Six Ways to Sunday - 1. A death

 

Faith-Mercy Hospital, Silvern, Iowa.  January 17, 1988

Nothing was ever keen on being polite to her despite her smiles and her aid. She’d treated Papa’s truck well, made sure it got into the shop, fought against the rust constantly threatening its frame. But it was faithful to Papa like a dog. She’d made it to the hospital, but the truck heaved for the last time and refused to turn over when she tried to leave a few hours later. She slammed her hands down on the wheel and stomped out, winter wind whipping her hair. 

She pulled her hair off her face and wrenched open the hood. Margaret couldn’t say what went wrong, but she knew a disaster when she saw one. Oil wasn’t supposed to leave the engine.

If she had the money, she could get a new engine dropped into the truck, but it wasn’t worth it. Margaret hated the thing as much as Papa loved it. She didn’t know enough about engines and didn’t trust the auto shop workers enough to cut her a deal. She’d be overpaying for the rest of her life if she let them win now. It was time to put it to rest.

So.

Papa was dead. His truck was dead, too. And home was an hour away. She slammed the hood, icy metal freezing the sides of curled fists, and let herself fall to the snowy ground. Margaret turned, back against the truck's bumper as she let herself fold forward into her bent legs. The wind continued to wail, and she curled further in, arms blocking her face from the sting of flying snow.

She’d been strong in front of her brothers; none of them shed a tear when they laid a hand over their father’s and whispered goodbye for a final time. They all shared numb gazes then, but Margaret’s heart thumped, frenzied, and she couldn’t hear her own voice through the noise of blood rushing through her ears. She’d been proud her brothers couldn’t see her struggle.

Now, she wasn’t sure she was even breathing. It was over. Done. Finished. Signed off. Her control was gone, and the tears fell rampant and ugly. Papa couldn’t comfort her. His truck was too far gone to even complete one last nice deed. She was alone. 

Her head thudded the truck’s bumper. She needed to breathe. She had to pick herself up by her bootstraps and sort it out on her own. Legs numb—if they were from sitting or from the cold was entirely unclear—Margaret shifted to standing, still leaning her weight onto the truck. 

“You could’ve been nice!” Margaret beat against the hood. “What did I do wrong? I prayed, I waited, I followed God! I was nice, but you won’t let me leave!”

The street lights flickered on, buzzing dully. 

“You’re a damn dog.” She stalked toward the hospital door as if she could open it and find an answer. 

She didn’t make it through the door. Her answer rested itself on the payphone a few paces away, lit by a waxy, yellow sign. Her shaking hands barely grazed the buttons as she tapped the numbers in. 

She regretted it as soon as she tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear. 

“Cohen residence, who’s this?” A smooth feminine voice lilted out the speaker.

“You said I could call.” 

“Margaret? What do you—”

“—can you or Mike pick me up from the hospital? The truck won’t start.” 

She hated the question. She was supposed to be able to hand things on her own, but here she was, pathetically asking for a ride. 

It was Carrie’s fault. She’d tucked the note into Margaret’s hand when she and Mike left hours before. If you need anything, please call. Carrie gave her the option. Carrie wanted her to.  If Carrie hadn’t, Margaret would’ve been smarter, would’ve called someone more useful. She’d have figured it out herself. 

“Yeah, no, for sure. Give us thirty.” 

“Thanks.”  She put the phone back on its hook before Carrie could say anything else.

The wind bit through her coat as she trudged her way back to the truck. 

She rifled through the glovebox, fingers gouging through paper. The papers slapped against the passenger seat. Margaret cursed as the wind whistled by, heralding in all that comes after.  The truck shook against the beating wind. Each shake drove Margaret to search faster in the dim lamp post light. 

Her finger cut against the edge of an envelope. Hands growing icy, she fumbled to check the contents. 

There it was. Margaret laughed. The photos were far smaller than she remembered; three little squares rested in her palm, reminding her of a time she couldn’t remember. A picture of Mama smiling at the camera with her curls pinned away from her face sat atop the other two. The mountains were behind her, and Margaret couldn’t fathom why she didn’t face them. 

