Get Up, Eleanor, page 2
Such flimsy shelter. No shelter at all.
That strip of cement was a historic site now. In the story of Eleanor’s life, that pavement connecting the white clapboard house with the old white barn had taken on eternal significance. Her mother had passed from this life to the next right on that spot.
Had Connie Petersen lain there, conscious that the next place she would awake would be Heaven? Was she still certain of her eternal fate while she lay there on the ice? Was she even aware of what was happening? If she’d covered herself with that canvas, she must have been conscious, at least for a while. Why didn’t she move? Why didn’t she get up? Maybe covering herself had been an accident too, not a knowing effort to stay warm.
“Get up, Connie.” That would be Dad.
“You gotta see this sunrise.” He rose early, even in retirement.
Mom slept late most mornings. But she was a connoisseur of fine sunrises. She would thank her best man for stirring her to see the sun hauling itself off the prairie to the east.
Eleanor breathed a cloud into the car’s interior. “Get up, Connie.”
She wiped the knit back of her glove over both cheeks and shut off the motor of the hybrid rental. She had selected that car thinking it would be more reliable at starting in the subzero. But this was March. The sub-zeros had rolled away to the north by now. An unnecessary precaution.
It was the thaw that had killed her mother. Melting snow filled the sidewalk with water during the day and then froze at night, or when the next cold front trucked in from the north. Ironic. Her mother had survived the Wisconsin December. She had outlasted the Wisconsin January. And she had beaten back February.
But not March.
To freeze to death in March. To slip and fall because of the thaw. Eleanor swore. But, of course, she wasn’t the first to curse the Wisconsin weather.
She forced herself to open the car door and get out. She checked for clean pavement before settling her left foot on the drive. Then she shook her head at herself.
Standing, she opened the back car door and pulled her suitcase off the seat. She resettled her purse onto her shoulder and extended the handle on the carry-on bag. For some reason it reminded her of going to college, that suitcase. Her mother had packed Eleanor’s luggage in the 1970s. Bags were so much more awkward back then. Who had a rolling suitcase in those days? Stewardesses, maybe. That’s what they were called back then.
Thoughts, scattered like rock salt on an icy driveway, crunched in her mind and kept her from what she really wanted to remember, what she really wanted to understand.
She rolled her case toward the side door. No one used the front door of her parents’ house, though she could see that its stairs had been cleared of snow. She checked for the flowerpot Paul had mentioned. Green. By the back door. Next to the white siding. The light at the corner of the barn showed her the next clue for how to enter this house. How to enter her mother’s home. Eleanor would be on her own here for the first time.
But when she stood up after retrieving the cold key from beneath the ceramic pot, her eyes swept across the sidewalk to the barn. She allowed herself to see it. To know that cold surface was still there.
But her mother was no longer there.
Of course.
Eleanor drew a long breath, still gripping the key between her bare fingers, her right glove clutched in her left hand. She stepped toward that patch of pavement. The salt ground beneath her leather soles. The ice was gone. Paul had done his work. He had removed the danger.
Eleanor was standing on that sidewalk now. Was it here? Precisely here? This very spot?
The ice had been her mother’s last resting place. Connie was gone. And so was the ice. It seemed a sort of desecration.
Eleanor shook her head and sniffed disapproval at her sentimentality and superstition.
Pivoting back toward the house, her right foot slipped roughly. The layer of salt rolled over the concrete. She startled, fear grabbing her throat for a half second. Then her balance returned, and her feet aligned securely under her. She was walking. Upright. Not following her mother’s fate.
Eleanor’s stiff fingers fumbled with the key. The car console had said it was twenty-seven degrees. How long ago had she seen that temperature reading? Maybe it was colder now.
She clutched the handle of her rolling bag once the inner door angled open. The storm door banged her backside and shoved her onto the inner landing.
When had she been here last? She needed historical markers now. The last time she had heard her mother’s voice. The last time she had seen her mother cry. The last time she had visited this old farmhouse.
