Hillrise Cemetery’s stone turrets sprouted alongside the needle-straight road extending before me, severing the crisp sidewalk and line of idyllic storefronts shaded by lush maples. The trees were more robust than I remembered and although a handful of shops had changed in my eleven year hiatus, I could name the rest by heart.
Staring at those looming entry pillars, I ground my fingers on the rental car’s steering wheel. Thoughts of the waiting gathering swirled, making my jaw clench and my grip tighten.
“Relax, Grace.”
Darren’s Outback drawl transported me for a precious heartbeat thousands of miles away to the ochre plains where my instincts screamed to be.
When Darren slid his earthy-brown hand onto my thigh, however, I grimaced. His comforting touch plunged me back into the stale hatchback between all too familiar rolling hills and concrete strips I thought I’d long left behind. Heedless to my mental boomerang, Darren caressed to the hem of my gray skirt strewn with luggage-inspired wrinkles, the ring I had placed on his finger a sweet kiss on my flesh.
“Who knows,” he said with a reassuring squeeze, “maybe they’ll be happy to see you.”
I shifted my glower to the crimson light impeding our progress toward the inevitable. “She always does this, you know.”
“What has she done, Grace? She’s dead.”
A long exhale poured out of me, full of conditioned air and jet lag. “She always finds a way to drag us back together.”
Darren retrieved his hand, the lost heat a cool slap. “I don’t think you’re being fair. It’s not like she died on purpose.”
Despite my wince, I didn’t miss the streetlight changing. Flooring the gas, I surged through the intersection.
Darren pressed a hand against the glove box. “I thought you didn’t want to do this.”
“The faster we get there, the sooner I can play the nice little Gracie she always wanted me to be and we can leave.”
Thumping on the right blinker, I drove us between Hillrise’s pillars, the car’s suspension clanging, the cemetery’s granite sign a blur. I navigated the winding lane framed by blooming rhododendrons and slowed when I discovered the parking lot.
A twang thrummed in my gut noting Abby’s sticker-strewn family van crowding two stalls. What had to be my brother’s newest acquisition: a candy-apple Corvette compensating for his dearth of grandchildren, parked by the one-way exit. A menagerie of rusted sedans, boat-sized Cadillacs, and dented station wagons cluttered the rest of the asphalt like a used car salesman’s dream.
Claiming a corner spot by an overflowing bucket of geraniums, I brought our hatchback to a lurching halt. My hands, however, remained around the wheel, sun-bronzed knuckles pale. The engine’s rumbling made the car tremble and the dangling keys clinked against their plastic label. Idling seconds stretched.
“We’re going to run out of gas,” whispered Darren.
I scowled but he countered with his dimpled grin. Slumping, I held his charcoal gaze.
“One hour?”
An irritating drop of empathy entered his smile, one framed by a shaggy mop of chestnut waves. “One hour then we’re gone. Unless you want to stay.”
I snorted and met my reflection in the odometer’s glass. Numbers arched over the tumbled mess I’d wrangled out of my raven curls in the terminal’s restroom, half up, the way Mom had always liked.
I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “Why would I want to stay?”
Darren covered my thigh again, his fingers fiery but solid. “This is your family, Grace. It’s been a while since you’ve seen them.”
“If it had been up to Abby, I wouldn’t be here at all.”
“Cut your sister some slack. We were in the middle of nowhere. How was she supposed to reach you?”
“Mr. Jenkins did.”
“He’s a lawyer, they’re skilled.”
“All he had to do was pick up a phone.” Shaking my head, I killed the ignition and tossed the keys into my purse. “Let’s go.”
“I’m right behind you.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Chicken?”
“No, but from what you’ve said about them, I’m wary of shrapnel.”
I smirked. “Chicken.”
Darren leaned over the raised parking brake and kissed my cheek. From within me grief, rage, and whatever else lay buried, threatened to boil up. Before he or they could shatter my composure, I fled the car.
I slammed the door shut while rubbing the drive and plane-induced crick in my lower back. Like the upcoming ceremony, the knot remained, and leaving the cramp to fend for itself I adjusted my skirt hoping at least the creases from the twenty-six hour flight would fade. Abby would raise her brows for my lack of panty hose and the off-white blouse, but I could only bend to the occasion so far. Black was never my color and although I was sure everyone else would disappear into a moonless night I couldn’t give in, not now. My path had already veered too far apart from those who I knew waited over the next rise.
With a staggered inhale, I shouldered my purse and rounded the hatchback’s bumper, my heels clucking like a disappointed tongue. Sensing Darren in my wake, I aimed for the trailhead marked by a pair of lily bouquets dripping indigo ribbons and wafting a scent sweet enough to frost pastries.
Verdant blades of manicured grass rimmed the monuments and slab markers of the previously deceased adjoining the wandering strip of tar. Bunches of flowers, a candle, or picture adorned the lucky ones while most seemed to ache for tending or at least a second glance.