It was only a single moment, Margaret knew. One of thousands—millions—her mom had experienced. It was one insignificant moment that Papa kept with him, immortalized it to say “This is it. This is her.”

Margaret barely recognized her. They shared the same tangle of hair, had the same dimpled smile, but Margaret no longer remembered her voice. There was an inkling, some knowledge that if she heard Mama, she’d be able to identify her immediately. At some point she had spent more of her life without her than with her, and her breath caught at the thought. She still loved and admired Mama, though. How could she not? She was her mother. Wasn’t that enough to hold onto her until all her memories gave away?

Her teeth chattered. She ought to wait for Carrie or Mike inside. She’d be warmer. Safer. But that meant going back into the hospital as if she hadn’t said goodbye to Papa for the last time. Like it wasn’t a medium for her mourning. She kept her head down, struggling with the photos once more. 

The call of warmth beat her own want to appear unaffected. She tucked the pictures into her coat’s pocket. The door flew out her hands, stuck out in the empty air. So that’s how it was going to be. Fucking brutal. 

The wind whipped snow off the piles, blurring Margaret’s vision as she carefully stepped to the hospital entrance. Each gust buffeted her, leaving her sidestepping to keep upright. Papa would’ve stood between her and the onslaught. Would’ve laughed it off with some remark about how long it took for her to do her hair. 

Life had been so easy! It was always her and Papa against the world. As it all fell apart, he’d been there to remind her of her goals. Who could tell her she was enough now? She could barely handle the wind on her own, let alone an actual life. Somewhere along the way, she’d imagined a future; Papa shovel talking to a boyfriend, then him walking her down the aisle to the one not intimidated by him. She’d go visit Papa with her kids, and she’d know there was someone to watch them when her and her husband wanted a night alone. Now she’d be explaining that she was an orphan to those hypothetical children. 

The heat burned her bare face. She settled in an empty seat—an uncomfortable thing no better than the metal folding chairs in the church’s basement. As she thawed, so did her composure. The panic settled into the edges as she reset. Someone was coming to get her. The truck might actually be repairable; she didn’t know anything about them to judge if it was now a heap of scrap metal. 

Mike stepped in, a rush of cold following him. He continued in, favoring his left leg. His scarf was tightly wrapped, and he loosened it while his eyes darted over the waiting room. Margaret wanted to duck into the seat, slide down until she wasn’t visible. Carrie would have been better. Carrie’d understand her helplessness; she wouldn’t judge. Mike? Mike was looking for her with a quip prepped to disparage her capabilities. 

Something soft settled over her shoulders, brushing her cheeks. She looked up from the floor, and stared numbly at the figure looming over her.

“Don’t give me that look, Margaret.” Mike wrapped the scarf around her, covering her neck and chin in a profound warmth. “What’s wrong with the truck?”

“Won’t start.”

“Know why?”

“I wouldn’t’ve called if I did, so.” 

“Grew up with Papa for, what, twenty years? And you can’t figure out a truck?” Mike stepped back, hand outstretched. “Keys.”

She stood and walked out, keys still tucked into her pocket. Mike trailed behind, calling for her. 

“What right do you have to make fun of me?” She spun on her heel. “I’ve tried all day to be a fucking adult and controlled, and you just insult me?”

“That’s not what I—” Mike sighed. “If I wanted to insult you, I wouldn’t have come. Go stay warm in the car, and I’ll check Papa’s truck.” 

She started to speak, ready to retaliate, but the cold was inching its way through the scarf, and for as much as she found Mike rude, he gave up that bit of protection for her. Margaret handed over the keys and walked off to the car idling down the aisle. 

Margaret slid into the passenger seat, ignoring the woman at the wheel. She called Carrie, and true to her word, she’d shown up. 

“I don’t think I’ll be able to get you back to the farm tonight.” Carrie finally spoke. She marked her page and set the book down on the dash. “If that’s okay.”

“It’s fine.”