“Couldn’t you at least get a little townhouse in Waukesha or somewhere? I mean, if it has to be Wisconsin, at least get off this old farm and out of this drafty house.”
“But this is my home. I love this old house.”
“Oh, Mother.” Eleanor whispered as she stepped up from the landing into the kitchen.
A welcoming heat awaited her. She flipped on the light, set her gloves on the little counter near the door, and pulled off her coat. The kitchen smelled the same—flour, sugar, cinnamon, a hint of cumin and chili. Fresh scents. That was when it occurred to her that someone had been in the house just that day.
Turning toward the refrigerator, she stopped when she saw the list of phone numbers. Hers was third on the list. Paul Wasser’s was at the top. He had probably been familiar with that list. Or had he been strictly an outside man all these years? No. Mother would have at least invited him in to have coffee at the kitchen table.
The table was clean, cleared except for the blond wicker placemats contrasting with the maple surface. Now she returned to what she had started. Opening the refrigerator door, she found the expected casseroles. A yellow Post-it Note adhered to the aluminum cover on the top one. In her mind, she still pronounced it the British way, aluminium, from her trips to study at Oxford.
How her mind wandered tonight.
She tugged the note off. “Took out perishables. Mom sent casserole. You know. Paul.”
She flipped it over. It seemed unfinished. “You know” ... what?
Well, she did know how people around here would treat the grieving. Consolation casseroles. She had seen it early in life, in Milwaukee—the people from the Lutheran church bringing dinner to the family of the deceased. But these were not resurrection casseroles. They were heavy. Weights to keep the fallen down. Where they belonged. Where they were planted in their graves.
“Morbid.” She was talking to herself in her mother’s kitchen.
“I know you did the same here. I used to catch you late at night, staying up to paint. Drinking your wine and talking to yourself.” Or was her mom talking to Dad? Even when he was alive and in bed upstairs, she might have been talking to him.
Her mother had still not cleaned out her father’s bedroom last time Eleanor was here. Her parents had kept separate bedrooms in the farmhouse. In fact, as soon as she left home for graduate school, her dad had moved into Eleanor’s bedroom in Greenfield, Wisconsin.
But Mom never wanted to talk about why. “None of your business.”
Suddenly, that anonymous casserole seemed magnetically attractive. Eleanor opened the fridge again. What was it? Lasagna, Wisconsin style? She had eaten lasagna in Syracuse, in Chicago, in New York City, and in Palermo. Here, it would be a lasagna casserole, to be more precise.
No. It was tuna fish. Good enough. Probably better. The smell of it, even cold, stirred her hunger. She set the aluminum pan on the island.
Her image, reflected above the kitchen sink, stopped her. She was still wearing her hat. Pulling the soft knit cap free of her short gray and blond hair, she paused to puff her scrunched locks. No one here to see it but herself ... and her mother’s ghost.
Her mom had never been one of those shaming mothers, protecting her own sense of beauty by enforcing cosmetic standards on her daughter. Connie’s hair often retained the shape of a hatband, long after the straw fedora had come to rest on one of the hooks by the back door, long past when her floppy fisherman’s hat lay on the shelf on the landing.
“Mom. What happened to you? Why couldn’t you get up?”
CHAPTER FOUR
She had been surprised to discover that it was nearly midnight when she settled into her father’s bedroom. Waking now, she was surprised to see 7:54 in glowing red numerals next to the bed. That would be 8:54 Eastern Time. Eleanor snorted and threw back the sheet and two quilts. She never slept under a quilt at home, only at her parents’ house. Though they weren’t family heirlooms, those quilts—acquired by her mother after moving to Dove Lake—were part of Eleanor’s exit from her real life into the liminal space of a visit here.
