Family Sins

Twenty

The church service was a blur for Bowie, and when it was over, instead of going home, the mourners all lingered, wanting their moment with Leigh Youngblood.

When the family came out of the church, Leigh didn’t get into a car but stayed and let them come to her. Because they were burying Stanton on family ground, most of the attendees would not be at the cemetery, so they swarmed around her, all sincere in their sorrow, too many people all saying the same thing: “We’re so sorry for your loss.”

As the widow, Leigh bore the brunt of so many kindhearted people not knowing when to stop talking, and accepted it with grace. Last night, during a heart-to-heart talk with God, it had finally hit her that she had to let go of the way Stanton had been taken from her. He was just as dead as if he’d died in a wreck or from a lingering disease. Other women bore the same loss, and with just as much grief. She wasn’t unique. She wasn’t special. Her loss wasn’t worse. She had to let go of the rage, because it was not her cross to bear.

Stanton’s sons, with Jesse among them, stood in their mother’s shadow, never very far away should the need to step in arise, tending to their own families while making sure she didn’t need to be rescued.

After a while Bowie had moved through the crowd, whispered in his mother’s ear and then led her away.

Now the hearse was on the way to the Youngblood property, where the body would be laid to rest. It was a silent trip on a narrow winding road, with only family and a few close friends as escorts.

Talia had a horrible sense of déjà vu. She’d been in this same car only a few days before, and here she was again, right behind the hearse.

Leigh had Jesse at her side. What none of them had expected was Jesse’s grasp of death. Despite all the things the war had taken away from him, Jesse still remembered his friends dying and was sad again for them as well as for his father.

It was close to noon by the time they arrived at the Youngblood home. At Leigh’s request, they got out at the back of the house. Bowie took Jesse and, together, they began directing people where to park.

Leigh went straight to the porch swing and sat down. It would take a while for everyone to get there, and then for the pallbearers to gather. The day was sweltering. Sweat was already beading on her upper lip as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Talia was far more mobile now than she’d been on her arrival at the house, and she slipped past Leigh to go inside. Two of Leigh’s friends from church were in the kitchen. They had volunteered to stay at the house and accept the food that people kept bringing, and now they were busy heating up casseroles, and slicing cakes and pies. One long table out on the front porch held nothing but desserts. The entrees were inside, laid out on every table and surface imaginable. It was how sadness was marked in small communities. Feeding the grieving was a way of expressing condolences, and today was no exception.

“Could I have a cup of something cold for Leigh to drink?” Talia asked.

“I’ll get some lemonade,” one of the ladies said, and quickly returned with some in a paper cup.

“Thank you,” Talia said, and went back outside.

She sat down in the swing beside Leigh, and when Leigh opened her eyes, Talia handed her the cup.

Leigh took it and drank thirstily.

“That was so good,” she told Talia. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

“None of us can think of anything else,” Talia said. “My heart hurts for you.”

Leigh slipped her hand beneath Talia’s elbow, then set the swing in motion.

“I don’t remember a thing that the preacher said. Was it a good sermon?” Leigh asked.

“It was perfect,” Talia said.

Leigh nodded, but her gaze was focused on the Pharaoh brothers’ rig parked out by the cemetery. When all was said and done, they’d had to cover the casket. She’d already seen Stanton’s body dressed in his finest clothes inside it. She didn’t want to have to watch them cover him with six feet of West Virginia dirt, but life wasn’t about what you wanted; it was about what had to be done.

She reached over and clasped Talia’s hand.

“I am so terribly sorry for the pain and suffering you’ve endured, but very grateful that you were here with me these past few days. I know it must be especially difficult for you, since you just buried your father.”

“My father’s passing was a gift,” Talia said. “I grieved his loss years ago and wouldn’t wish him back the way he was for even a single second.”

Leigh nodded in understanding.

“You know, honey, I always wanted a daughter, and yet every time there was a new baby, it would turn out to be another little boy. Finally I settled with God and told Him, Thy will be done. Five boys turned out to be perfect. They grew up just fine and have since given me the daughters I always wanted.”

Talia held those words close in her heart.

“Thank you for that. It’s been a long time since I had a mother, so I’m grateful for your presence in my life.”

Leigh leaned over and kissed Talia’s cheek, then watched the growing number of cars driving into the yard, and saw Bowie directing them to park in rows. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Bowie was my firstborn, as you know. Mothers aren’t supposed to have favorites, and I don’t, but he’s so much like Stanton, except for that black hair, which he gets from me. If I squinted my eyes just right, I could believe it was the father and not the son I’m seeing.”

“We’ll come home far more often than he did before,” Talia said. “I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Leigh said.

As Leigh watched, the pallbearers began to gather. Her four oldest sons; Stanton’s brother, Thomas; and his brother-in-law, Carl.

“Where’s Jesse?” Leigh said. “He’s going to walk with me.”

“Over there, with Samuel,” Talia said.

Leigh took a slow, shaky breath. “I guess it’s time.”

Talia stood, and when Leigh stepped off the porch and back out into the sunlight, Talia was holding her hand.

A few moments later they unwound themselves from the gathering crowd and fell into line behind the pastor, who began leading the way to the cemetery just visible through the trees.

Directly behind the pastor, the pallbearers walked with the casket, and behind them, Leigh with Jesse, who was now holding a bouquet of flowers someone had given him. Talia fell in with the daughters-in-law, and behind them came the rest of Stanton’s family. Friends came last, moving in an orderly line, and somewhere along the way a man began to sing. The clear notes of “Amazing Grace” swelled up into the air, floated above the heads of the mourners and dispersed out on to the mountain.

