My Heart Can't Tell You No (71 page)

“He’s gone to heaven.” Joe glanced at her, then back to Robby, not sure how Maddie wanted it presented to him, just going on what he had known from her family’s beliefs. “He—went somewhere where he won’t hurt anymore.”

“Watching over him,” Maddie added.

“He’s up there watching over you now.”

“Up—
where
?” Another hiccough from Robby.

“Heaven,” Maddie said. “Now it’s his job to take care of our baby until it’s born.” Her voice broke at the end, and she rose from the bed and went out of the room.

“Will he come back? After the baby’s born?”

“No. He won’t come back.” Joe felt the coil of his own emotions about to spring.

“Then I don’t want the baby. I
want
Lew.”

“Lew went away. He just happened to see the baby before it’s born. It isn’t the baby’s fault Lew died. Lew wanted your Mom to have this baby. Lew loved babies—so isn’t it only right that if he
had
to go away—it was someplace where he could take care of your baby brother or sister? So it will be all right when it comes down here to you?”

“Won’t I ever see Lew again?!”

“No, Rob. You won’t see him again.”

“But I was gonna go along with him and Pap to get his shoe! He said I could!”

“He won’t be going for it now. He has his own foot back now. He doesn’t need the shoe. Where he went, there’s no more pain, no more disease that could make him lose his foot again.”

“I—think I want Lew back here—with us,” Robby sighed as the thumb finally came out and he moved up to sit on Joe’s lap. “Can you call him and tell him to come home?”

“No, Rob. It was his time to go. We can’t call him back. He’s happy up there now.”

“Happier than he was with us?”

“Yes. And whenever he starts to miss us, all he has to do is look down, and he sees us. And, whenever you miss him, he’ll know it and look down and watch over you again.”

“He can see us?”

“I think so.” He watched as Robby gazed up toward the ceiling and, with a slight movement of his hand, waved, then slid off his lap and started for the living room.

“Okay. Then I can talk to him whenever I want and he’ll hear me too.”

Joe watched him shuffle out the door, seeing Maddie standing in the doorway as she kept her eyes on him. The tears were still there, but she wore a sad smile.

“Thank you.”

CHAPTER XL
 

A
s Joe pulled into the small parking lot Maddie saw her mother standing with John, Beth and Jenna beneath the aura of the street lamp. They waited for her, Joe, Robby and Jackie to join them, then they all started into the funeral home. Maddie had been there the previous month for her aunt’s funeral. It was the family funeral home; most of her aunts and uncles on her mother’s side had been buried from this place, as were her brother Jackie, and Bob.

Maddie glanced around, seeing they were the first to arrive, then looked up at Joe as he held Robby in his arms and watched her closely. His body was in the doorway of the viewing room, blocking sight of the casket. She had a feeling this was done deliberately, whether to block
her
view or to keep
himself
pointed in the opposite direction, she wasn’t sure.

“Do you want to sign in?” Maddie nodded toward the book on the podium next to the doorway. He came back, but as soon as the view was clear, Maddie averted her eyes. She had been to many funerals in her life. She knew the way most of them looked. If they weren’t altered so a person wouldn’t know one’s own mother—then the palish gray hue, and stiffness of facial features were enough to paint a very unnatural picture. She reached for Jackie’s hand, but he took a step away from her, toward his uncle John. “Jackie, are you coming?”

“No. I’ll wait for Gram, with Beth and John.”

“All right.” Maddie looked up at Joe.

“I think it would be best for him to wait out here too.” Joe nodded toward the boy he was holding. “We can come back out for him after a minute or so.”

“I’ll hold him until you come out. We’ll take him back in the other room.” John reached for Robby, then looked up at Beth. “Wait here for Mom. Then ask her if she’ll wait for us before she goes in to see him.”

“I will,” Beth answered. Everyone knew what he meant. The four adults accompanying Sarah Baker needed all their strength to stand watch over her. It would be best if they got through their initial grief before they took her up to see her youngest brother.

“Well?” Joe looked down at Maddie.

“Let’s go,” she sighed, then turned and started through the doorway.

She had seen Joe walk through that doorway twice before. The first time, she was only eleven years old, but she remembered his face; well-masked grief and confusion. The second time she was barely seventeen at his own father’s funeral. At that time he showed little grief, not as a man losing his father, only one human laying another human to rest.