Carrie continued to talk at her, but Margaret didn’t catch most of it. Nothing was waiting for her at home, anyway. Snow came down in a torrent, obscuring the little view she had of the truck and Mike. A part of her wanted to run, offer the scarf back to him, and stand in the bitterness. Their never-started conversation could continue to fill the whipping air, and Margaret could stand vigil for the last-ditch-effort revival of a man neither of them were ready to give up on. Another part wanted Mike to suffer out there alone. Where had he been the last ten years? He’d never tried to reconnect with Papa, and now it was too little and too late. Mike deserved for his fingers to go numb while trying to rescue the vehicle he grew up in. The one he’d go on trips with Papa that Margaret was never invited to join. 

Silence lingered. Margaret missed a question somewhere. “Sorry, what?”

“How are you holding up?”

She laughed. “As well as an orphan can, I suppose.”

Carrie’s gaze faltered, a frown forming. Her arms moved as if to comfort Margaret, but she stopped herself. “It’s not…I’m glad you called.”

“I’m pathetic for doing that.”

Carrie’s frown deepened and she leaned closer, insistent. “It’s not pathetic to use your resources. You don’t have to be independent like that. Don’t think anyone wants to be that kind of alone.”

Margaret said nothing, choosing to look back at the white. Carrie was wrong. She wanted her to be so incredibly wrong. But she wasn’t. An independent woman wouldn’t have called her sister-in-law—the only one she knew and kept polite correspondence with by some miracle of God—to pick her up because her incompetence led her to be stuck with a dud of a vehicle that hated her as much as she was sure her brother hated her. 

“He won’t admit it ever, but he does care.” Margaret had missed something again. Had she said something aloud? Carrie continued.  “I told him you called and he was already calling the neighbor to watch Cam and Amelia so we could leave. Sped here, too, so we could beat the storm. For you. Didn’t want you all alone.”

“Yeah, well, he called me an idiot.” The snow lightened. Mike still stood over the engine, prodding with a hand while cradling a flashlight in the other. 

“Are you sure he wasn’t talking about himself?” 

Margaret laughed, shaking her head at the comment. The truck’s hood was closed now, Mike resting his folded arms against it and patting the hood. “I should see if he figured out what’s wrong.”

She moved to open the door. Carrie grabbed her shoulder. “He’ll tell you when he gets in.” Carrie glanced out to Mike, now shaking. “Give him a minute, yeah?”

Carrie turned on the radio, music low. George Harrison filled the void. It was another offer. If Margaret didn’t want to talk anymore, she didn’t have to. No more seriousness after the one moment of levity. Margaret, again, accepted the offer. 

Mike wrenched a back door open a few minutes later while Harrison continued on another song. Mike slammed the door closed behind him. Harrison ran silent a moment before teetering back in, pitch wobbling. The cassette continued to fade in and out, and in a longer stretch of silence, Mike filled the void with his own voice.

“Truck’s fixable, I think. Not tonight.” 

Oh thank God. Margaret wanted to hug him, tell him thank you because she couldn’t lose anything else today. She nodded instead. 

The music already got to him. “What the hell are you listening to?”

“You broke George.” Carrie ejected the cassette. “Radio fine?”

The drive was slow-going, filled with conversation between the couple. Margaret pointedly said nothing, focusing her attention on what little she could see as they passed white fields. 

Inevitably, Carrie doubled back into Silvern. Margaret knew she explained her reasoning, something about the wind and visibility, but it fell to deaf ears. Margaret raged, lamented, cried at being stuck in this hellish town. She could envision it well. Truck and owner perfectly unmoving in a deep cold, caught unaging as time whistled by. She wanted to turn back to Mike and ask him why only that damn truck could be revived, why it didn’t have to follow God’s will like Papa. 

But she didn’t. Couldn’t. An address of the situation on her shoulders would only cause the unfathomably loud beat in her ears to increase and for it to feel like a fire’s smoke filled her lungs. So she kept silent, never mentioning Papa’s death, and neither did Mike. What could she say to bring it up anyway? How could she push it away from her own feeling? What? Mike, how does it feel to lose the father you haven’t talked to in a decade? Yeah, the one that left you with a limp. It was a useless endeavor.