Talia watched the pallbearers as they stepped in unison, strong shoulders, broad backs and, in the Samson-like tradition of their father, their long hair loose and hanging far below their shoulders, as they carried Stanton Youngblood to his grave.

Prayers were said.

Someone was crying. Talia couldn’t see for the tears.

She heard another brief passage from the Bible being read as a blessing to the man in the casket now being lowered into the ground.

When Leigh stepped forward and picked up a handful of dirt, it seemed as if everyone held their breath. When she tossed it into the grave and it hit the top of the casket with a splattering sound, they exhaled as one. Jesse threw the flowers he’d been carrying into the grave and then turned away in tears. Talia saw Bowie catch him and hold him like a baby against his chest, patting his back and whispering to him over and over.

Someone in the crowd began to sing. Someone different this time. A young woman with a mountain twang to her voice singing “I’ll Fly Away.” By the time she reached the first chorus, the air was filled with voices joining in.

The songs were nothing Leigh had planned or expected. Just a simple gift from friends and neighbors to a grieving widow, hoping to soothe her heart with a reminder of the heavenly path Stanton was already on.

It was nearing 2:00 p.m.

The meal was in full swing, and the occasional sound of gentle laughter could be heard out in the yard. Healing sounds. Sounds of life happening and people moving past the grief.

It would take Leigh Youngblood far longer to reach that place, but she was grateful for the presence of family. Even though the thought of eating was impossible, she’d gone outside to walk among the mourners, a chance for one last thank-you to all of them for helping her lay Stanton to rest.

Bowie was sitting on the edge of the porch, talking to a friend from school when his friend suddenly pointed. “Here comes one more,” he said.

Bowie recognized the man coming up the drive on foot.

“Excuse me a minute,” he said, and headed toward his mother, who was facing the house and had no idea her brother was approaching.

Blake was certain that this was one of the scariest things he’d ever had to do. He wasn’t even sure he would make it off the mountain alive, and truthfully, the way he’d been feeling for the past few days, it would be a kindness if his misery would end here and now.

He saw Leigh almost immediately. Even though her back was turned, she was impossible to miss.

And then he saw one of her sons and stopped, waiting to see if he would even be allowed to speak to her.

He watched the tall, black-haired man slip his hand beneath his mother’s elbow and then whisper in her ear. He knew she must be shocked by the way she stiffened, and then she slowly turned to face him.

They stared then, sister and brother, until the thirty years of exile and the heartbreak of what had been done to her found another place to be.

She moved toward him with her son at her side as three more of her boys came running to join her. They said nothing, but they clearly weren’t letting him talk to her alone.

“This is not a place where you will ever be welcome, so what are you doing here?” Leigh asked.

Blake’s voice was shaking when he spoke.

“I didn’t come to say I’m sorry, because there’s no way to apologize for murder. We had a family meeting after Uncle Jack’s arrest, and in a unanimous decision, the only thing we could think to do that would count for anything was to give the land back to everyone who was forced from their homes, along with money enough for them to rebuild what was torn down. Although it counts for nothing to you, we did it in your husband’s name. His name is listed as the owner of each property, and it’s his name that’s on the release giving back the land to each family for the sum of one dollar. He wanted to save them. It seems only fitting that the credit for it happening goes to him, as well.”

Leigh reached for the son closest to her and held on. She could not show weakness to a Wayne. She hadn’t back then when they’d cast her out of the family, and she wasn’t going to do it now.

Blake was still talking.

“We don’t know if any more of us will wind up under arrest, but it doesn’t matter. We’re leaving Eden. All of us. And we won’t be back. We’ve deeded the house and the land to the city. I wish to God I could change the past. I wish to God none of this had happened.”

He stood for a moment, waiting, but Leigh stared him down, then turned and walked away.

Blake looked at the faces of the men standing before him. His blood and yet not.

“It’s time you leave now,” one of them said.

Blake turned around and started walking back down the hill to where he’d had to park his car, and the farther he walked, the faster his steps became, until he was running.

He was out of breath, blind with tears, and shaking like a whipped dog by the time he reached the car. He didn’t know who he was anymore, but he didn’t like who he’d been. He drove off the mountain with a knot in his belly and never looked back.

Ten days later, Talia stood beside Bowie in the shade of three oak trees near the corner of Leigh’s house, watching a dragonfly dive-bombing the water in a vine-wrapped birdbath. The breeze was just enough to cool her skin and push the hem of her pale pink sundress against her knees, and to play with the loose wispy curls she’d left down around her face.

His hand was warm against the middle of her back. His dark slacks and white shirt made him look taller and tanner.

Talia was watching Bowie’s face as the pastor spoke, and she saw a faint sheen of tears in his eyes. She heard Johnny’s baby laughter and his mother’s anxious hush, then she heard the pastor say her name.

“Talia Champion, do you take this man to-”

Everything else faded except the look in Bowie’s eyes.

“Yes, forever,” she said, unaware she’d cut the preacher off in mid-vow.

There was a faint thread of laughter throughout the small gathering. The preacher cleared his throat and turned to Bowie.

“Bowie Youngblood, do you take this woman-”

“I do,” he replied.

The preacher sighed. He’d never been interrupted quite like this before, but he supposed the vows still took. However, he wasn’t going to be denied the perfect ending. His voice rang out like the crashing of cymbals at the end of a long refrain.

“Bowie and Talia Youngblood, you are now man and wife. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. And as pretty as she is, young man, I suggest you kiss your bride.”

All the breath went out of Bowie at once. He meant to tell her he loved her more than life, but he couldn’t find the words, so he kissed her instead, in the presence of God, hoping their missing family members were there with them in spirit.

She smiled as she put her arms around his neck, and then it was done.

Her lips to his mouth.

Heart to heart.

Forever.