They finished their coffee and toast, speaking of people in town. Some Nathan remembered, others not. It didn’t take long for his mother to mention—a hopeful note in her voice—that Elizabeth O’Brien was still living in town. She was an RN now, working at Rosenberg’s. Perhaps he might run into her there?
Rosenberg Senior Care was a low-ceilinged white complex, an old, but well-run (according to Reverend Hayden’s quick reference to it during dinner the night before), nursing and elderly care facility. Nathan’s stomach tightened with the certainty that he and Elizabeth would run into each other. He and Hayden had made the rounds there yesterday, Tuesdays being the scheduled day of their pastoral visits. He hadn’t seen her. Of course, there was always his return visit next week. The thought sent conflicting emotions through him—apprehension, and not a small amount of relief. He kept his expression neutral as his mother spoke. Any idea of rekindling that relationship had to be squelched. He needed to focus on his new job, and Elizabeth’s parting words before he left for his final year of seminary—over five and a half years ago, he realized with a shock—still reverberated in his mind.
He and Elizabeth had been friends in school as long as each could remember. She was an only child, like himself, and they found a kinship in that. As they grew older, their relationship shifted slowly, comfortably, to something more. In many ways they were symbiotic. Nathan was never one for spontaneity. He preferred to plan things out, research the best movie or place to visit before stepping out the door. Elizabeth, on the other hand, enjoyed walking into the Showcase Cinemas and buying a ticket for a film she knew nothing about, on the lookout for something new to jump out at me, as she liked to put it.
He often recalled one particular Saturday during their senior year of high school. Elizabeth drove them in her ten-year old Subaru to the annual Woodstock Fair in Connecticut. She noticed a small sign at the side of the highway, Quilt Museum, Next Exit, and turned off the highway. Much to Nathan’s initial chagrin, they spent the next hour searching the back roads for the museum. It turned out to be an oversized barn in the back of an elderly woman’s yard. The woman was small but full of an excited energy. She gave them a tour of the barn, lighted by a single bare bulb and whatever sunlight streamed through the wide barn door. Nathan and Elizabeth learned the history of every quilt that hung from the walls and beams. The museum was started, the old woman explained, as a way of breaking the routine of her solitude after her husband died, and of sharing her work—all of the quilts were her own—with as many people as possible before she was gone from this world. Eventually, they said their goodbyes and continued on toward Woodstock. But the fair’s crowds and noise couldn’t compete with the simple quiet of that barn. Without Elizabeth’s impulsiveness, Nathan would never have known that lonely women existed, or shared her life for those couple of hours. Nor would he have experienced so many other memories of his teenage years.
With Elizabeth. Always with her.
There was only one aspect of their lives they did not share, try as he might to do so. Elizabeth was not a practicing Christian, though her family belonged to Saint Malachy’s. They’d attended mass, though irregularly, until two weeks before her thirteenth birthday when her father died in a car accident on the way home from work. After the funeral, she and her mother stopped going to church, except for an occasional Christmas or Easter service. Nathan never wanted to push, wanted to live his life in his faith and hope to draw her to the Lord with whatever light he could offer. Casual invitations to attend services at Hillcrest Baptist were always declined.
Six months before that fateful evening prior to his return to the university, her mother had died of a cerebral aneurysm, ten years to the month after her father’s death. Nathan noticed a growing distance in Elizabeth’s voice during the funeral, when talking on the phone from school and in person during that final summer.
As he packed his bags, Elizabeth watching quietly from his desk chair, Nathan had felt a sudden urgency to ask her to attend services with him the next day, before he left for school. She’d become cold, and with too much conviction for Nathan to write off as merely an angry outburst said, “There is no God. There never has been, never will be. Don’t be so naïve, Nate.”
He’d been stunned into silence. He finished packing, trying to think of how to respond. No words came. Even now, whether it was her avid declaration of the nonexistence of God, or the fact that she had called him naïve, that had hit him the hardest, he didn’t know. Perhaps both. The night had ended early, both knowing a hurt had been done but neither knowing what to do about it. Something had fallen between them, an expanse too vast to be bridged. Though he never stopped praying for her, after a couple of unreturned phone calls from his dormitory, he simply stopped calling.
He tried dating on and off with schoolmates, but nothing ever came of it. The link, the comfortable connection he’d always felt with Elizabeth, wasn’t there. Without her influence, his life became a map clearly laid out and always predictable. He threw himself into the final preparations for his Masters of Divinity, and his life of ministry. Tried to let time be the salve which would keep the hurt and memories at bay. Moving to Florida was a shock in itself, a turn in the road that made him begin to think he would be OK. A chance to make his own path, his own changes.
