Alice Hoffman - Here On Earth

Since there’s not room in the pew for everyone, Louise Justice, the Judge’s wife, is sitting directly behind them. Every once in a while she leans forward and pats March or the Judge on the shoulder.

“This is such a shock,” she whispers, again and again.

Judith Dale left instructions for the service to be simple, just as the marker she chose for herself is to be a plain gray stone. Gwen had no idea how depressing such a service could be. She is sitting up straight, studying the closed coffin. She actually seems frozen in place, her skin white as ice. With her spiky hair and her excess of mascara, she looks fairly ghoulish. Several people who have come up to give March their condolences have avoided Gwen completely, or have shaken her cold hand without saying a word.

Now, while Harriet Laughton is giving the final address, on behalf of Judith Dale’s friends on the board of the library, Gwen leans close to her mother. For one brief moment, March thinks her daughter wants a hug.

“I’m going to be sick,” Gwen whispers.

“No,” March says, even though the scent of roses and the heat inside the chapel are cloying. “You won’t be.”

“I’m not kidding,” Gwen insists. It’s the smell of death that’s getting to her. It’s the very idea. “Oh, boy,” she says, sounding scared.

March and Gwen make their way out of the pew; then March circles an arm around her daughter and guides her into the aisle, toward the door. She can hear a murmur of concern: the voices of Judith Dale’s friends, kindhearted volunteers from the library and the hospital.

“You just need fresh air,” March tells Gwen.

Gwen nods and gulps, but she feels like she may not make it. She manages a dash for the door, and when she races past Hank-who is in the last row, along with Ken Helm, who considered Mrs. Dale one of his favorite customers, and Mimi Frank, who cut Mrs. Dale’s hair-he looks up in time to see Gwen slipping out of the chapel, quick as a shadow. It’s not often you see someone you don’t know in the village, and Hank has the sudden urge to get out of his pew and follow this girl. She looks so distressed, and she’s beautiful besides, but Hank isn’t the sort to storm out of a funeral service. He stays where he is, seated beside one of the vases of yellow roses March ordered from the Lucky Day Florist on Main Street. He’s wearing his one good white shirt, a pair of black jeans he hopes don’t look too beat-up, and his boots, which he polished last night. He borrowed a tie from Hollis, who has a closetful of expensive clothes; he combed his hair twice.

All the same, Hank has a shivery feeling under his skin, in spite of how overheated the chapel has become, and when the service is over, he’s one of the first to leave. This way, so quick to be out the door, he’s more likely to get another look at the girl. And he does-she’s over on the curb, so dizzy that she needs to keep one hand on the fender of the hearse, for balance. Three crows are flying above the parking lot, making a horrible racket. The sky is so flat and gray Gwen has the urge to put her arms over her head for protection, just in case stones should begin to fall from the clouds.

Six strong men-Ken Helm, the Judge, Dr. Henderson, Mr. Laughton, Sam Deveroux from the hardware store, and Jack Harvey, who installed an air conditioner for Mrs. Dale last summer-help to carry the coffin from the chapel. Just seeing them struggle with its weight brings tears to Gwen’s eyes. Here she is, with her short skirt and her hair all spiked up, looking like a perfect fool, completely unprepared for real life. Well, ready or not doesn’t matter. Something is about to happen. Gwen can feel it. Time itself has changed; it’s become electrified, with every second standing on end.

Gwen can see her mother now, in the doorway of the chapel, a look of heartbreak on her face. Here comes the coffin, carried even closer. This is not the sort of thing that usually affects Gwen; she has a talent for blocking out bad news. All she has to do is shut her eyes and count to a hundred, but she’s not closing her eyes now. Oh, how she wishes she had stayed at home. How easy it would have been to go on thinking about nothing, to ignore death and fate and the possibility that a life can easily be shaken to its core. That is how you know you’ve left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward. But it’s too late for that. Whether Gwen likes it or not, she’s here, under this gray and mournful sky, and her eyes are open wide.

After the cemetery, and the buffet supper at Harriet Laughton’s house-where March is called poor dear at least a dozen times, and Gwen is asked so often whether something is wrong with her eyes that she finally goes into the Laughtons’ powder room to remove her mascara with a white washcloth-March phones Ken Helm, who always says no job is so odd he can’t get it done, and asks if he’ll drive them back to the hill.

“Not that way,” March all but shouts when she realizes Ken intends to take Route 22.

“Gee whiz, Mom.” Gwen can’t believe how touchy her mother has become. “What’s the difference?”

“About two bucks,” Ken Helm says, deadpan as always. “That back road is one slow shortcut.” Ken stares into the woods. “Make a tree sound and its fruit will be sound. Make a tree rotten and its fruit will be rotten.”

Intrigued, Gwen leans forward. “Meaning?”

“We’re all responsible for ourselves, aren’t we?” Ken takes the bumps in the road easily. “And what we harvest.”

“Are you trying to tell us that orchard of Mrs. Dale’s needs work?” Gwen asks. “Is that your point?”

“No,” March says. “He’s letting us know that you pay for what you get. Two dollars more, for instance, for the back road.”

“That’s it,” Ken says. “Matthew 12:33.”

It’s twilight when they reach the house, which means it’s still a sunny afternoon in Palo Alto. Richard is probably in his office, on the far side of the quad. Sunlight streams in from the west at this time of day; the windows are so high Richard has to use an iron rod in order to pull down the shades. He needs to take care at this hour; the specimens he keeps lined up on the window ledge are susceptible to light damage.

The house on Fox Hill is cold when they get inside, but before March bothers with checking on the heat or lighting a fire, she goes to phone Richard. She’s still wearing her jacket; her purse strap is draped over her shoulder as she dials. She feels a little desperate, perhaps even more than a little.

“How about some tea?” she calls to Gwen.

“Fine,” Gwen says, throwing herself into the easy chair patterned with roses.

“No, I mean, you make it. Please.”

March simply wants her daughter out of the room. She wants to be alone with her husband and be told that she continues to be the same exact woman she was when she kissed him goodbye at the airport. She wants to hear him say it out loud, because at this moment, standing here in this house, she doesn’t feel the same. If she weren’t such a rational creature, she’d think the night air was calling to her; she’d believe there were still peepers in those muddy puddles, even though this isn’t their season. Her heart is beating in a different rhythm here; faster, a dangerous pace.

Richard had visited her during those years when she was waiting for Hollis, but she never made anything of it back then. She’d been friendly with his sister, Belinda, and Richard was the sort of kind, slightly dazed person to whom charity came naturally. He rescued lost dogs and stopped for hitchhikers, so it made perfect sense that he’d come to call on March, bringing candy and books, as if getting over Hollis was not unlike recuperating from some horrible illness.