“You dropped your keys, Helen.”
She turned at the sound of her name and stared at him for a moment. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Dyce noted that there was no mascara. He didn’t like mascara on the living.
“Oh, Mr. Dyce,” she cried and suddenly lowered her head to his shoulder.
She told him through her sobs that she hadn’t realized it was him. Dyce patted her back gently and looked around the parking lot to see if he was being observed. He rather wished that someone was watching. Clearly here was a girl, a woman really, who didn’t think he couldn’t understand emotion. Here was somebody who didn’t regard Dyce as a robot or number-chasing nerd. He hoped someone would be a witness.
She pulled away, wiping at her face with her hand, then the back of her arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing loudly.
“No,” he said. “No, no.”
“I just… I have no right, I just…”
“No, no. No.”
“You always seem so kind,” she said. She sniffed again, then laughed at herself “Listen to me snorting away.”
“No, I’m glad… Can I help?”
She tried to smile but her tears welled up again and the smile bent downward.
“I’ve had a death,” she said. She shook her head, paused, shook it again and tried once more to unlock her car.
Dyce steadied her hand with his own, surprised at his boldness.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen…”
“I can’t… You’re so kind…”
“Listen. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
Helen dropped the keys into her purse. Dyce found his arm across her shoulders as they walked across the parking lot to a coffee shop.
They slid into a booth that had just been vacated by a police officer. Helen nodded as if she knew the man.
“My mother,” Helen said. She started crying again, but softly now that they were in public. When she was finished, she blew her nose in a paper napkin.
“I know,” said Dyce sympathetically.
“I can’t seem to get used to it. It wasn’t a surprise. I mean, I knew she was going to die, she’d been sick for so long, but somehow you’re just never ready.”
“I know. I know.”
“It’s been a week, but I just can’t get used to the idea that she’s not here anymore. I dream about her, I see her. I mean, people-women-will come into the store and just for a second I’m positive it’s her. And then I’ll go along for a while and be fine, I’ll actually think I’m fine. Then all of a sudden, for no special reason, I’ll just burst into tears, just like now.”
“I know,” said Dyce. “I know.”
“Mr. Dyce… I was lucky it was you there in the parking lot. I mean, when I get like this, I don’t know if I’m coming or going. If a stranger had picked up my keys-well, I mean, we don’t know each other very well, but somehow I feel I know you, you know? You’re always so friendly, you take time to say a word, you always seem to have a comment about something, the weather or something, you know? Some people will not give you the time of day in those circumstances. They just want me to bag them up and take their money and run and…”
“Did you see her?”
“Pardon me?”
“Did you see your mother after-at the funeral. Was it open casket?”
“Oh. Yes, I saw her. Of course. I think an open casket is important, don’t you? People want to say good- bye.”
“Wasn’t she beautiful?”
“Why yes, yes, she was. She looked so natural, and so peaceful.”
“I know.”
“She wore this lovely soft white silk blouse with a lacey collar she liked so much. She looked so…”
“I know. Beautiful.”
“Mr. Dyce, you are so sympathetic.”
“I lost my father,” he said. Helen touched his hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Dyce wished there was a witness to this. A young woman was holding his hand in public. “I was just a child.”
“Oh, you poor man.”
“He was very young, about the age I am now.”
“It must have been awful for you. It’s bad enough to lose a parent, but for a little boy…”
“We had the casket in the living room.”
“In your house?”
“In my grandfather’s house.”
“I didn’t know that was… can you do that?”
“We kept him for three days. My grandfather thought he would rise.”
“Rise. Rise?”
“I was very small and couldn’t see up into the casket, so my grandfather would lift me and hold me over my father. So I could see.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I could see how beautiful he was.”
“That must have been… you must have loved him very much.”
“He was my grandfather.”
“I meant-well, of course you loved them both. How did he die so young?”
Dyce removed his hand from Helen’s grasp. He folded his hands in his lap,
“You knew my name from my checks,” he said.
Helen was startled by the abrupt change in Dyce’s attitude.
“Have I said something? I didn’t mean to press you about your father…”
“There’s no other way you could know my name. You never asked me. No one else in the store knows me.”
“I suppose I must have seen it on your check. I don’t remember. I’ve known it for a long time; I was interested, you were always so nice-I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“It’s all right. I was just curious how you knew. Of course it’s on my checks.”
“Mr. Dyce, you’ve been so kind, I wouldn’t do anything to upset you for the world. It’s not often you meet someone who’s kind. Most people only have time for themselves. You wouldn’t know that because you’re not that way, but most people couldn’t care less about somebody else’s troubles. And I have certainly had my share of troubles. Even the girls I work with, they’re not bad people, but I can see them rolling their eyes whenever I feel sad now. It’s only been a week, but I can see them thinking, why doesn’t she get over it already? Well, I’m sorry, it’s just not that fast.”
“You never get over a death,” said Dyce, loosening again. “If they expect you to get over it, then that person didn’t mean anything to you. And if that person didn’t mean anything to you, there’s no reason to mourn in the first place, is there?”
Helen noted his renewed animation with relief. For a moment she feared that she had lost him, that she had said too much, or the wrong thing, or the wrong way. She realized that her desperation drove them off-calm and an emotional distance would work better. Men were lured to the elusive ones. They seemed to want what didn’t want them, but if she possessed either calm or emotional control, she wouldn’t be alone and lonely to begin with. It wasn’t her looks that caused the problems. There were women at the store so ugly they shouldn’t be let out of the basement who had husbands, boyfriends, lovers. Melva, who had warts and an odd upper lip, had gone through at least three men in the past six months that Helen knew of Helen wasn’t beautiful, but she looked all right. Given time and the right accessories, she thought she made quite a nice appearance. It wasn’t her looks; it was her horrible need that repulsed them. Even now she knew it was not her red eyes or runny nose that had
