The Optimist's Daughter

  “Fay!” she cried.

  Fay gave no sign.

  “Fay, it’s morning.”

  “You go back to sleep.”

  “This is Laurel. It’s a few minutes before ten o’clock. There’ll be callers downstairs, asking for you.”

  Fay pushed herself up on her arms and cried over her shoulder, “I’m the widow! They can all wait till I get there.”

  “A good breakfast do you a lot of good,” said Missouri, bringing it in, letting Laurel out.

  Laurel bathed, dressed. A low thunder travelled through the hall downstairs and shook in her hand as she tried to put the pins in her hair. One voice dominated the rest: Miss Tennyson Bullock was taking charge.

  “So this time it’s Clint’s turn to bring you home,” said an old lady’s voice to her as she came down the stairs. All Laurel could remember of her, the first moment, was that a child’s ball thrown over her fence was never to be recovered.

  “Yes, daughters need to stay put, where they can keep a better eye on us old folks,” said Miss Tennyson Bullock, meeting Laurel at the foot of the stairs with a robust hug. “Honey, he’s come.”

  Miss Tennyson led the way into the parlor. Everything was dim. All over the downstairs, the high old windows had had their draperies drawn. In the parlor, lamps were burning by day and Laurel felt as she entered the room that the furniture was out of place. A number of people rose to their feet and stood still, making a path for her.

  The folding doors between the parlor and the library behind it had been rolled all the way back, and the casket was installed across this space. It had been raised on a sort of platform that stood draped with a curtain, a worn old velvet curtain, only halfway hiding the wheels. A screen of florist’s ferns was being built up before her eyes behind the coffin. Then a man stepped out from behind the green and presented a full, square face with its small features pulled to the center—what Laurel’s mother had called “a Baptist face.”

  “Miss Laurel, I’m Mr. Pitts again. I recall your dear mother so clearly,” he said. “And I believe you’re going to be just as pleased now, with your father.” He put out his hand and raised the lid.

  Judge McKelva lay inside in his winter suit. All around him was draped the bright satin of a jeweler’s box, and its color was the same warm, foolish pink that had smothered the windows and spilled over the bed upstairs. His large face reflected the pink, so that his long, heavy cheek had the cast of a seashell, or a pearl. The dark patches underneath his eyes had been erased like traces of human error. Only the black flare of the nostrils and the creases around the mouth had been left him of his old saturnine look. The lid had been raised only by half-section, to show him propped on the pillow; below the waist he lay cut off from any eyes. He was still not to be mistaken for any other man.

  “You must close it,” said Laurel quietly to Mr. Pitts.

  “You’re not pleased?” But he had never displeased anyone, his face said.

  “Oh, look,” said Miss Tennyson, arriving at Laurel’s side. “Oh, look.”

  “I don’t want it open, please,” said Laurel to Mr. Pitts. She touched Miss Tennyson’s hand. “But Father would never allow—when Mother died, he protected her from—”

  “Your mother was different,” said Miss Tennyson firmly.

  “He was respecting her wishes,” Laurel said. “Not to make her lie here in front of people’s eyes—”

  “And I’ve never forgiven him for that. Nobody ever really got to tell Becky goodbye,” Miss Tennyson was saying at the same time. “But honey, your father’s a Mount Salus man. He’s a McKelva. A public figure. You can’t deprive the public, can you? Oh, he’s lovely.”

  “I would like him away from their eyes,” said Laurel.

  “It is Mrs. McKelva’s desire that the coffin be open,” said Mr. Pitts.

  “See there? You can’t deprive Fay,” said Miss Tennyson. “That settles that.” She held out her arms, inviting the room.

  Laurel took up her place in front of the coffin, near the head, and stood to meet them as they came.

  First they embraced her, and then they stood and looked down at her father. The bridesmaids and their husbands, the whole crowd of them, had gone from the first grade through high school graduation together, and they still stood solid. So did her father’s crowd—the County Bar, the elders of the church, the Hunting and Fishing Club cronies; though they seemed to adhere to their own kind, they slowly moved in place, as if they made up the rim of a wheel that slowly turned itself around the hub of the coffin and would bring them around again.

