The Elementals Read Free Page A

“The dress she has on is the one that she wore when I got married to Leigh. It was the prettiest dress she ever had, she said. When she took it off after the reception, she hung it up and said this was what she was saving it for. She would be real happy to see all the flowers here today, to see how much people cared for her. Ever since she died people have been calling up at the house and asking whether they ought to send flowers or make a donation to cancer research, and Leigh and me—whoever answered the phone—would say, ‘Oh, send flowers, Mama didn’t care anything about charity, but she always said that when she died, she hoped there would be a churchful of flowers. She wanted the smell to reach right up to heaven! ’ ”
    Big Barbara McCray nodded vigorously, and loudly whispered: “Just like Marian—just like her!”
    Dauphin went on: “Before I went to the funeral home I was all upset thinking about Mama dead. But I went in there yesterday and I saw her and now I’m fine. She looks so happy! She looks so natural! I look at her and I think she’s gone sit up in that casket and fuss at me!” Dauphin turned toward the coffin and smiled tenderly at his dead mother.
    Big Barbara grabbed her daughter by the shoulder. “Did you have a hand in the eulogy, Leigh?”
    “Shut up, Barbara,” said Luker.
    “Mary-Scot,” said Dauphin, looking toward the nun, “there anything you want to say about Mama?”
    Sister Mary-Scot shook her head.
    “Poor thing!” whispered Big Barbara. “I bet she’s just bowed down with grief.”
    There was a troubled pause in the proceeding of the funeral. The priest glanced at Dauphin, who still stood at the end of the pew. Dauphin looked toward his sister, who only fumbled with her rosary. The organist peered over his railing above them, as if waiting for a cue to play.
    “ This is why you need a printed program,” whispered Big Barbara to her son, and looked at him accusingly. “When there’s not a printed program, nobody’s got the least idea in the world what to do next. I could have used a printed program for my scrapbook.”
    Sister Mary-Scot stood suddenly in her pew.
    “Is she gone speak after all?” asked Big Barbara in a hopeful voice that everyone heard.
    Sister Mary-Scot did not speak, but her rising was evidently a signal. The organist, with a clumsy foot sounding discordantly on a couple of bass pedals, clambered down out of his loft, and disappeared through a small side door.
    After nodding to Dauphin and to Sister Mary-Scot in somber conspiracy, the priest abruptly turned on his heel. His footsteps echoed the organist’s out of the sanctuary.
    It was as if these two functionaries had suddenly determined, for a specific and overpowering reason, to abandon the ceremony before it was finished. And the funeral was certainly not over: there had been no second hymn, no benediction, no postlude. The pallbearers still waited outside the sanctuary. The mourners were left alone with the corpse.
    In her vast astonishment at this unaccountable procedure, Big Barbara turned and said loudly to Odessa, who was a dozen yards distant, “Odessa, what do they think they are doing? Where did Father Nalty go? W h y has that boy stopped playing the organ—when he gets paid special for funerals, I know he does!”
    “Miz Barbara . . .” said Odessa with pleading politeness.
    “Barbara,” said Luker in a low voice, “turn around and just shut up.”
    She started to protest, but Dauphin said to her in a pained unhappy way, “Big Barbara, please . . .”
    Big Barbara, who loved her son-in-law, sat still in her pew, though the effort cost her.
    “Please, y’all, pray for Mama for a few minutes,” said Dauphin. Obediently the others bowed their heads.
    From the corner of her eye, India McCray saw Sister Mary-Scot pull from beneath her scapular a long narrow black box. She held it tightly in her hands before her.
    India flicked a long painted fingernail against the back of