Unbury Carol(104)

—

…When Carol brought James Moxie to meet her mother, Hattie knew he must have meant something special to her. Carol had never brought a man home before. At just eighteen years old, Carol probably wasn’t thinking marriage yet, but you never knew. When Carol and James were on their way over, Hattie began the laborious task of cleaning up the workroom, then opted not to. There were plenty of other rooms for the man to see, and besides, a young man had no place being upstairs at Carol’s.

At the front door, when she saw James for the first time, she said, “You’re a gentleman outlaw if I ever saw one.”

Not because he was one. He wasn’t. Not yet. But because the young man had an energy to him that spoke of leaving, rushing, running out to experience the Trail and all the shadows it offered.

Hattie had seen that energy many times in her life.

Instead of showing James Moxie the Box that was only a floor above him for the duration of his stay (she would never show anyone but Carol), Hattie talked about horses and hooves, hats and belts and gloves.

When Moxie left for the night, Carol wanted to know what her mother thought.

“What do I think? I think I figured it out finally.”

“Mother, I’m talking about James.”

Hattie shrugged.

“Come upstairs,” she said. “The Box is more interesting than any young man you bring home.”

She said she thought she’d figured it out. But she hadn’t.

And really no box was more interesting to Carol than this young man…



* * *



—

…Long after Carol married Dwight Evers, Hattie got sick with croup and died. By then Carol was no longer living under the same roof as her and so wasn’t there to test out the Box that Hattie certainly never gave up on. At her mother’s burial, Carol couldn’t help but think of the bizarre bond they’d shared over caskets. As Hattie was lowered into the ground, Carol felt a crazy urge to get up and check the craftsmanship of the box, to make sure that her mother was sleeping in a casket worthy of her work.

She didn’t get up. Instead she gripped Dwight’s hand and Dwight said it was going to be okay. Days later, after Carol woke from a coma Dwight insisted was induced by the stress of losing her mother, Dwight was far south in Baker, dining with friends of his from his youth. Carol looked out the window to see an elderly man approaching on horseback. The man’s white hair highlighted his kind eyes. Up close, though, his eyes were more than just kind, they were truly sympathetic, and Carol understood it had something to do with Mother.

The man, Carol discovered, was there to read her mother’s will, and along with the considerable amount of money that had been left to Carol was a stipulation the lawyer had never encountered before in all his years of public service.

“She’s asked that, upon your death, Carol, a certain casket be delivered to the funeral home that will be handling your burial. Morbid thoughts, I suppose, but consider it a final gift from her…to you. She included a note with these instructions, a note for you.” He shuffled the pages in his hand and cleared his throat. Then he handed Carol the note.

Carol read it.

    My dearest Carol,

I’ve done it. I’ve perfected it. I don’t call it by its rightful name here (TB) because I don’t believe anybody ought to know about it but you. It’s an emergency, if you will, and so long as it’s in my will and the knowledge of it only exists between the two of us, we can successfully eliminate the possibility of a third party muddying up the affair by arguing the thing is too heavy. Too big. Anything of that sort. I’ve fashioned it after a Bellafonte, as though to disguise it. But mark my words, it’s no Bellafonte. It’s a Hattie original. Priceless, I daresay, and certainly capable of lifting much more than a mere 160 pounds of dirt…





* * *



—

…All this, this history, Carol told Moxie as the two held each other in the pines framing the cemetery at the Manders Funeral Home. Farrah sat on a stump nearby but routinely rose to come touch Carol’s arm. Carol also described finding the lever behind the upholstery, just where Hattie had explained it would be. She also retold how the lid slammed down after Farrah had helped her crawl out. How, if she’d been half a minute longer in escaping, it might have crushed her.

“Hattie almost got it perfect,” she said. “But I’m not complaining.”

She told Moxie how she and Farrah repacked the dirt, how and why she didn’t want Dwight knowing she was alive yet, and how she was fortunate nobody but Farrah was in the cemetery to see it all.

Then Moxie said what he’d been wanting to say for a very long time.

“I was a fool.”

“You were chicken-shit is what you were.” Then, after a pause, “But not today. Thank you.”

Moxie stepped closer to her. Farrah tried to look away but couldn’t.

“He was in the box with you?”

“Yes.” She shuddered.

“How did you get rid of him?”

Carol laughed and it was the laughter of an intelligent mind, having played a part in outfoxing betrayal.

“I woke up. And I pulled the lever.”

Then Moxie kissed her. And Farrah, not only unable to look away, clapped.

Carol turned to her. “You!”