Joyce Third Grade Row Four
Big Bands and swing. The rage of the day. Duke Ellington. Joyce was in love with the music. The Payne Family owned the town mortuary, and while Joyce was never allowed to go to the building next door where her father worked, he put a radio in the front room to amuse herself.
Joyce’s mother had died about four years after the flu epidemic. Grandma says we are not to talk about sad things to father. Your father deals with enough sadness every day.
Grandma would not let Joyce listen to the radio in the morning before school, but she could listen for two hours when she got home.
Grandma was out with her makeup box helping her father. Joyce was glad and liked listening and dancing to the swinging music. Joyce tried to talk to Bettie at school about dancing classes, but Bettie said she was a bore and too stupid and clumsy to dance. Joyce was disappointed but not convinced Betties was right. If Joyce had had a chocolate bar, Bettie would have talked to her. Joyce laughed to herself. She had seen the cartons of chocolate milk in front of Bettie’s plate at school lunch. Bettie was an only child like her. Too bad she did not want a friend.
Joyce was a good friend to people. Her father had always told her, Joyce, you must see people first and their mistakes last. In this life, people are what counts. Mistakes are plenty and easily fixed. If People get broken, you cannot replace that. Remember, Sweet child, make a new friend each day, treat old friends kindly, and follow up every ugly word with a good one. Joyce, I cannot give you any better advice.
Joyce did not remember much about her mother except yellow. Perhaps she was grasping to find something to remember. Grandma had removed the sunshine yellow dress from her father’s closet. The dress had hung there for years like a silhouette in the shadows of the evening. Joyce used to go up and sometimes look, making her smile to pretend her mother was walking towards her in that sunny dress, dancing and twirling.
Then one day, when Joyce was playing outback, she spotted yellow sticking out of a bag in the trash can. Joyce ran over and looked. The question in her tiny brain was why her father had thrown out the dress. No, it could not be. The feeling was of betrayal.
At dinner, Joyce decided she would not speak to her father. Father looked at grandma and said. Why? You had no right. Grandma looked at my father and said, you have held on to that box of sadness too long. Now it is gone. Live by the words you preach. Find a good word. I inquiringly look at my father. He said I have no comments today, he got up and left the room.
My grandma said you eat your supper, child. Others are going hungry. I will not allow you to waste your father’s food. I did as my grandma told me.
Joyce stood looking at Father, all manly closet. Grandma had been right to remove it that day, but it had changed the atmosphere between grandma and her father. Joyce had made herself one secret solemn promise. When she grew up, she would buy herself a beautiful yellow dress. Joyce would not let the adult world bring their unhappiness to her doorstep.
The radio played a swing song when Mr. Payne arrived unusually late one evening. Grandma was still making up the face of his latest task. A small child had been in a hit-and-run automobile accident. The small face was unrecognizable. Please do your best; mother was his parting words.
Joyce’s father watched her easy breathing as she peacefully slept on the sofa. Mr. Payne could work on any corpse, but the children took their toll on him. Joyce never woke up as he carried her and tucked her into bed. He looked down on his miniature wife; Joyce was the spitting image of her mother. Mr. Payne would keep a closer eye on his daughter.
Mr. Payne decided she would be playing in the backyard, and he would not take a chance. If only people took life seriously. So much death, so very much dying. Mr. Payne usually let Joyce walk to school, but he would drive her to be safe tomorrow. The child he had to prepare for burial had spooked him. Yes, he would personally take Joyce tomorrow.
Recent Post