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Show in my father's house/ 108 She sighed. "I don't know. Your father says it's my nerves." "Why are your nerves sick, Mama? Will they get well?" "I don't know," she sighed. "I wish I did. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Go outside, darling. Or ask Aunt Helga to tell you a story. She'll look after you." Grandmother Allred died that evening. Her heart had failed, my mother told me, and she had gall bladder trouble. No one could help her -- not even my father. The viewing was held the following afternoon. The mothers dressed themselves and all us children in our Sunday clothes. Aunt Helga pulled my pink taffeta birthday dress over my head and scrubbed my face with a sour washcloth. "Now remember, you mustn't bother your mother. This whole thing is hard enough on her, without you kids making trouble, too." Aunt Helga and my mother wore identical pink-and-grey silk dresses, and Aunt Helga fixed their long hair just alike, in a braided coronet. Then we followed Aunt Helga to the Hudson. The others had gone ahead. We didn't speak on the way to the mortuary. I pressed my cheek against the cool upholstery, watching my mother. She stared out at the shifting landscape, a forgotten hand against her face. I wanted to ask her questions about dying and about Grandmother, but I felt Aunt Helga beside me and decided not to |