Graveminder

Chapter 12

REBEKKAH WENT THROUGH THE MOTIONS, ACCEPTING CONDOLENCES AND listening to the reminiscences of strangers and of those vaguely familiar. She did so alone.

Byron had come down to the viewing area, now dressed in one of his dark suits. He and William both kept an eye on her, and she knew that at any time they would extricate her if she sent them a pleading glance. Instead, she gave Byron a small shake of her head when he started to approach her.

I am Maylene’s granddaughter, and I will do as we have always done. Together with her grandmother, she’d gone to innumerable viewings and funerals. She politely nodded and calmly accepted hugs and arm pats. I can do this. She was only there for the last hour of the wake, but it felt longer than any she could recall. Even Ella’s.

Thankfully, Cissy and her daughters had left just before Rebekkah had arrived. Overcome by grief , William had said with a stoic expression.

Then the viewing was over. William took charge of the mourners, and Byron came over to her side.

“Do you want a minute with her?” he asked.

“No. Not yet.” Rebekkah glanced over at him. “Later. At the gravesite.”

“Come on.” Byron deftly avoided several people who wanted to speak with her and led her back into his home.

“I could’ve stayed,” she murmured as he closed the door behind them.

“No one’s doubting you,” he assured her. “We have a few minutes before we go to the cemetery, and I thought you might want to catch a breath.”

She followed him into the kitchen. Her dishes still sat on the table. “Thank you. I know I keep saying it, but you really have been better to me than I deserve.”

To avoid looking at him, she busied herself rinsing her cup and plate.

“Our ... friendship didn’t die for me,” he said, “even when you decided to stop returning my calls. It never will.”

When she didn’t reply, he came over and took the cup from her hand.

“Bek?”

She turned, and he folded her into his arms.

“You’re not alone. Dad and I are both here,” he said. “Not just last night. Not just today. But for as long as you need.”

Rebekkah rested her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes for a minute. It would be so easy to let herself give in to the irrational urge to stay next to Byron. In all her life, no one else had ever made her want to stay in one place; no one she’d met since she left Claysville had made her want to think about commitments. Only you , she thought as she pulled away. She didn’t admit that. Not to him. He wasn’t hers. Not really . Not ever.

Rebekkah smiled and said, “I’m going to freshen up before we go.”

She felt his gaze on her as she walked away, but he didn’t say anything as she fled.

When she returned from the washroom, William and Byron stood waiting.

“She didn’t want a procession. It’s just us. Everyone else has gone ahead.” William held out his hand. In it was the tarnished silver bell Maylene had carried with her to the graveside.

Rebekkah felt foolish for not wanting to take it. She’d stood here innumerable times when William wordlessly held that same bell out to Maylene. Slowly she wrapped her hand around it, tucking one finger inside to keep the clapper still. It was meant to be rung at the grave, not here.

She turned to Byron to escort her to the car for the graveside service, just as William had once escorted Maylene. Byron would take her where she needed to go. His presence at her side since she’d returned last night felt right, just as it had when she first moved to Claysville, just as it had when Ella died, just as it did every time she saw him.

I can’t stay here. I can’t stay with him. I won’t.

As she clutched the bell in her hand, Rebekkah slid into the slick black interior. She put a hand out for the door, effectively blocking him from joining her. “Please, I would prefer being alone.”

A flash of irritation flared in his eyes, but he said nothing about her rejection. Instead, his professional guise reappeared. “We’ll meet you at the cemetery,” he said.

Then he closed the door and went over to the waiting hearse.

I can get through this without him ... and then leave.

Without Maylene, Claysville was just another town. It wasn’t really home. She’d tricked herself into thinking there was something special about it, but she’d lived in enough places to know better: one town was no different from the next. Claysville had some odd rules, but none of that mattered anymore. Maylene was dead, and Rebekkah had no reason to keep returning here now.

Except for Byron.

Except that it’s still home.

Rebekkah watched out the window as the hearse pulled into the street; her driver eased out behind it, following William as he drove Maylene to her final resting place.

When the driver came around and opened her door, Rebekkah could already hear the overdramatic wailing. Cissy’s here. Ringing the bell as she walked, Rebekkah made her way across the grass to the chairs that were lined up under the awning. She reminded herself that Maylene would expect her to be on her best behavior. She’d arranged everything, no doubt hoping that easing the stress would make this moment more bearable, but even careful planning couldn’t negate the headache that Cissy would inevitably cause. Maylene’s daughter was contentious under the best of circumstances. Her venomous attitude toward Rebekkah had been a source of irritation to Maylene, but no one would explain to Rebekkah why the woman hated her so much. She’ll come around , Maylene had assured her. To date, that hadn’t happened; in fact, the animosity had grown to the point that Rebekkah hadn’t exchanged words with Cissy in years. Her absence at the end of the viewing had been a wonderful respite, but it wasn’t a kindness: it was merely a way for her to be first at the gravesite.

As Rebekkah approached the grave, she swung the bell more forcefully.

The volume of Cissy’s caterwauling increased.

One hour. I can handle her for one hour. Rebekkah couldn’t toss her out as she so dearly wanted to do, so she walked to the front and took her seat.

I can be polite.

That resolve lessened when Cissy approached the now-closed casket.

Lilies and roses swayed atop Maylene’s casket as Cissy clutched it, her short fingernails skittering over the wood like insects running from light. “Mama, don’t go .” Cissy wrapped her fingers around a handle on the side of the casket, assuring that no one would be able to pull her away from it.

Rebekkah uncrossed her ankles.