“Liminal space.” She said it aloud, thinking of George, the Sociology professor she had been seeing most recently. He had explained that his relationship with her was liminal space. He meant it in the sense that their connection was transitional, not in the transformational sense that might have implied rising romance or a commitment larger than dinner and a movie. He was recently divorced. She was part of his transition to singleness.
Anyway. “Up, Lenny.” In her father’s old bedroom, she spoke to herself as he had, back when they lived in the Milwaukee suburbs, and she was late getting up for high school.
Her phone vibrated before she could cross the dull, oriental rug to the hallway toward the bathroom. She turned back and stood next to the nightstand looking at the number. Wisconsin. No name. It must be Paul. She should add him to her contacts.
“Hello.”
“Hello. Is this Ms. Petersen?”
“Yes. Eleanor Petersen.”
“Hello. My name is Matt Bauer. I manage the Childress Funeral Home. Let me first say how sorry I am about your loss.” He sounded as sincere as Jackie had, though less emotional.
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes. “My mother made arrangements?”
“Yes, she did. My apologies for calling so early. Your mother had a definite plan. But I wanted to talk to you before we proceed. You see, she opted for cremation and no burial. I wanted to call you first, just in case.”
In case of what? In case she wanted Connie to be buried, instead? In case she wanted to see her mother’s body first? Should she want to?
Standing there in her flannel nightgown, she didn’t know her own mind. Or maybe this was more about her heart.
“Uh. Well. What ... when ... ah.” She huffed. “Could I come and see her first?”
“Certainly. That’s what I was calling to check.” He paused. “You could come by anytime today. Just let me know when.”
“I suppose after lunch. Say, one o’clock?”
“That will be fine. I’ll be sure to be here. And, Ms. Petersen, just so you’re prepared, your mother’s body is being refrigerated. She won’t be embalmed. You understand?”
What difference did that make?
It did make a difference. Connie’s body would be cold. But Eleanor wouldn’t have to touch her.
The cold body of her mother.
Maybe she didn’t want to see her mother that way.
“Okay. I understand.” Had she answered all his questions?
“Again, I am so sorry for your loss. I will see you here at 1:00 p.m. We’re on Main Street, of course.”
“Of course.” The call disconnected. She was going to see her mother’s body. Why was she going to see her mother’s body?
Last night she had tugged against the gravity of the place where her mother had lain on the pavement. Where was that gravity now? The pull to see her mother one more time, to say goodbye in person?
But that wasn’t right. She wouldn’t see her mother there, really. Her mother wasn’t at the Childress Funeral Home. She was more likely in this house. Or in Heaven. That was what Connie had believed.
Eleanor’s feet were getting cold. She let go of her phone, clattering it back onto the nightstand.
She would have to talk to a preacher soon. Who was doing the funeral? She had never met her mother’s pastor. Connie had usually stayed home from church when her daughter visited, out of deference to the widening chasm between their faiths. As if Eleanor still had any sort of faith.
The phone buzzed again. Another Wisconsin number. Was this one Paul Wasser? Was she waiting for him to call her? About what?
“Hello.”
“Eleanor. This is Paul Wasser.”
“Yes. Thank you for the casserole. Tell your mother thank you.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad you got it.” He paused. “How’re you doing?”
“I saw where she fell. I mean, I looked at the sidewalk. Thank you for clearing it.” Was there a hint of sarcasm in her voice? Her words of thanks probably came from her engraved sense of polite duty. But she really was grateful. Grateful for all he had done for her mother.
He didn’t respond right away.
Then he spoke slowly. “I know it was like closing the barn door after the horses already escaped. But you might have walked on it. I mean, of course, you could. You’re welcome to ... to go to the barn, if you want. She kept some of her bigger paintings out there. There’s rooms weathered in. It’s not just a barn anymore, as you probably know.”
His rambling sounded a bit desperate, like a purge. But the contents of that purge seemed insignificant. Eleanor didn’t need a reminder about the build quality of the rooms in the former barn. But she was strangely grateful to him again. Grateful especially for his discomfort. She sensed a heart behind his stumbling words. True sympathy. Shared grief.
