Sellwood Oregon 

1943

The little boy sat in his chair. The banter. It went on and on. Rose couldn't help herself. She thought there's something wrong with him. Too much sleep. A disturbance. The first sign of a disturbance. Like her aunt Mae. Chatter. Chatter Chatter. But, really it was her. She knew it was in her. Her mind couldn't concentrate and his words were stab, stab stabbing at her.

            "This plane, can't land because its wheels are stuck. They are stuck-what do you call it mom? Mom?"

            "What Henry?"

            "What's underneath?"

            She looked at him, told herself, just listen to the boy. He's only five years old. Someday, he will be a teenager. The silence she craved now would be bottomless someday. She knew this.

            "Just finish your breakfast. I'm thinking right now. I'm trying to work." She leaned over the table and returned to her sketch.

            He flew the plane upward above the cereal bowl. His little knuckles were dirty. Rose noticed this. She could see herself getting up, getting the dishrag and wiping them clean. But, she didn't. Instead she looked down at the paper. She thought about the flowers for Mrs. O'Neil's funeral. Lillies, baby's breath. A spray of white. Why white at funerals? Heaven? Rose thought, but she didn't know. She thought that deep red, lush almost black would be more fitting. The blackness that envelops you. It had always frightened her, but what is more accurate than the blood red and the eternal blackness just near the stem of a deep burgundy rose?

            "Where?" Henry asked.

            "What darling? What son?" Rose answered. She softened to him. He was so alive. "Where is what?"

            "The place the wheels go."

            "Inside somewhere. Inside of the plane. Let me see." Henry handed her the plane. Rose turned it upside down and looked at the bottom.

            "Do you mean when the plane is in the air? Where does the landing gear go?"

            "Yes. When its flying."

            "Well, this toy doesn't have it, but there is a little compartment."

            "That's not right. Daddy told me how it works."

            "I know, son. But, Daddy isn't here anymore. I don't know."

            Henry's face turned red and his lip started to quiver.

            "Come here, my little boy."

            Instantly he was in her arms. This growing little thing. This five year old boy who should be too old for cradling. Here he was in her arms. His sweet skin smelled fresh. Even with his dirty fingernails and unwashed hair, he was clean and fresh.

***

The funeral parlor was dimly lit. It was silent. Rose walked in, aware of her heels and the sound they made on the marble tiled entry way hall. In front of her, she could see the long carpeted hallway with doors on either side. Each room meant for a different casket, a different life that had passed, a different family and room full or mourners.

Standing there now, waiting for Mrs. O'Neil's son, she remembered walking down the hall, black pumps. Dark stockings. She remembered her black dress and gloves. The framed picture of Nick she held like a school book against her chest. She had kept thinking, I am holding on, I am holding on. You are with me Nick. I won't let you go.

It was the second room on the right. A big one.

"He grew up here. We all knew him. We'll all miss him," Andy the funeral director had said, "get a big room. No charge. Rosie. There's no charge." Her red lips must have smiled, or turned upward. But she didn't remember that. She just remembered the current moving, his voice another uneventful piece of debris caught in the rapids. It was moving, moving towards the end.

            It wasn't until later that night after the funeral, when she was lying in her bed while Henry stayed the night at Lilly's. That had been when she realized it. She wasn't holding on to anything. She had released the picture and let it fall. There was nothing to hold on to. He was dead. He was gone.  Even then, she knew that the silence, the void would recede. It would never close completely. It would stay an infected wound. Because she had loved him so much. And even though it had been selfish to think on that night in the orange summer light as the wind blew through the lace curtains. It was unfair to believe it in the stillness and the silence of mourning. But, she had loved him. And she loved him she felt, more than most people can understand or ever love. And, even though her mother had told her that she would never, ever be loved. There he was: Nick Miller. His sculpted face, square jaw. And, he had loved her too. And then suddenly he was gone. She was selfish to think that her love was so different that anybody elses, but it was true. It was.

"Rose?" She looked up. Mr. O'Neil was approaching her.

"Mr. O'Neil?" she asked, trying to compose herself.  She was still thinking in a dream like way. It was the heavy air in the room. The scent of candle wax and sage that saturated the place. It was an in-between reality. In and out of time. Because Rose hadn't known that coming back to the funeral home would pull her so violently back to the night before Nick was buried. Buried. The word, the thought of the word sent her stomach sinking. She wanted to sit down. She felt faint.

The man smiled at her. It was a warm, familiar smile, but Rose didn't know him. Somehow his smile, the odd friendliness pulled her back to the present. She took a deep breath and smiled back at him.

"Its Edward. Or, Ed. They call me Ed," he said. He held out his hand and when Rose reached to shake it, he gently held the tip of her fingers on his palm. It was a gesture that suggested that he was going to kiss her hand. Instead he squeezed it lightly and let it go. Edward O'Neil was medium build. His brown hair looked almost gray, but it wasn't. Rose could see that it was just light, a sandy brown. He wore a white shirt, a loose, wide tie and gray pants. His shirt was pressed, but the seams on his sleeve were pressed off center, in some places there were two lines ironed into the fabric.

Rose felt dizzy again. It was the funeral home, she thought. It was pressing into her. She was feeling dreamy, transported into its silence. "I'm very sorry about your mother, Mr. O'Neil," she said.

