Page 7

I heard lots of sobbing and noses being blown. Way in the rear of the church, someone's baby cried. She cried throughout the service. It seemed fitting.

Papa George said there should have been more representatives from the mining company there and that the mine should have been shut down for a few days in honor of the dead. He and Mama Arlene walked beside Mommy and me when we followed the hearses to the cemetery. Except for the crunchy sound of everyone's footsteps on the snow and the far-off wail of a train carrying away the coal, it was terribly quiet. I actually welcomed Papa George's stream of complaints.

He said that if there hadn't been an oil embargo to put pressure on the coal miners, my daddy wouldn't have been killed.

"Company saw the dollar signs," he charged, "and pushed them miners too far. But it ain't the first time, and I'm sure it ain't gonna be the last." We passed under the granite archway to the cemetery. Angels were carved in the stone.

Mommy kept her hood over her head, her eyes down. Every once in a while she released a deep sigh and intoned, "I wish this was over. What am I going to do? Where do we go now? What am I going to say to all these people?"

Mama Arlene had her arm through Mommy's and patted her hand gently and muttered back, "There, there, be strong, Haille. Be strong."

Papa George remained close to me when we reached the grave site. His flecked brown eyes filled with tears before he lowered his head, still thick with hair and as white as the flakes that flew into our faces. The other two miners who had been with Daddy when the walls caved in were being buried on the north end of the same cemetery in Sewell. We could hear the mourners singing hymns, their voices carried by the same cold February wind that tossed the flakes over the West Virginia hills and the shanties under the gray sky.

We raised our heads when the minister finished his prayer. He hurried off to say another prayer over the other two miners. Although Mommy wore black and no makeup, she still looked pretty. Sadness simply lit a different candle in her eyes. Her rich maple-brown hair was pinned back. She had bought the plain black dress just for the funeral and wore a hooded cape. The hem of the dress reached only a few inches below her knees, but she didn't appear cold, even though the wind whipped her skirt around her legs. She was in a daze even deeper than mine. I grasped her hand much more tightly than she held mine.

I imagined that if Mama Arlene and I were to let go of Mommy's arms she would just float away in the wind, like a kite whose string had snapped. I knew how much Mammy would rather be anywhere but here. She hated sadness. If anything happened to make her unhappy, she would pour herself a gin and tonic and play her music louder, drowning out the melancholy.

I gazed at Daddy's coffin a final time, still finding it hard to believe he was really shut up inside. Soon, any moment, the lid would pop open and Daddy would sit up laughing, telling us this was all his little joke. I almost laughed imagining it, hoping for it. But the lid remained shut tight, the snowflakes dancing over its shiny surface, some sticking and melting into tears.

The mourners filed past, some hugging Mommy and me, some just pausing to touch our hands and shake their heads. Everyone said the same thing, "Sorry for your trouble." Mommy kept her head down most of the time, so I had to greet people and thank t

hem. When Bobby took my hand, I gave him a small hug. He looked embarrassed, mumbled something, and hurried off with his friends. I couldn't blame him, but it made me feel like a leper. I noticed that most people were awkward and distant around us, as if tragedy was something you could catch like a cold.

Afterward, we all walked back from the cemetery more quickly than we had walked to it, especially Mommy. The snow fell faster and harder, and now that the funeral was over, I felt the cold cut right through to my bones.

The other two miners' families and friends were getting together to eat and comfort each other. Mama Arlene had made a pot roast thinking we would all be there, but as we left the cemetery, Mommy told her she wasn't going. She couldn't get away from the sadness fast enough.

"I can't stand any more sad faces around me," she wailed and shook her head.

"Folks need each other at times like this," Mama Arlene explained.

Mommy just shook her head again and quickened her pace. Suddenly, Archie Marlin caught up with us in his imitation patent leather shoes and his shiny gray suit, with his glossy red hair parted in the middle.

"Be glad to drive you home, Haille," he offered.

Mommy's eyes brightened and more color returned to her face. Nothing could cheer her up as quickly as a man's attention. "Why thank you, Archie. That's very kind."

"Ain't much. J wish I could do more," he remarked, flashing me a smile.

Behind us I saw Alice widen her round eyes even more. "Come on, honey." Mommy reached for my hand, but I stepped back.

"I'll walk home with Alice," I told her.

"That's silly, Melody. It's cold."

"I'm not cold," I said, even though my teeth wanted to chatter.

"Suit yourself," Mommy said and got into Archie's car. Two large cotton dice hung from the rearview mirror and his seats were upholstered with an imitation white wool that shed on your clothes. The wiry threads were sure to get all over Mommy's black dress, but she didn't care. Before we had left for church, she told me she expected to throw the dress in the garbage the moment she took it off anyway.

"I don't intend to spend weeks mourning and wearing black," she declared. "Sadness ages you and it doesn't bring back the dead. Besides, I can't wear this black thing to work, can I?"

"When are you going back to work, Mommy?" I asked, surprised. With Daddy's death, I thought the world would stop turning. How could our lives go on?

"Tomorrow," she said. "I don't have much choice. We don't have anyone supporting us anymore, do we? Not that it was much support anyway," she mumbled.

"Should I go right back to school?" I asked more out of anger than a desire to return.

"Of course. What are you going to do around here all day? You'll go crazy looking at these four walls."