  “May I see him?” the Presbyterian minister’s wife asked right and left as she elbowed her way in, as if Judge McKelva’s body were the new baby. She gazed on him lying there, for a minute. “And here I’d been waiting to see who it was I was saving my Virginia ham for,” she said, turning to Laurel and squeezing her around the waist. “It was your mother first told me how I could harness one of those and get it cooked so it was fit for anybody to eat. Well, it’s headed right for your kitchen.” She nodded back to the coffin. “I’m afraid my husband’s running a little late. You know people like this don’t die every day in the week. He’s sitting home in his bathrobe now, tearing his hair, trying to do him justice.”

  “Why, here’s Dot,” said Miss Adele, posted at the front door.

  To everyone in town, she was known simply as Dot. She came in with her nonchalant, twenties stalk on her high heels.

  “I couldn’t resist,” she said in her throaty baritone as she approached the coffin.

  She must have been seventy. She had been Judge McKelva’s private secretary for years and years. When he retired, her feelings had been hurt. Of course, he’d seen to it that she was eased into another job, but she had never forgiven him.

  “When I first came to work for him,” said Dot, looking at him now, “I paid thirty-five dollars of my salary to a store in Jackson for a set of Mah Johng. It was on sale from a hundred dollars. I really can’t to this very day understand myself. But, ‘Why, Dot,’ this sweet man says, ‘I don’t see anything so specially the matter with giving yourself a present. I hope you go ahead and enjoy it. Don’t reproach yourself like that. You’re distressing my ears,’ he says. I’ll never forget his kind words of advice.”

  “Mah Johng!” gasped Miss Tennyson Bullock. “Great Day in the Morning, I’d forgotten about it.”

  Dot gave her a bitter look, almost as if she’d said she’d forgotten about Judge McKelva. “Tennyson,” she said across his body, “I’m never going to speak to you again.”

  Somebody had lit the fire, although the day was mild and the room close now, filling with more and more speaking, breathing people.

  “Yes, a fire seemed called for,” said Major Bullock. He came up to Laurel and scraped his face against hers as though his were numb. His breath had its smell of Christmas morning—it was whiskey. “Fairest, most impartial, sweetest man in the whole Mississippi Bar,” he said, his gaze wavering, seeming to avoid Judge McKelva’s face, going only to the hand that had been placed like a closed satchel at his tailored side. “How soon is that poor little woman going to bring herself downstairs?”

  “Eventually,” Miss Tennyson told him. Whatever she said, in times of trouble, took on all the finality in the world. Finality was what made the throb in her voice.

  3

  “NOW WHAT COULD they want,” said old Mrs. Pease, who stood at the front window parting the draperies.

  “Polly,” warned Miss Adele.

  Everyone turned, and those seated stood up, as two equally fat women and a man walked past Miss Adele into the parlor.

  “I said this had to be the right spot, because it looks like the very house to hold a big funeral,” said the old fat woman. “Where’s Wanda Fay? I don’t see her.”

  While she was speaking, the two women, old and young, were walking up to the coffin, and while they passed it, they looked in. Laurel heard herself being introduced by one of the strangers to the other.


  “Mama, this is Judge and Becky’s daughter,” said the young woman.

  “Becky’s the one she takes after, then,” said the mother, seating herself in Judge McKelva’s smoking chair, which now stood nearest the casket. “You don’t favor him,” she told Laurel. “A grand coffin my little girl’s afforded. Makes me jealous.” She turned toward the man. “Bubba, this is Judge and Becky’s daughter.”

  The man with them raised his arm from the elbow and waved at Laurel from close range. He wore a windbreaker. “Hi.”

  “I’m Mrs. Chisom from Madrid, Texas. I’m Wanda Fay’s mother,” the fat lady said to Laurel. “And this is some of my other children—Sis, from Madrid, Texas, and Bubba, from Madrid, Texas. We got a few others that rather not come in.”

  “Well, you’re news to me,” said Miss Tennyson, as if that were simply all there was to it.

  Major Bullock came forward to greet them. “I’m Major Bullock!”

