It was a mild day in October. The poplars had turned golden, and the sweet gums were blazing red. The leaves were beginning to fall, painting the ground in vibrant color. Ellen and I were in the pottery cabin. I was teaching her to make a pot by hand. She was four. Her hands were small and so was the pot. It was such a tiny pot it wouldn’t hardly hold a dollop of cream. I’d tell Gran that Ellen had made her a thimble pot. It would give Gran a chuckle.
A golden leaf floated in through the open door. Ellen and I watched it flutter toward us on this nearly breezeless day and land on the table.
“Like a butterfly, Mommy,” she said, and she laughed.
It was getting late and about time for me to start supper.
“Ellen, please wash your hands, then let Gran know I’m coming in to cook.”
She jumped down from the stool and ran inside. I used my larger, more practiced fingers to smooth out the spots she’d missed, then wrapped the project loosely in damp paper and plastic to let it start drying. I made sure everything was switched off. I took special care with that since the incident with the burned fingers, and I routinely disconnected the power cord from the house line. Ellen was getting bolder about trying things without asking, and I wouldn’t put it past her to come out here and try the wheel on her own if she took the notion.
As I left the cabin and walked to the house, I saw Ellen standing on the back stoop, her hands hanging by her side. The clay still covered her arms, all the way up to her elbows. It was a lot of mess for one tiny pot. I smiled, and then realized she wasn’t. Her chin was quivering.
“Mommy?”
As I came closer, frowning, I saw the quiver in her chin working right down the rest of her body. She was shaking.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” I put my arms around her. “Ellen?”
I looked at the open door.
“Stay here, Ellen. Right here.”
I went inside, my instincts alert and wide open. The lighting was dim, and Gran was sleeping. The front door was shut and locked from the inside. I turned back to face the bed.
My heart was breaking and my eyes were stinging before I knew why. My conscious brain was slower to accept reality, and I stared.
Gran’s arm was half off the bed, and her hand was dangling.
Gently, I touched her wrist, intending to move her hand back onto the bed. Her flesh was cool. Her eyes were semiopen, like she was peeking out at the world. The lines in her face had eased, almost vanished.
She was gone. Gran was gone.
Every bit of starch in me evaporated. I sat on the bed. I couldn’t do anything.
“Mommy?”
Ellen stood in the kitchen, her eyes big and round and dark. I held out my arms. She hesitated.
“It’s OK, sweet Ellen. Gran loved us both very much. Let’s love and hug each other and remember how important we were to her.”
Ellen took a few steps forward, still reluctant. She looked at the floor but turned her face partway toward Gran.
“Trust me, baby.”
She came into the circle of my arms. I lifted her onto my lap. I hugged her and kissed her forehead. She touched my face. Her fingers came away wet, the clay dissolving in my tears, smearing as she dried her fingers on her shirt.
“Gran?” she whispered, lost and confused.
I held her close. “She was very old. You know that, right?”
Ellen nodded. She pressed into the crook of my arm and my chest. I held her a little tighter.
“And you know she was sick sometimes.”
“She hurt.”
“That’s right. Now she’s gone to heaven, and she won’t hurt anymore.”
“I miss her, Mommy.” Her voice ended on a high note, suggesting she’d be full-out crying any moment.
“She stayed with us as long as she could because she knew she’d miss us so much, and she knew we’d miss her. But God must’ve told her she’d done as much as she could, and she had earned a good rest.”
“Can she come back? I want Gran back.”
“No, sweetheart, but we can talk about her and remember her.” I touched her chest and then my own. “She will always be with us in our hearts. You and I will take good care of each other like Gran taught us.”
Ellen cried. I held her as I stood and carried her over to Gran’s old rocker. We sat and rocked and cried together for a while. When we were done, I went back to the bed and pulled the coverlet up over Gran’s face.
“No, Mommy.” Ellen stopped me with a hand on my arm.
I looked at her, then decided to go with it. I pulled the coverlet back and straightened it around Gran’s shoulders and arms, then tidied it down by her feet. I touched the blanket where it covered her poor swollen legs.
“Mommy?”
“Don’t be afraid, Ellen. Gran can run and dance again. We’ll miss her, but let’s be happy for her, too, to be in heaven?”
“K.”
I called Duncan Browne.
Gran had suffered so much loss. If she could hold up to that, then I could manage my own grief. It hurt, but at least this loss was natural in its timing. As I’d tried to convey to Ellen, I also told myself the same—this was a merciful kindness for a woman whose body hadn’t been able to keep up with her spirit for a long, long time.
The sheriff’s office sent a deputy, and the local funeral home sent a hearse. Gran had made her own funeral arrangements when she set them up for Grand. The funeral home provided the men and equipment to prepare the grave. I stood at the kitchen door and watched them working with shovels up at the cemetery. There was no way to get equipment across the creek and over the stone wall. It struck me that while progress brought many changes in the world around us, in Cooper’s Hollow the graves were still dug the way they’d been for centuries.
The ground cried as it was torn open to receive one more of my loved ones. Another Cooper gone. There seemed to be strangers constantly around. However helpful they might be, neither Ellen nor I was used to company.
The sheriff’s deputy helped me move the bed out of the living room. He was curious, I could see, as we moved the mattress and bedframe into the small back room, and I didn’t blame him. I’d never really thought about it, but we were isolated—not only by geography but also by choice. Maybe we were objects of curiosity—those crazy people, those hillbillies. But we combed our hair, brushed our teeth, and wore clean clothing. Gran never tolerated a speck of dirt or dust in her house, either. After she was incapable of chasing down the dirt herself, she used me in her stead. Our furniture was old, but it shone with a century or two of regular polishing.