“I’ll look out there later. Uh. Why did you call?” Was it just to ask how she was doing? How much did she know about this handyman? Her mother had mentioned him dozens of times over the years. But it was always work-related. Who was he? What was he like? Had he been more to her mother than just a handyman? He seemed friendly and companionable.
“I wondered if you wanted me to bring Monet over. Maybe he could keep you company out there.”
Maybe he could. And the dog would certainly have been welcome to come back home, if she were a dog person. She had been shocked to discover that her mother was a dog person. The way Connie spoke to the cocker spaniel had been embarrassing. Eleanor wondered at herself sometimes, worried that she was feeling sibling rivalry with that dog. Monet must be pretty old by now.
“Yeah. That would be okay, I guess. I’m really not a dog person. But it certainly is lonely out here.”
“You live in a city back east?”
“A town. A townhouse in a college town.” How many times had she just said the word “town?”
“Oh. Sure. I guess not everything in New York is New York City.”
“That’s true. I’m upstate, a couple hours north of the city.”
“I see. Well, anyways. I’ll bring Monet over whenever you want. And my mom has a pie she wants me to bring.”
“Oh. Well. Okay. I have an appointment at the funeral home at one. Otherwise, I’m here.”
“Alright, I’ll bring him in a little while.”
“That’s fine. Thank you again.”
“No problem. See you later.”
When they hung up, she wondered how long “a little while” was. The range of possibilities boosted her through a brief bathroom routine, less routine for its unfamiliar setting. Even the same old rooms were unfamiliar in the absence of her parents. Both parents now.
She was in the pantry closet looking for breakfast food when she got her third call of the day.
“Hello, dear. How are you doing?” It was Jackie.
“I’m okay. This is all hitting me from the blind side.” She squeezed the loaf of bread. Soft enough. “But I guess that’s to be expected.”
“Uh-huh.” She could hear reserve in her best friend’s response.
“I’m going to see her body this afternoon. She’s refrigerated. But ...” Eleanor had meant to go deeper with this observation but lost the momentum.
“Is anyone going with you?”
“Oh, the funeral director will be there. A guy named Matt, I believe.”
“But no one else? What about that handyman that found her?”
“What about him?”
“Maybe he can go with you. I wish I could be there. You shouldn’t have to do that sort of thing alone.”
“I wish you were here. But any of the locals would just be another stranger standing next to me.”
“I suppose so.” Jackie paused long enough for an extended breath. They both used sound-cancelling new phones, so the rasp of a whole breath didn’t come clearly over the connection.
“I stood where she fell. I imagined her there. And I called to her. I told her to get up.” Eleanor ran her hand through her damp hair. “I guess that’s all absurd.”
“Sounds real to me. Do you sense her presence around there? Do you think her spirit is still in the house?”
“You know I don’t believe in that sort of thing. I’m not likely to sense something that I don’t believe in.”
“Um-hmm. Well, an experience like this can change a person. Losing your mother is a big thing, Ellie. Let it happen. Let it happen to you, and not just to the people around you.”
Jackie, short for Jacquetta, was the only one who called her “Ellie.” It had been a tease at first, but they had both gotten used to it over the years.”
Eleanor heard a bark close to the house. “I think the dog is back.”
“The dog ran away?”
“No. The handyman took him home to take care of him.”
“Oh. I thought it was one of those things where the animals know the person is dead, so they run away as an act of mourning.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“I keep tellin’ you that we all have these ancient traditions in our DNA. You don’t have to come from Africa to know about that kinda thing.”
“You come from Trenton.”
“You know what I mean.”
Paul knocked on the back door. Eleanor could see him through a gap in the white and yellow checked curtains. “The guy is here.”
“Is he handsome?”
“I can’t see him. No. I mean. That doesn’t matter.”