  “Well, if you’re wondering how long it took us, I made it from Madrid in close on to eight hours,” the man in the windbreaker said. Madrid was pronounced with the accent as in Mildred. “Crossed the river at Vicksburg. And we’re going to have to turn around and go right back. The kids wanted to all pile in, but their mama said you don’t ever know what germs they might pick up in a strange place. And she’s right. So I left ’em with her in the trailer, and didn’t bring but one of ’em. Where’s Wendell?”

  “I reckon he’s looking over the house,” said the young woman. She was pregnant, rather than fat.

  “Sis brought the whole brood of hers. Sis,” said the man. “This is his first wife’s daughter.”

  “I knew that’s who she was, you didn’t have to introduce us. Feel like I know you already,” said the sister to Laurel.

  And oddly, Laurel felt that too. Fay had said they didn’t even exist, and yet it seemed to Laurel that she had seen them all before.

  “I told my bunch they could just play outside in the front yard and watch for us all to come out,” said Sis. “That seemed to pretty well satisfy ’em.”

  Old Mrs. Pease was already at the window curtains, and patting her foot as she peeped out between them.

  Major Bullock looked gratified. “I summoned ’em up without any trouble at all,” he said. “They were delighted to come.” He threw a hopeful glance into the hall.

  “You just forgot to warn us,” said Miss Tennyson.

  Laurel felt a finger twine its way around her own finger, scratch under the ring. “You have bad luck with your husband, too?” Mrs. Chisom asked her.

  “Year after she married him,” said old Mrs. Pease. “Gone. The war. U.S. Navy. Body never recovered.”

  “You was cheated,” Mrs. Chisom pronounced.

  Laurel tried to draw back her finger. Mrs. Chisom let it go in order to poke her in the side as if to shame her. “So you ain’t got father, mother, brother, sister, husband, chick nor child. Not a soul to call on, that’s you.”

  “What do you mean! This girl here’s surrounded by her oldest friends!” The Mayor of Mount Salus stood there, clapping Laurel on the shoulder. “And listen further: bank’s closed, most of the Square’s agreed to close for the hour of services, county offices closed. Courthouse has lowered its flag out front, school’s letting out early. That ought to satisfy anybody that comes asking who she’s got!”

  “Friends are here today and gone tomorrow,” Mrs. Chisom told Laurel and the Mayor. “Not like your kin. Hope the Lord don’t ask me to outlive mine. I’d be much obliged if He’d take me the next round. Ain’t that a good idea, children?”

  A little boy came into the room at a trot while she waited for an answer. He did not look at her or anybody else. He was wearing a cowboy suit and hat and double pistol holsters. He stopped when he saw where he was going.

  “Wendell, you pull off your hat if you go any closer,” said Sis.

  The child bared his head, continued to the coffin, and stood there on tiptoe, at Laurel’s side. His mouth opened. He was about seven, fair and frail. The ferocious face he looked at and his own, so near together, were equally unguarded.

  “How come he wanted to dress up?” asked the child.

  “Who promised if they could come in the house they wouldn’t ask questions?” asked Sis.

  “Yes, me and my brood believes in clustering just as close as we can get,” said Mrs. Chisom. “Bubba pulled his trailer right up in my yard when he married and Irma can string her clothesline as far out as she pleases. Sis here got married and didn’t even try to move away. Duffy just snuggled in.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Wendell.

  “Wendell, run up those stairs and see if you can find your Aunt Wanda Fay. Tell her to come on down and see who she’s got waiting on her,” said Bubba.

  “I don’t want to,” said Wendell.

  “What you scared of? Nothing’s going to bite you upstairs. Go hunt her,” said his father.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “She better hurry if she wants to see us,” Bubba said. “Because we’re gonna have to turn right around in a minute and start back to Madrid.”

  “Now, wait!” said Major Bullock. “You’re one of the pallbearers.”

  “What did he call you, Dad?” cried Wendell.

  “It seemed only right,” Major Bullock said to the room.

  “Tell her to come double-quick,” said Bubba to Wendell. “Run!”

  “I want to stay here,” said Wendell.

  “I’m sorry. This is his first funeral,” said Sis to Laurel.

