The Red Dress at the VFW Hall

The Rest of the Night

We did not stay late. My energy went fast, the way it always did by then.

But we stayed for the cake, which was white with gold roses, and for the toast, which Nick’s uncle gave and which was short and made everybody laugh.

People kept coming over to our table after that. Not to say anything about cancer. Just to say hello, the way they would any other night.

Shirley came and sat with me for ten minutes and told me about her own mother’s wig in 1962, which she said looked like a dead squirrel.

Marlene did not come over. I watched her through the night. She talked to people at the front table. She cut the cake with Harold.

She did not look my way, but twice I caught her looking at Nick’s head, and her face was hard to read.

When we left, I went to the front table to say goodbye, because that is what you do. I said, “Happy anniversary, Marlene. It was a beautiful party.”

She looked up at me. Her eyes were wet. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she said, very quietly, “Thank you for coming, Laura.”

That was all. I put my coat on over the red dress and walked out to the truck with Nick.

It was colder by then, and the stars were out over the elevator. I had Harold’s envelope in my coat pocket, and I kept my hand on it the whole way home.

Monday

Sunday dinner was cancelled that week. Nobody said why. Aunt Joyce called and said Marlene wasn’t feeling well, and I said I hoped she felt better soon, and I meant it.

On Monday I called the wig shop in Sioux Falls. The woman who ran it, Pam, remembered me.

She said to come Tuesday after my treatment, and she would have my wig ready to fit. Kim offered to drive me, since Nick had to be at the elevator for the end of harvest.

Tuesday

The cancer center in Sioux Falls has a long room with recliners along the windows, each one with an IV pole beside it.

You get a warm blanket if you ask. I always asked. Chemo made me cold to my bones.

Kim got me settled in my chair and went down to the cafeteria to get coffee.

The nurse, a young woman named Amy, started my line. I closed my eyes and put my head back.

When I opened them, Marlene was standing at the foot of my recliner.

She had on her church coat, the brown wool one. She was holding her purse in both hands in front of her, and under her arm was a thick glossy catalog.

I could see the cover. It was from the wig shop downstairs.

I did not know what to say. I had never seen her outside of her own house or church or the grocery store. She looked smaller in that big bright room.

“Kim told me what time,” she said. “Don’t be mad at her. I called her Sunday night and asked.”

“I’m not mad,” I said.

She stood there. Then she said, “May I sit down?” and I said yes, and she pulled the plastic chair over from the wall and sat beside my recliner with the catalog on her knees.