Page 12 of Because I Could Not Stop for Death

A man behind us coughed as I was blocking the doorway. I stepped through the double door with Catherine still attached to my arm and slid to the right and pressed my back against the rear wall of the sanctuary.

She pinched my arm. “Tell me the truth. What has happened?”

As people made their way to their pews, they glanced back at Catherine and me at the back wall. It felt like all the eyes in the room were on me, and those eyes wanted answers. It reminded me so much of the time after my mother’s death. There were questions. There was a macabre need to know exactly what happened, when in fact it would make no difference to the asker’s life if they knew or not. However, the torment it caused me to repeat the story time and time again was close to unbearable. With Henry’s death, it was worse because of course it was different. He was young, a young man in his prime. He was a fixture in town and liked by all who met him from street sweepers all the way up to the faculty of Amherst College. And it was the way he died, which was so sudden and so unexpected. There was no long illness like that of my mother’s. One day he was perfectly healthy; the next day, he was dead.

Her fingers dug deeper into my arm. “Please tell me. I heard rumors, and I must know.”

I twisted my mittens in my hands. I glanced across the large room and saw her brothers watching us. Urschel and Ernest Dwight were twin terrors who ran through the village doing whatever they pleased as they were the sons of the most powerful minister in town. As of yet, they had done nothing more than upset the garden at the college, but they always looked as if they were up to much more. I held them at a distance. Now that I was speaking to their sister, I knew they were taking note. They had at some point assigned themselves as Catherine’s guardians. I knew what they thought about her affection for my brother. I knew what their father felt as well. None of them approved, and they held Henry in disdain because of it. It did not matter then that Henry had never returned Catherine Dwight’s feelings; they still held him accountable for them.

“He is dead. There was an accident at the stables where he worked.” The words sounded wooden to my own ears. I tried hard to keep it like that, so all emotion was held back. Tears were for the privacy of my small room in the Dickinson home, not in the church.

She covered her mouth. Tears spilled over her eyes. “I—I can’t believe it.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t want to force her into believing it. I didn’t even want to believe it myself. I wanted to wake up tomorrow and have Henry tapping on my window in the rain talking about grand schemes to make a better life for both of us.

“People are saying that it was his fault.”

I narrowed my eyes. “They are wrong.”

“You said it was an accident.”

I scowled at her. “Yes. That doesn’t mean it was his fault.” There was so much more I wanted to say to her, but I held my tongue. I knew my place in society when measured against the minister’s daughter, and I was at a disadvantage.

Without another word, she covered her face and ran out of the church. I could feel the twins’ eyes boring into me as she fled.

Miss O’Brien came down the side aisle and grabbed me by the arm. “Willa, what are you doing back here? Come sit down.” She pulled me into a row in the back of the church.

The organ began to play and the service began. The ushers guided the last few parishioners to their seats. From my seat in the back of the church, I saw Mrs.Dickinson and Miss Lavinia in the front row of the church. They were the only members of the family there, as Mr.Dickinson was still in Washington and Austin Dickinson was in Cambridge. Miss Dickinson was at home.

Reverend Dwight took his place at the pulpit and led the congregation in prayer and a reading of the scripture. I tried my very best to pay attention, I did, but my mind wandered. Memories of going to the country church outside of town with my brother and mother flooded back to me. The congregation was small and happy. The people welcomed us. I enjoyed going to services then, but it stopped when our mother had to take on seamstress work on Sundays to make ends meet.

Henry and I would walk to the country church close to home while our mother worked on her mending, but I always thought the congregation pitied us as we never came with a parent.

Miss O’Brien poked my side. “Willa, stand up. We are on the closing hymn.”

I blinked. How could the service be over already? It felt like it had just begun.

The organ droned on as the minister and the congregation processed out of the sanctuary.

Miss O’Brien gestured for me to leave the pew.

“I’m going to slip out the side door. I’m feeling a little light-headed.”

Before Miss O’Brien could say a word, I slid out of the pew and went to an exit near the front of the church. I went down a short staircase, through the door, and found myself on the right side of the church. I gulped air. There was something about being in that building that was suffocating to me.

I drew in another breath much more slowly this time. Miss O’Brien would be cross with me for running out of the church like that. I just didn’t want to be trapped and have to greet Reverend Dwight. I knew how he felt about Henry, and I wasn’t able to hear it at the moment. There was no telling what I’d do if I had to listen to him berate my brother now.

I planned to tell Miss O’Brien that I had been overcome at the service because of my brother’s recent death. It certainly wasn’t a lie. I hoped that she would accept that and not think less of me because of it.

“Willa Noble, what makes you think you are welcome at our church?” a nasal male voice asked.

My chest tightened and my fingers were suddenly cold. I knew that voice.

“You made our sister cry,” Urschel Dwight said, or perhaps it was Ernest—I could never tell the two apart. I hadn’t been able to when we were all in school together, and I certainly couldn’t now. They didn’t make it easy as they wore identical Sunday suits all the way down to their neckties and shoes.

I started walking toward the front of the church.

The other twin jumped into my path. “Where do you think you’re going? Urschel is talking to you.”

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