He looked down. Rose looked down too and rubbed the toe of her shoe against the pattern in the tile work. She sighed. Then looked up at him again. For a moment she felt as if she were looking through the black veil again. She was in two places. Right here, in that moment with Mr. O'Neil, deciding on flower arrangements for his mother's wake and funeral. And, at the same time, back then, less than a year ago. Both sorrows running together in a current between them. She had the urge to wipe the veil away from her face. But of course it wasn't there. It was just a memory.

"Maybe we should take a walk?" he said to her. It was out of place, Rose thought. Mr. O'Neil was smiling. His eyes were staring intently into hers and it seemed more intimate than she expected. It made her uncomfortable. Then he corrected himself. His smile faded and his face turned solemn. In that moment, Rose questioned what she thought he had said. Did he say maybe we should walk? Had she heard him correctly? He smiled at her gently and she felt confused. For at that point, she was still an empty tablet. Nothing had been written. She was unable to read his glances and gestures. So she allowed him to erase whatever intention he had spoken so casually to her. But still... a walk? But why? Where to?

"I have some sketches," she said. "Should I show them to you here? I was thinking Lilies of the valley and baby's breath. You said, peaceful. Natural? They're delicate, typical funeral arrangements. They should be lovely."

"It's the Burgundy room," he said "should we go there and look around?"

"All right." she agreed.

"All right." he said. He suddenly seemed matter of fact, businesslike to her. He almost seemed angry. Rose thought his manner had turned cold towards her. Then, she realized that her mind was playing tricks on her.  She was so broken up about being back at the funeral parlor.

Rose walked next to him, trying to keep his pace. She glanced into the blue room as they passed it. A searing pain pierced her stomach. She wanted to crawl back into the past. She wanted to be standing in the receiving line, holding Nick's picture. Because, she remembered that back then, from the moment she had first heard the news until after the wake -- she still hadn't really known her husband was gone. Words had been suspended like pictures on a newsreel in front of her one by one. Flash. Flash.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Miller."

"His friend had these letters. For you. Never sent."

"It was an infection. He was brave."

"He never gave up."

She remembered the soldier walking in, invading her garden while she was out working the soil. How dare he come into her yard and tell her that her husband was dead? But, she hadn't really believed him and at the wake, it was just an aching then. Just like when Nick had left for Europe. A pain under her ribs, stabbing. A thirsty longing, a pain that would have subsided, resolved itself once he finally returned home.

The burgundy room was much smaller than the blue one. The O'Neils weren't from Oregon, so there wouldn't be a lot of people at the wake. Mrs. O'Neil was from England. And, her husband William -Ed's father-had been from Chicago. Then California. And, later much later Mrs. O'Niel had settled there in Portland. Edward and his wife followed them, to help her. Rose knew all of this third hand, from maybe one or two conversations over the years. It was information that she hadn't even realized she'd retained until that moment when she finally met him face to face.

Chairs were arranged in a semi-circle. There were maybe thirty. All dark wood, folding chairs. A stand for the casket was placed in front of the back of the room. Rich tapestry covered the walls. Unless you looked closely you might have missed the Grecian pattern. But, Rose did look closely. In fact, she felt a pang of regret. An urgent desire to correct things. This should have been Nick's room. Not the satiny blue with cream carpeting. This room was more fitting. More intimate.  Passionate she almost thought but that was too much.

"I am very sorry that we didn't--" Rose thought aloud. She bit her lip, turned flush because she was thinking how sorry she was that this was not the room chosen for her husband's wake. She felt her face growing warm and Ed O'Neil turned from the table where the flowers were to go.

There was that familiar expression again. He walked over to her and despite herself, Rose thought he was going to touch her. Going to comfort her. Put his hand on her shoulder or lead her to a chair.

Instead he said "Didn't what? Is something not right?"

"No," she said, "the table is fine." Rose felt an urge to leave. To rush out. "Here are the sketches." She carried them in a small envelope. She laid it on the table and removed several. They depicted the possible arrangements for his mother. The lilies, baby's breath, ferns.

             Ed O'Neil leaned in and looked at them. He took one in his hands and held it closer, examining it."Are you the artist?" he asked. She knew that he was an artist. He was a painter. He also did illustrations for magazines. He was a well respected artist. She knew this without ever knowing him.

"No," its just so you can see the flower arrangements. I can't get some of the flowers, especially this time of year. I quickly sketch them, they're nothing-I don't have the flowers in my garden this time of year. I have to order them. During the spring and summer I do most of the less formal orders from my garden. Not now though. I have to order the flowers this time of year." He watched her while she spoke. And, she realized that she was talking too much. Giving him too much useless information.

"I see," he said and squinted a little, maybe considering what she had just told him. He put the picture down. She noticed his hands. Gentleman's hands she thought. His eyes looked at her intently. " You have a reputation. I've heard about your garden. Seen pictures in the Bee. I have seen you at the garden club meetings. At the community house."

"Are you a gardener?" she asked.

"No. Mrs. O'Neil is."

"Your wife?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Rose said. "I don't know her. I haven't seen her at the garden club."

"She's sat in, once or twice--She doesn't..." But then he turned back to the drawings,  "Well, they're beautiful. I think these will be fine. My mother would like them. I think she would have liked these very much. She loved white." He looked down at the floor.

"So, I'll bring them on Friday. It all happens so quickly, doesn't it, Mr. O'Neil. How time plays tricks after someone dies?"

"All right," he said, cutting her off. "That's fine. If I'm not here then Andy will let you in. Just put them where you think they should go."