Cissy let out another plaintive cry. The woman couldn’t see a casket without wailing like a wet cat. Her daughters, Liz and Teresa, stood by uselessly. The twins, in their late twenties now, only just older than Rebekkah, had also gotten to the gravesite early, but they didn’t try to calm their mother. They knew as well as Rebekkah did that Cissy was putting on a show.

Liz whispered to Teresa, who only shrugged. No one really expected them to try to convince Cissy to stop making a spectacle of herself. Some people couldn’t be reasoned with, and Cecilia Barrow was very much one of those people.

Beside Maylene’s casket, Father Ness put an arm around Cissy’s shoulder. She shook him off. “You can’t make me leave her.”

Rebekkah closed her eyes. She had to stay, to say the words, to follow the traditions. The urge to do that pushed away most everything else. Even if Maylene hadn’t made her swear on it enough times over the years, preparing her for this day, Rebekkah would feel it like a nagging ache drawing her attention. The tradition she’d learned at her grandmother’s side was as much a part of funerals as the coffin itself. At each death they’d been together for, she and Maylene had each taken three sips—no more, no less—out of that rose flask. Each time Maylene had whispered words to the corpse. Each time she refused to answer any of the questions Rebekkah had asked.

Now it was too late.

Cissy’s shrieks were overpowering the minister’s attempt to speak. The Reverend McLendon was too soft-spoken for her voice to be heard. Beside the minister, the priest was trying again to console Cissy. Neither one was getting very far.

“Fuck this,” Rebekkah muttered. She stood and walked toward Cissy. At the edge of the hole where they’d inter Maylene, Rebekkah stopped.

The priest looked almost as frustrated as she felt. He’d dealt with Cissy’s performances often enough to know that until someone took her in hand, there wasn’t a thing they could do. Maylene had handled that, too, but Maylene was gone.

Rebekkah wrapped her arms around Cissy in an embrace and—with her lips close to Cissy’s ear—whispered, “Shut your mouth, and sit your ass down. Now. ” Then she released Cissy, offered her an elbow, and added, at a normal volume this time, “Let me help you to your seat.”

“No.” Cissy glared at the proffered arm.

Rebekkah leaned in closer again. “Take my arm and let me help you to your seat in silence, or I’ll tie up Maylene’s estate until your daughters die bitter old bitches like you.”

Cissy covered her mouth with a handkerchief. Her cheeks grew red as she looked around. To the rest of the mourners, it looked like she was embarrassed. Rebekkah knew better; she’d just poked a rattlesnake. And I’ll pay for it later. Just then, however, Cissy let herself be escorted to her seat. The expression on Liz’s face was one of relief, but neither twin looked directly at Rebekkah. Teresa took Cissy’s hand, and Liz wrapped her arm around her mother. They knew their roles in their mother’s melodramatic performances.

Rebekkah returned to her own seat and bowed her head. Across the aisle, Cissy kept her silence, so the only sounds beyond the prayers of the priest and the minister were the sobs of mourners and the cries of crows. Rebekkah didn’t move, not when Father Ness stopped speaking, not when the casket was lowered into the earth, not until she felt a gentle touch at her wrist and heard, “Come on, Rebekkah.”

Amity, one of the only people in Claysville Rebekkah kept in sort of contact with, gave her a sympathetic smile. People were standing and moving. Faces she knew and faces she had seen only in passing before turned toward her with expressions of support, of sympathy, and of some sort of hope that Rebekkah didn’t understand. She stared at them all uncomprehendingly.

Amity repeated, “Let’s get you out of here.”

“I need to stay here.” Rebekkah moistened suddenly dry lips. “I need to stay here alone.”

Amity leaned closer and hugged her. “I’ll see you back at your grandmother’s house.”

Rebekkah nodded, and Amity joined the crowd of people who were leaving. Semi-strangers and family, friends and others, they walked past the casket and dropped flowers and earth into the yawning hole. Lilies and roses rained down on Maylene’s casket.

“Wasting all that beauty,” Maylene whispered as they dropped flowers on another casket. “Like corpses have any need of flowers.”

She turned to Rebekkah with her serious look. “What do the dead need?”

“Prayers, tea, and a little bit of whiskey,” then-seventeen-year-old Rebekkah answered. “They need nourishment.”

“Memories. Love. Letting go,” Maylene added.

Rebekkah waved away Father Ness and Reverend McLendon as they tried to stop and comfort her. They were used to Maylene’s eccentricities—and Rebekkah’s staying with Maylene while she lingered with the dead. They’d leave Rebekkah alone, too.

Once everyone was gone, once the casket was covered, once it was just her and Maylene alone in the cemetery, Rebekkah opened her clutch and took out the rose-etched flask. She walked up to the grave and knelt down on the earth.

“I’ve been carrying it since it arrived in the mail,” she told Maylene. “I did what the letter said.”

It had seemed wrong to put Holy Water in with good whiskey, but Rebekkah did exactly as she’d been told. There were always plenty of bottles of Holy Water in Maylene’s pantry. Holy Water and heavenly whiskey. She opened the flask, took a sip, and then tilted it over the grave once. Tears streamed over her cheeks as she said, “She’s been well loved.”

She took a second sip and then lifted the flask in a toast to the sky. “From my lips to your ears, you old bastard.” Then she tilted it over the grave a second time.

“Sleep well, Maylene. Stay where I put you, you hear?” She took a third sip and then poured the flask’s contents onto the earth a third time. “I’ll miss you.”

Then Rebekkah finally wept.