Whether forgotten or not, the graves and curving hillsides hiding the suburbs beyond left me yearning for the expanse of reddened earth half a world away where you could see clearly for miles. An icy breeze countered my desire for desert winds and inspired a flock of goose bumps on my arms as easily as if I had opened a freezer. I shivered with how near to the truth the notion came.
With the thought in mind, I scaled the final crest and paused, snared by the sight of a black garbed cluster milling beneath the branches of a healthy oak. Dusky clouds silhouetted the branches, the figures, and the accompanying rows of pristine white chairs. The descending sun tinged the backdrop tangerine, the sky itself combating the dour mix below.
My trance broke when Darren arrived at my side. Towering in his rumpled dress shirt, loosened tie, and slate trousers, he stood at once a barricade against escape and my sole haven. Nervousness, however, seemed barely harnessed in his rigid frame and poker face. Regardless of how awkwardly the afternoon unraveled, I sensed how unnerving the entire event had to be for him. Better ways existed to meet the wife’s family, even an estranged one.
His calloused fingers encompassed mine when I took his hand.
“You okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” He formed a bleach-white stage-grin out of his mouth’s slim line.
I smiled, a genuine curl of my lips. No matter how long this took or how uncomfortably the hours transpired, I knew I’d have company when I finally began a second flight from the land of my past.
Hand in hand, we resumed our trek down the lane.
Nearing the roped off grave, details emerged of those donned in veils or hats, suits or dresses; every one of them giving the closed casket and disturbed soil a wide berth. The oak’s rustling leaves muffled their hushed banter but their pruned and sunken features crystallized.
Unbidden names leapt from my memory. I began labeling those in the throng for want of a distraction, but the associations soon had my belly roiling. Pressing my hand against my midriff, I inhaled shallow breaths marred by mothballs and cologne.
“Oh my!”
The husky voice wrenched me from my internal battles and, against my better judgment, I sought the speaker in the ebony crowd.
“Is that little Gracie?”
The smile seizing my lips stung my cheeks. “Hi, Auntie Barb.”
Mom’s best friend and close-enough-to-be sister swooped in from a conversation with another snowy-haired lady I didn’t recognize. Like the rest, Barb wore black from her pointed chin to the hem of pants baggy enough to pass for a skirt. Crow’s-feet pinched her reddened eyes and deeper furrows marked her gaunt face, especially when she smiled. As the gazes of those in attendance turned to me full of muted curiosity, Barb extended her skeletal hands in obvious expectation of an embrace. Bolstering myself, I endured the stranglehold of her hug and her gardenia perfume undercut with a perpetual tobacco stain.
“I’m so glad you made it.” Barb withdrew but kept a manacled lock on my arms. “When Abigail told me where you were,” she said with a furtive glance at Darren, “I wasn’t sure you’d even heard the news.”
I ratcheted up my smile and smothered an urge to rip my limbs free. “The Southern Hemisphere does have telephones, even the Internet these days.”
“Of course.” She inspected my ensemble and then lingered on my tanned skin. After a second subtle flicked to Darren’s warmer pallor, Barb faced me once again. “You’re certainly looking well.”
“You too.” An awkward silence dropped between us and I surged through as rapidly as the stoplight. “I should find Abby and Roger before things get started.”
“I think they’re already seated. I’m just going to step out and collect myself before Father Sawyer begins.”
I nodded, and giving the required blind eye to Barb’s nicotine affliction, I advanced into the horde. Refreshing my smile and the steel in my spine, I started addressing the interceding attendees. The discomfort of being the lone figure not sun deprived and overtly melancholy dissipated as I weaved from one of my mother’s old friends or neighbors to the next. My greeting and canned summary of the years I’d been away rolled off my tongue with ease. Recognition sparked in glazed eyes, and I breathed easier as everyone seemed content with an expression of sympathy, and then the resumption of conversations with more familiar faces. No one asked about Darren although they glanced and would no doubt whisper about the singular dark skinned face in the crowd. Knowing him, the anonymity and disregard would suit him fine. His invisibility act and the repetition of my story, however, ended when we arrived at the casket.
What remained of my family hovered alongside.
A heartbeat later, Roger beamed his ever-dashing smile and flaunted his jazz-hands. “Hey Miss. Ladybug.”
“Hey Mr. Butterfly.”
I stepped into his waiting embrace, well aware we’d have little else to say. The thread counts of his Armani suit coat soothed my desert-rough fingers nonetheless, his lapel a salve against my cheek. Despite my heels, he pecked the crown of my head. When we pulled apart, only the faint creases at his mahogany eyes, silver flecks in his gelled hair, and collar cinched by a gunmetal tie, kept me from feeling eight again.
Abby made up the difference.