This time, with her eyes on him as they walked through the doorway, he couldn’t hide the pain ripping him apart. His sudden hesitation and the slight widening of his eyes as he looked in the direction of the casket, before moving on again, turned her own eyes in that direction. So many flowers! She had never seen so many before! It looked like an outlet to a flower shop. Her eyes moved to the casket, then to the flag lying inside. Lew had been a Korean War veteran; sometimes she forgot. There were the four red rosebuds she had been asked to order for her mother, her uncle and her two aunts. A token of the love for the youngest brother they had lost. And then his face.

‘Ohhhh!
Lew!’
Maddie seemed to wail inside.
‘Oh,
Lew.’
She inched up to him, as if in a trance, her tears beginning. It would have been so much better—so much easier if he had actually looked dead—if he had looked like any other corpse. But he didn’t. There was a pinkish blush to his cheeks, not unnatural at all. There was nothing wax-like about his features. He seemed so relaxed. So peaceful. So—
happy
? Was he smiling? She looked again as she stood near his head. No, not a real smile. Not the grin he’d so often flashed to the world. But from so many years of smiling, he had obtained permanent laughter. A smile that wasn’t a smile at all, but a reflection of the love he held inside for life—for other humans. She felt Joe’s hands on her shoulders as she looked down at this dear, dear man who had a heart of gold. Oh how
alive
he looked as he lay in the casket wearing a soft blue cardigan. She smiled softly at him. She knew he’d be wearing a cardigan. After all, he was a young man of the cardigan era; an adolescent of the fifties. She watched his face, hearing words that had no sound. They were telling her,
‘It’s
okay.
Go
ahead.
You
can
touch
me.’
Her hand went to his forehead, stroking, feeling the coolness of him, the stiffness of him. But it didn’t matter. He
looked
so alive. She might have just run into his living room from a day of hard play and found him napping on his couch. He was napping, that was all, only napping. Her hand continued to stroke his forehead, as her crying turned to sobbing, finally tearing herself away and pressing her face to Joe’s chest. Her arms going around him for all the strength she could take—his going around her for all she could give.

“Come on. We should go out for the others now.” Joe turned her back toward the doorway.

Joe picked up Robby and waited with Sarah as John and Beth moved into the viewing room. A few moments passed before they returned and let Sarah lead this small group back in to the casket. Her steps were slow, yet determined, as she moved to her brother, looking at the momentoes in the coffin with him. When she looked at his face, she reached immediately to cover his hand and stroke it.

“Well, Lew,” she smiled down at him, although her eyes were filling with tears. “It looks like you pulled a good one on me this time.” She shook her head negatively. “Didn’t I
tell
you to take care of yourself?”

Maddie and the others watched as she stepped back from her brother and turned to leave. She made her way back to the fourth row of seats lined up in the viewing room, sitting in the third seat from the end. The soft sobbing turned Maddie’s gaze back to her oldest son as he hugged John’s legs. His eyes barely tall enough to see Lew, but giving him a sufficient view of the great-uncle he had loved. Maddie moved her eyes upward, seeing how her brother strained to keep his grief inside before turning away and joining the rest of his family.

“Do you know who that is?” Joe whispered to the son he held in his arms.

“
Uh-huh
.” Robby’s thumb was about to go in his mouth again, until Joe’s hand caught it and pulled it back. “He’s sleeping.”

Maddie and Joe took the boys back to sit behind Sarah, but Robby wasted little time before moving to sit in a chair next to his grandmother. Maddie sat directly behind him, with Jackie on her left and Joe on her right. She noticed that Robby gazed very hard at the man at the front of the room, going from a hard stare as he leaned against the back of the seat, to a rocking movement as he’d glance from Sarah to Lew.

“Is he gonna get up soon, Gram?”

“No, Honey.” Sarah took his small hand as she watched her brother. “He’s tired. He needs his rest.”

Robby turned his head back toward Maddie. “Lew’s sleeping, Mommy.”

“How are ya feeling, Sarah?” A low voice came from the side of the long room, from the doorway leading back into the foyer.

Sarah turned slowly, looking up at the man who was moving to stand between the rows of seats at her chair. His gray pin-striped suit gave him an air of sophistication, but, as he looked down at Sarah, there was a love and admiration that was obvious. Sarah only smiled slightly then patted the hand he placed on her shoulder.

“How are you, Sarah?” A tiny woman behind him asked.

“I’m good,” she lied. “I’m okay.”

The man gently patted Sarah’s shoulder. “I don’t want you getting yourself sick over this. He wouldn’t want it either and you know it.”

“No,” Sarah sighed. “I don’t suppose he would.”

