sin of forcing them all to play their thankless roles. Her mother-in-law climbed out of the car and then turned back and leaned through the window.
“Tomorrow at the wedding I will tell my son that I want to sell that house his father bought. I will tell him I want the money and he won’t be able to argue with me about it. It’s not that I mind people trying to arrange other people’s lives, but if they do it, they have to do it right.” She drew a deep breath and her voice wavered as she added, “The boys say that I can’t live here alone, and it could be that they’re right. If I had my druthers, I would prefer it be you and Tommy who move in here. Any of the others would drive me crazy. That’s not why I’m having him sell the house. I’m not making a deal with you. I just want you to know what I think. I’m tired of keeping my mouth shut. At least you and I wouldn’t have to pretend. You could have your ways and I’d have mine.” She stopped for a moment. “And I love my son,” she added, as though she only had the one.
They looked at each other for a long moment and then Mary Frances began to speak again, and this time her voice was hard and clear. “There are two spaces in that plot in your father’s cemetery,” she said. “I want the other one. I am telling you and I will tell Tommy, because everyone else will think I’m crazy and they will do what they want in any event. But I’m telling you that it will be your responsibility to see that this time I get my way. The rest of them will want to do what is proper, but you will make them do what is right.” Connie leaned over toward her. She wanted to call her something but she couldn’t think what and so she simply began, “John said to me in the hospital—” But Mary Frances cut her off. “He did the best he could, dear,” she said, sounding more like herself. “A man can’t be what he isn’t. He did the best he could with what he had. That’s something for you to remember. Tommy does the best he knows how.”
“I know,” Connie said, her eyes filling again. Mary Frances turned and walked into the house and Connie wondered if she should try to tell her more, should try to tell her how sorry her husband had been, although whether it was for the death, for failing to move the baby’s body, or for something even more unforgivable she was still not sure. She supposed “He did the best he could” was the best benediction anyone could hope for.
23
MAGGIE SAT ON THE BENCH IN FRONT OF her aunt’s old dressing table, her long legs hidden beneath the ruffled skirt. Her bridesmaid’s dress hung on the back of the closet door. Connie stood behind her brushing Maggie’s hair over and over again as though she was painting, coat after coat. Connie was so small that her head just barely topped Maggie’s when she stood behind her, so that in the mirror they looked like some strange Indian goddess, one dark head above the other, one set of arms resting in the lap, another rising and falling, holding a brush.
“You two look like sisters,” Aunt Cass said.
Monica was in the bathroom putting on her makeup. She looked like the centerfold in one of the Playboy magazines the boys had hidden beneath the floorboards of the development houses. She was wearing something called a merry widow, a one-piece lace garment like a very fancy swimsuit, which pushed her bust up and whittled her waist to nothing. “Should she be wearing that?” Connie had said with some concern, but Aunt Cass said that Uncle James said it was fine. Maggie could not imagine Monica modeling such a thing for her father, but she was not inclined to ask questions on this particular day.
Behind her, her mother was humming tunelessly. She was wearing a new dress, a simple red drape in some satiny material. Her lipstick matched. Her hair was in loose, shiny waves over her shoulders. It seemed incredible that she had been so recently to a funeral, but Uncle James and Mary Frances had insisted that the wedding go on as planned, with no sign, even in their clothes, that there