Perfect Grave

Chapter Twenty-Two

H ome from school, Brady came through the door the usual way.

A pack-drop to the hall floor and a beeline for the fridge.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Have a good day?”

“Uhh-huh. No math homework. I thought we had chocolate milk.”

“You finished it last night. How’re you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did you take your medicine at lunch?”

“Yup, did the doctor tell you what I got, or anything?”

Brady turned with the orange juice box he’d started at breakfast. “Today, I told Justin and Ryan about the MRI, how it was like going into a deep-sleep chamber in space. They thought it was cool.”

Rhonda watched his attention go to the papers, then to the booklet as he read the title: Will I Go to Heaven? She watched him blink a few times, open it, and begin reading. Awareness rolled over him and Rhonda felt the light in their lives darken.

Brady didn’t move.

She watched his chest rise and fall as he continued reading, understanding.

His eyes rose from the booklet to hers.

“Mom?”

“I know. We need to talk, sweetheart.”

He set the booklet and the unfinished juice box on the counter.

“Let’s go to your room.”

Brady’s room was all hard-core boy: walls papered with posters of Superman, King Kong, Spider-Man, and the Mariners; shelves lined with adventure books, model Blackhawk choppers and Humvees. In one corner, his skateboard rose like a rocket from his clothes heap. On his small desk, the secondhand computer Rhonda had picked up at a church donation sale. It was the best she could do. The N key stuck but Brady never complained.

Taking it all in, Rhonda succumbed to the reality that she might never see Brady’s life go beyond his world right here and now. That she might never see him with his first girlfriend, his first car, never see him graduate from high school, go to college, start a career, get married, never hold her first grandchild.

“Don’t cry, Mom.”

Rhonda sat him on his bed next to her.

“Oh sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

“I’m really sick with something and I could die, right?”

She searched his eyes.

“Brady.”

“Mom, am I right?”

She nodded.

“How did you know?”

“By the way you hugged me at the doctor’s office and stuff. I just knew it was serious.”

She looked at him.

“And before, at the hospital, by the way everyone was acting and being so nice to me, the nurses, the doctors, like being all extra nice and everything.”

Her eyes were shiny as she nodded.

“So is it cancer or leprosy or something?”

“You have a mass of cells, a tumor in your head and you’re going to need an operation to remove it.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” she shook her head, “but you have to have it.”

“And if I don’t have it, I could die, right?”

Rhonda’s chin crumpled, her tears flowed.

“Yes.”

“And if I have the operation, I won’t die, right?”

“Yes, the chances are tons better that you’ll be fine with the operation.”

“So when do I have it?”

“In a couple of months.”

Brady thought for a long moment.

“How’d I get this tumor? Is it hered-hair-did, you know, was I born with it?”

“They’re not sure.”

“Could it be from the time Dad hit me for dropping the drill on his foot?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the doctor kept asking me if I ever played sports, or got hit hard in the head. I never told him about Dad. I didn’t think it was right.”

“I understand, honey.”

“I don’t hate him or anything. Sometimes I miss him.”

“Me, too.”

“So how did I get it?”

“No one knows for sure how people get them.”

Brady looked at everything in his room, his secondhand computer, his old clothes, aware of how his mother struggled with money.

“This operation will probably cost us a lot, huh?”

Rhonda stared at the crumpled tissue in her hands.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m going to get a second job. Nights likely, just to help us through a tight patch. So I’ll talk to Alice about having someone watch you.”

“Mom, I’m old enough to watch myself.”

“I’m not old enough to let you watch yourself.”

Suddenly Rhonda felt the breath squeeze out of her as Brady locked his arms around her, holding her tighter than ever.

“I don’t want to die, Mom. I don’t want to go away from you.”

Rhonda fought to find her voice.

“I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to be right here with you. You’re going to be brave and have the operation and be as good as new and I’ll be beside you every step of the way, okay?”

Brady didn’t answer. He buried his face under her chin.

“Okay, sweetheart?”

She felt him nod.

“We’re in this together,” she said.

She heard him sniffle before he pulled away, wiped his tears, then took her hand and held it tight. They sat that way for a long time, saying nothing, just sitting there, like the time they sat near the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Eventually Brady pulled away from her.

“Mom, there’s something I want to do and I want you to say it’s okay.”

“What is it?”

“I have to show you something. Wait here.”

He ran down the hall to his bag and rummaged through it before returning with a hastily folded page ripped from the newspaper. He unfolded it and passed it to her. Slain Nun’s Memorial Will Be at Shelter

After she’d finished reading the story under the headline in the Mirror, she looked at Brady.

“I want to go to Sister Anne’s funeral at the shelter.”

“Why?”

“She came to our school once with these other nuns.”

“I know, and they helped with the big auction for charity.”

“Sister Anne had asked me to help her move some boxes and she started talking to me. I didn’t even know her, but she was asking me about Dad, and how we were doing. I guess a teacher told her that he had died and stuff. She seemed almost worried, like she knew me or something.”

“Nuns can be nice like that.”

“She was really nice and I liked her. She said she was going to pray for us.”

“That was kind.”

“I never told anybody this, but because she was so nice, and taking a picture, smiling, talking like she knew me and stuff, it kinda felt like she was my guardian angel.”

“Oh, honey.”

“So can we go? It’s going to be downtown at the shelter.”

Rhonda reviewed the time and location of the memorial service for Sister Anne Braxton.

“You really want to do this?”

Brady nodded.

“All right.”

Brady took the newspaper from her and reread it.

“Mom, why would anyone want to kill her?”

“That’s a question only God can answer, sweetie.”

“And one other person.”

“Who?”

“The person who killed her.”

She pulled him close and looked out the window. Outside, a gentle wind lifted the branches of the elm trees, carrying a few dead leaves down the street, where they skipped over the sedan parked at the end of the block in the shade of a big-leaf maple tree.