” It sounded as though Mr. Fulton followed Nolan to the woodstove on the other end of the room. “She took Billy with her in case she needed help. Not sure the boy’s recovered from the sight of it yet.” Mr. Fulton laughed. “You know we haven’t run Cullen’s ambulance in more than ten years, since the county took over service, but the old-timers at the factory still call on Hester whenever there’s a womanly problem of any kind. Guess they feel more comfortable with her than one of the men from the rescue squad.” Mr. Fulton paused. “Hester said Emmalee was convinced she had the flu was all.”

“Yeah. Thought she’d gotten fat.” Nolan tossed the fresh wood into the stove, and Emmalee could hear the fire crackle and pop. “But it wasn’t looking like there was a baby in there.”

“Well, Hester said it was a tiny thing. Not more than five pounds. Is she growing good?”

“Guess so. Got some lungs, that’s for damn sure.” The stove’s metal door clanked shut.

“Saw Runt the other day,” Mr. Fulton said. “Said he brought some formula and bottles by, but you run him off. Why’d you do that, Nolan?”

“Don’t need one damn thing from him.”

Nolan stumbled back to his cot.

“Sure this isn’t about Runt getting your daddy’s mill? Nolan, that was a long, long time ago. You got to do what’s right for Emmalee and the baby.”

“She’s doing fine. Baby too.”

Emmalee clenched her fists and sucked in another fierce cry.

“Well, what about the daddy? Has he been around to help?”

“Don’t know. Girl won’t say. And I ain’t seen a boy back here.”

“Hmm. You better keep an eye on her or you’ll have a houseful before long.” Mr. Fulton walked back to the door. “I was always telling our Rachel you can’t trust a boy till he puts a ring on your finger. Of course, I tell Billy to keep away from a girl looking for you to put a ring on her finger,” Mr. Fulton said and laughed.

Billy’s name was only a quick mention, but Emmalee repeated it in her baby’s ear. Billy had promised to marry
her long before Kelly Faye was brewing deep inside her. He asked her outright, even talked about a life together. They would live in Cullen and run his daddy’s business. Said he never knew a girl so comfortable around the dead. When they could, they’d buy a house of their own, one with two stories and a big backyard. He called Emmalee beautiful and pure then.

Emmalee had worked hard not to imagine her life married to Billy. It was foolish dreaming. But she had worked harder not to love him, even after that day he had crawled on top of her and pushed his way inside. Looking back, she understood the girl from Red Chert was only a novelty for a boy like him, not much different from the bearded lady on display at the state fair. Besides, Nolan always told her that it would take a mindless fool to fall in love with her, and Billy Fulton was a real smart boy.

Emmalee traced the outline of her baby’s lips with her fingertip as she had once traced Billy’s before pressing her mouth against his. Even though Billy had not claimed his baby girl, he was always there now, staring back at her. Sometimes she swore this baby taunted her on purpose. The flecks of green in Kelly Faye’s eyes and her slender nose, both features stolen from the Fultons’ blood, worried Emmalee. She was afraid Mr. Fulton might see his own son in Kelly’s face soon. Or worse yet, Nolan would see it, too. And nothing good could come from these two men learning they shared a grandchild. If Nolan grew demanding and were to lose the only job he had ever performed with any consistency, he would surely blame Emmalee for that like he did most other things that left him cross.

“Worst cases always in the dead of night. Wonder why that is, Nolan?” Mr. Fulton asked.

“No shit.”

“Stop that cussing, old man.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t seem right—cussing and tending to the dead at once. We promise dignity at all times. From pickup to burial, always respectful. That’s what our ad in the paper says every single week, and I mean to honor those words. And you work for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d just think after all these years, you’d know where I stand on that kind of talk.” Even when Mr. Fulton reprimanded Nolan, his voice sounded kind. “Come on. Sheriff’s probably waiting on us, and I want to get those bodies to the funeral home before daybreak if possible. This is not a spectator sport, and this one’s already drawing plenty of attention. Three calls came in before midnight. Hester says these people can’t get enough of a good funeral.”

The cot squeaked and moaned, and Emmalee knew Nolan was lacing his boots, preparing for the night’s grim work. “Go on and get the hearse running,” he said. “I’ll fetch my coat and meet you out there.”

“All right, but hurry it along. Like I said, I want to get on with it.” Mr. Fulton opened the door. “Why don’t you follow me over there in your truck. We might need it given the circumstance.” The door shut.

“Who is it, Nolan?” Emmalee said, sitting straight up in bed. “You hear me? Who was it?”