“Sarah?” The man’s voice was suddenly passive as he looked at her, although he was ten years the woman’s senior. “How do
you
think he looks? They couldn’t find his red sweater. You know the one he always wore. They looked everywhere but couldn’t find it. So I gave him that one. Do you think it’s all right?”

Sarah looked over at him with surprised confusion. Like Maddie, she didn’t know why he would be seeking
her
approval.

“He looks nice, Harry. The sweater’s really nice too.”

“Do you think so?” He seemed relieved. “It was one I got for Christmas a few years ago. I never wore it. I guess I just didn’t care for sweaters. So, I gave it to Janet and the boys for him. They called me when he was in the hospital. They called to say he was bad, but, by the time I put on my shoes and started for the front door, the phone rang again and they said he was gone.”

“They called you?” Sarah’s voice held no emotion, but her family could hear the pain at not having the opportunity to be with him during that time.

“They didn’t want you to know he was bad. You have to remember, Sarah, no one ever expected this. Not even Janet, I think. I think she still has it in her head that somehow he’ll be coming home again. And those who did realize what was happening, also realized they didn’t want to risk your health by telling you. They didn’t want anything to happen to you, as well.”

“I would have rather been with him.” Sarah faced front.

“We know that. But you’ve got to think of
your
health now. Lew would have appreciated your being there with him too—but then he would have died worrying about
you
. You know Lew.”

“I—guess—you’re right.” She watched people walk up to the casket, people Maddie didn’t know. “Who was with him?”

“They all went up. Except Wayne and Lewis.” He spoke of Lew’s third and oldest sons. Sarah finally looked over at her older brother.

“Wayne? Somehow I thought he would have been the one at his side.”

“Harry. Sarah. It’s been a long time,” said a man leading a small group of people.

“Hello, Phillip. Margaret. Vesta.” Sarah looked up at the group. “Not long enough if you ask me, I mean funeral-wise, that is.”

“Yes. We’re going fast now,” Margaret said. “Are these your children?”

“Two of them.” Sarah turned slightly to look at Maddie and John. “This is my boy John. And my baby, Maddie.”

“It looks like yer baby’s gonna have a baby,” the oldest of the group, Vesta, said. By her appearance, she seemed to be around ninety years old.

“Her third. These two are hers. And the little girl is John’s,” Sarah said a bit loudly, revealing that the woman was hard of hearing, before turning back to her children. “This is my cousin Phillip and his wife Margaret, and this is my Aunt Vesta—your grandfather’s sister.”

“What’s the matter with you kids? They tell me
you’re
sick now,” Vesta said to Sarah, making her smile slightly at the elderly woman’s loud bluntness.

“I don’t know. I guess we all just inherited Mom’s weak heart,” Sarah told her.

“Yer mom? That’s right, Mame did die of a heart attack. But what’d you expect? My brother had her pregnant with her eighteenth child.” She looked back at Maddie. “You say you already have two? And another one on the way? Who’s yer husband?
Him
?” Maddie simply nodded, the total openness of the woman amusing and fascinating her. “You don’t plan on getting her pregnant every year like my brother did—do ya? Eighteen kids is what killed that pretty lady more than a bad heart. All that wear and tear on a woman’s body. The man don’t have to worry—he just plants his seed and watches it grow. But it’ll kill a woman sure as if you put a gun to her head.”

“I—I—don’t—plan on having eighteen children. No.” Joe was flabbergasted as he watched the woman.

“No? Then how many?”

“I—don’t know. We—haven’t discussed it.”

“Three kids already and you still haven’t discussed it?” she said with distaste, then looked back at Sarah. “You better keep an eye on those two. That’s how your mother and dad started out. He looks like a strong healthy boy—he’ll have her fat every winter. In twenty years there will be a pack of kids and no mother—and this fella will climb into the bottle trying to forget what he did to her.”

“I’ll watch them, Vesta,” Sarah told her.

“All right. Now, where am I supposed to sit?”

“Sit up here if you want to.” Harry pointed to the seats ahead of him.

“Hear that, Joe?” John whispered. “That means no more touching.”

“Why in the hell didn’t she pick on you?!” Joe whispered back. “
Your
wife’s just as pregnant as Maddie.”

“Probably because she was sitting all the way over there.” Harry whispered back to them. “She couldn’t see her.”

“I saw her.” Vesta’s voice came back to them. “But he only has one—and looking at those two—two children will be about it. And that other one ain’t as green as the young filly back there. And the look that young fella has in his eyes back there—he’s just waitin’ for this one to come out so he can fill her belly with another one.”