“I’m surprised you made it,” she said, her arms folded beneath her ample bust. A matching hip earned from her four kids jutted out in emphasis causing her ankle-length dress to waver like spilled licorice. Her cocked brow absorbed my entire being, and her gaze targeted the curves of my bare legs and skirt’s wrinkles. With a sway of her inky mane, she transferred her powder-blue glare to Darren. “And this is?”
“Darren,” I said. “My husband.”
Abby pursed her lips while Roger, ever conciliate, extended a manicured hand.
“Nice to finally meet you.”
“You too,” said Darren.
As they exchanged a trio of mannish pumps, Abby tipped toward my ear and pitched her reprimand low. “You know that upset her.”
Stoked by a shot of adrenaline, I wheeled on my sister, my tongue laced with similar flame. “Do you really want to dredge this up now, Abby? We eloped six years ago.”
“I just know Mom was disappointed she couldn’t throw you two a proper wedding.”
“Well, we all know how Mom and Dad learned to live with disappointment.”
Abby arched her back, her eyes wide. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Roger grimaced while Darren and the rest within eavesdropping range of our family reunion stared at Abby and me. From the depths of my mind, I heard Mom’s call for us to simmer down and behave like the ladies we were supposed to be. Out of respect for the occasion, I adhered to the ghost’s demand and swallowed the decades-old quarrel. The gulp added fresh bitterness to the sour stew in my gut and sharpened my sister’s accusing glare.
“Well, Grace? What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing,” I whispered, my voice suddenly as scratchy as Auntie Barb’s.
“If I can have everyone’s attention, please?” Father Sawyer placed himself at the head of the casket, a leather Bible in his liver-spotted hands. His black and white robes hung from spindly shoulders and a claret stole draped his turkey neck.
His request further diffused of our near explosion. My sister and I collectively donned our “everything’s fine” veneer and claimed our seats, encouraging the other attendees to do the same.
The actual service proceeded without further stumbles into rutted squabbles. Abby read Mom’s favorite bit of Genesis where everything’s created and Sawyer droned on about what he suspected waited on the other side. Tissues and sniffles replied, while I sat in a cement-hard chair, Darren on my right, Roger to my left. I kept my hands folded in my lap, the demure figure Mom had always expected.
With a gaze already dry from tears shed eons ago, I stared at the lacquered lid covering my mother’s face and I imagined her watching from wherever one ended up. I wondered if she could see us, and if the sight made her happy: the alcoholic divorcee, the gay entrepreneur, the wayward drifter. None of us, I’m certain, turned out how she and Dad had expected or possibly hoped. From the classes and camps we’d each endured, it was clear before his early exit Dad had wanted sports stars, Mom ballerinas or musicians. Instead, we had ended up at the extremes, emotionally, socially, physically, and scattered even when we sat side by side. And with Father Sawyer plodding through a final blessing, I sensed whatever ties connected us whittling away into thin veins of blood.
I found Darren’s hand as a void expanded in the center of my being and threatened to subsume me whole. I didn’t let go when the assembled began dispersing or when we joined the snaking line leading to the parking lot. Auntie Barb and the others said their goodbyes and wished my siblings and me all the best before drifting from the stony reminders of an unavoidable end and, for now, resuming their normal lives.
A smothering silence, one rivaling the nearby graves, descended with the coming evening.
Clutching her forearms, Abby lifted her chin as if her head weighed a ton, perhaps from her own unshed tears or the want of booze gaping behind her eyes. With a bob of her head, she strode across the stalls and disappeared into her van where children had once laughed. I stared at her car, counting the seconds while she gathered her nerves enough to turn the ignition.
As her car finally growled to life, Roger retrieved a card from his inside breast pocket. “Here, ‘bug.”
He pressed the stiff rectangle into my palm before I could examine it. After kissing my hairline with trembling lips, he headed for his Corvette.
I didn’t uncurl my fingers until an entire field of asphalt lay exposed. Roger’s business card filled my hand, the immaculate surface embossed with his name, address, and phone number, each staring at me in a flowing, sage-hued font.
Dents marred the flawless façade, encouraging me to flip the card over. Another telephone number crossed the back in blue ink and Abby’s jagged scrawl.
The card wavered like a heat-distorted road and I blinked away sudden tears. In the lot, I spotted the empty stalls and then the exit that had allowed my brother and sister to disperse as easily as loose sand hurled by the wind. I knew then nothing remained capable of dragging us back together outside the card in my hand. Anything else with such intensions had been buried in lacquer and earth.
Darren touched the small of my back and I welcomed the arm he slipped around my waist as an unexpected weight descended on my shoulders, an ethereal yoke from beyond. I lifted the card.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I think it’s up to you,” he whispered.
I bit my lip, suppressing a tart laugh.
Around us night descended, but before me two diverging paths unfolded. Staring into the darkness, I debated between the pair: one an easy slide returning me to the life full of choices Mom never understood; the other a prickled course back into the lives of the only two people who ever could.