  “Let me show you Judge,” Mrs. Chisom said placatingly to Bubba.

  “I just finished seeing him,” Bubba said. “I couldn’t help but think he’s young-looking for a man pushing seventy-one.”

  “That’s right. Not a bit wasted. I’m proud for you, Wanda Fay,” Mrs. Chisom said, addressing the ceiling over her head. “Your pa was wasted and they didn’t have the power to hide it.” She turned to Laurel. “But I reckon he’d lasted longer on nothing but tap water than anybody ever lasted before. Tap water, that’s all Mr. Chisom could get down. I kept listening for some complaint out of him, never got one. He had cancer but he didn’t whimper about it, not to me. That’s because we both of us come from good old Mississippi stock!”

  A big, apple-cheeked woman in a hairy tam smiled into Laurel’s face from the other side. “I remember, oh, I remember how many Christmases I was among those present in this dear old home in all its hospitality.”

  This caller was out of her mind, yet even she was not being kept back from Judge McKelva’s open coffin. By the rundown heels on her shoes as she lumbered toward her, Laurel knew her for the sewing woman. She would come to people’s houses and spend the whole day upstairs at the sewing machine, listening and talking and repeating and getting everything crooked. Miss Verna Longmeier.

  “And they’d throw open those doors between these double parlors and the music would strike up! And then—” Miss Verna drew out her arm as though to measure a yard—“then Clinton and I, we’d lead out the dance,” she said.

  In Mount Salus nobody ever tried to contradict Miss Verna Longmeier. If even a crooked piece of stitching were pointed out to her, she was apt to return: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

  “Oh, I’ve modeled myself on this noble Roman,” declared the Mayor, sending out his palm above the casket. “And when I reach higher office—” He strode off to join the other members of the Bar. Laurel saw that they were all sitting more or less together on a row of dining room chairs, like some form of jury.

  Miss Thelma Frierson creaked over the floor and stood above the casket. She had filled out the fishing and hunting licenses at her Courthouse window for years and years. Her shoulders drooped as she said, “He had a wonderful sense of humor. Underneath it all.”

  “Underneath it all, Father knew it wasn’t funny,” said Laurel politely.

  “Too bad he ever elected to go to the hospital,” old Mrs. Chisom said
. “If he knew what ain’t funny.”

  “I tell you, what they let go on in hospitals don’t hardly bear repeating,” said Sis. “Irma says the maternity ward in Amarillo would curl your hair.”

  “Doctors don’t know what they’re doing. They just know how to charge,” said Bubba.

  “And you know who I wouldn’t trust for a blessed second behind my back? Nurses!” cried Mrs. Chisom.

  Laurel looked over their heads, to where the Chinese prints brought home by an earlier generation of missionary McKelvas hung in their changeless grouping around the mantel clock. And she saw that the clock had stopped; it had not been wound, she supposed, since the last time her father had done duty by it, and its hands pointed to some remote three o’clock, as motionless as the time in the Chinese prints. She wanted to go to the clock and take the key from where her father kept it—on a small nail he’d hammered, a little crookedly, into the papered wall—and wind the clock and set it going at the right time. But she could not spare the moment from his side. She felt as though in death her father had been asked to bear the weight of that raised lid himself, and hold it up by lying there, the same way he’d lain on the hospital bed and counted the minutes and the hours to make his life go by. She stood by the coffin as she had sat by his bed, waiting it out with him. Unable to hear the ticking of the clock, she listened to the gritting and the hissing of the fire.

  Dr. Woodson was saying, “Clint and me used to take off as shirt-tail lads with both our dogs and be gone all day up in the woods—you know where they used to call it Top o’ the World? With the gravel pit dug out of the claybanks there. I’ve been his doctor for years, hell, we’re the same age, but after all this time it hasn’t been until now that something made me think about his foot. Clint went swinging on a vine, swinging too wide and too high, and soared off and came down on a piece of tin barefooted. He liked-to bled to death a mile from home! I reckon I must have carried Clint into town on my back and used strength I didn’t know I had. You know Clint always gave you the impression you couldn’t kill him, that nothing could, but I believe he really must have been kind of delicate.”