Beautiful Darkness(68)

Lucille meowed, scratching at the screen door. Guess she'd heard enough. Harlon James growled from under the couch. For the first time, I wondered what the two of them had seen, hanging around this house for so long.

But not every dog was Boo Radley. Sometimes a dog was just a dog. Sometimes a cat was just a cat. Still, I opened the screen door and stuck a red sticker on Lucille's head.





6.17





Keeping


If there was one reliable source of information around here, it was the folks in Gatlin. On a day like today, you didn't have to look too hard to see most everyone from the town in the same half mile. The cemetery was packed by the time we got there, late as usual thanks to the Sisters. Lucille wouldn't get in the Cadillac, then we had to stop at Gardens of Eden because Aunt Prue wanted to get flowers for all her late husbands, only none of the flowers looked good enough, and when we were finally back in the car, Aunt Mercy wouldn't let me drive over twenty miles an hour. I had been dreading today for months. Now it was here.

I trudged up the sloping gravel path of His Garden of Perpetual Peace, pushing Aunt Mercy's wheelchair. Thelma was behind me, with Aunt Prue on one arm and Aunt Grace on the other. Lucille was trailing after them, picking her way through the pebbles, careful to keep her distance. Aunt Mercy's patent-leather purse swung on the handle of her wheelchair, jabbing me in the gut every second step. I was already sweating, thinking about that wheelchair getting caught in the thick summer grass. There was a strong possibility Link and I would be doing the fireman's carry.

We made it up the rise in time to see Emily preening in her new white halter dress. Every girl got a new dress for All Souls. There were no flip-flops or tank tops, only your scrubbed Sunday best. It was like an extended family reunion, only ten times over because pretty much the whole town, and for the most part the whole county, was in one way or another related to you, your neighbor, or your neighbor's neighbor.

Emily was giggling and hanging all over Emory. “Did you bring any beer?”

Emory opened his jacket, revealing a silver flask. “Better than that.”

Eden, Charlotte, and Savannah were holding court near the Snow family plot, which enjoyed a prime location in the center of the rows of headstones. It was covered with bright plastic flowers and cherubs. There was even a little plastic fawn nibbling grass next to the tallest headstone. Decorating graves was another one of Gatlin's contests — a way to prove that you and your family members, even the dead ones, were better than your neighbors and theirs. People went all out. Plastic wreaths wrapped in green nylon vines, shiny rabbits and squirrels, even birdbaths, so hot from the sun they could burn the skin right off your fingers. There was no overdoing it. The tackier, the better.

My mom used to laugh about her favorites. “They're still lifes, works of art like the ones painted by the Dutch and Flemish masters, only these are made of plastic. The sentiment's the same.” My mom could laugh at the worst of Gatlin's traditions and respect the best of them. Maybe that's how she survived around here.

She was particularly partial to the glow-in-the-dark crosses that lit up at night. Some summer evenings, the two of us would lie on the hill in the cemetery and watch them light up at dusk, as if they were stars. Once I asked her why she liked to lie out there. “This is history, Ethan. The history of families, the people they loved, the ones they lost. Those crosses, those silly plastic flowers and animals, they were put there to remind us of someone who is missed. Which is a beautiful thing to see, and it's our job to see it.” We never told my dad about those nights in the cemetery. It was one of those things we did alone.

I would have to walk past most of Jackson High and step over a plastic rabbit or two to get to the Wate family plot on the outskirts of the lawn. That was the other thing about All Souls. There wasn't actually much remembering involved. In another hour, everyone over twenty-one would be standing around gossiping about the living, right after they finished gossiping about the dead, and everyone under thirty would be getting wasted behind the mausoleums. Everyone but me. I'd be too busy remembering.

“Hey, man.” Link jogged up alongside me and smiled at the Sisters. “Afternoon, ma'ams.”

“How are you today, Wesley? You're growin’ like a weed, aren't ya?” Aunt Prue was huffing and sweating.

“Yes, ma'am.” Rosalie Watkins was standing behind Link, waving at Aunt Prue.

“Ethan, why don't you go on with Wesley? I see Rosalie, and I need to ask her what kinda flour she uses in her hummingbird cake.” Aunt Prue dug her cane into the grass, and Thelma helped Aunt Mercy out of her wheelchair.

“You sure you'll be all right?”

Aunt Prue scowled at me. “ ’Course we'll be all right. We've been lookin’ after ourselves since before you were born.”

“Since before your daddy was born,” Aunt Grace corrected.

“I almost forgot.” Aunt Prue opened her pocketbook and fished something out. “Found that darned cat's tag.” She looked down at Lucille disapprovingly. “Not that it helped us any. Not like some people care about years a loyalty and all those walks on your very own clothesline. I reckon it doesn't buy you a drop a gratitude, when it comes ta some people.” The cat wandered away without so much as a look back.

I looked at the metal tag with Lucille's name etched into it, and slipped it in my pocket. “The ring is missing.”