Now, suddenly, he was back home to stay. It didn’t feel like a step backwards. It had been his choice to accept. He could have stayed in Florida, far away in the sun and heat. He chose to come home, and would build his life here.
In order to change the subject from past to present, Nathan told his parents of the twenty-three hour bus ride the day before, leaving out details of his night terrors. When he finally stood and said goodbye, the mood in the Dinneck kitchen was decidedly lighter. For that, at least, he was grateful.
He’d worry about Elizabeth, and his father’s sudden lack of faith, later.
Chapter Eight
Greenwood Street was a long, tree-lined avenue on the far western edge of town, one block from the church. Nathan walked with a forced casualness, keeping pace beside Ralph Hayden who stepped with strong, but achingly slow, confidence. The church’s property abutted a small section of woods separating it from the older town cemetery. It was a warm day for mid-September, almost eighty, and he enjoyed the green tree shadows as they flashed over them. Cooler weather would be coming soon, thankfully. A refreshing change from Florida’s year-round heat. For now, Nathan walked to the entrance of the cemetery with his sport coat draped over his shoulder, hooked by the two fingers of his right hand. Hayden was good company, not offering unnecessary small talk and expecting none in return.
The cemetery looked ancient. The surrounding wall, most likely the original laid down as pasture demarcations in the late eighteen-hundreds, consisted of moss-laden stones, interspersed with a dangerous mix of blueberry bushes and poison ivy vines. The stones themselves were chipped and darkened with age. Hayden muttered, “Here we are,” as they entered through a narrow break in the wall leading to a gravel drive.
Like the wall, the nearest headstones were stained with time, chipped in corners. Some leaned precariously to one side. Many of the graves in this area bore the name “Dreyfus.” A hundred years ago, when the family owned most of this land, they likely had exclusive use of this place for their own interment.
Considering its age, Nathan was impressed with the cemetery’s upkeep. He made a mental note to comment on this when they met Tarretti. According to Hayden, the groundskeeper had worked here for over a quarter century, almost as long as his own tenure. The man lived, and spent most of his time, at the newer property near the center of town. On Wednesdays and Fridays he did the rounds at the older graveyards and so asked them to meet him here.
“He’s a stickler for routine,” Hayden had said this morning before leaving. “You’ll find it easier to work around his schedule than the other way around.”
A rusting white Chevy Blazer was parked near the entrance in a small shady lot tucked
fifty yards from the road. Vincent Tarretti ambled toward them.
“Reverend Hayden.” The groundskeeper was probably in his early- to mid-fifties, Nathan guessed. His long blonde hair had slight gray tinting around the temples and a peppering in his thin beard. He had the tanned, weather-worn skin of someone who spent most of his time outdoors.
“Vincent, always a pleasure.” Hayden gestured to Nathan. “May I introduce my able young protégé, Nathan Dinneck.”
Vincent made a point of shaking Hayden’s hand briefly before looking at Nathan. He said, “Your name sounds familiar. Do you have family here?”
“My mom and dad,” Nathan said, shaking hands. “Unless you mean here.” He gestured to the cemetery. “Not yet, thank God, though my parents own a plot in the main cemetery. At least, I think they do.”
Vincent offered a noncommittal nod and turned to walk between the two men. Having no real destination, they simply followed along.
“Could be,” he said. “I think I’ve met your mother once or twice around town over the years.” He held a clear plastic bag in his hand, partly filled with various flotsam—papers, wrappers, a couple of cans, dead flowers and sticks. As they walked, Tarretti occasionally snatched up some driftwood litter or an aged pot of flowers.
Since the gist of the meeting was mostly to get the two men acquainted, Nathan gave him a quick synopsis of his time in Florida. Vincent spoke solely of his life here in town. The only reference to his past was one mention of “back in California” when comparing the weather.
Though this cemetery was smaller than the newer one across town, it was deceivingly large compared with the view from the road. They walked downhill, moving between headstones in what Vincent explained was a random pattern of travel to avoid marring the grass. Nathan thought that might be going a bit beyond whatever mysterious Rules of Grounds-Keeping might exist.
At the base of the hill, the property opened up. The bordering stone wall broke away to their right. Between two trees, far ahead, Nathan saw the far border. Past that was more woodland. He commented on the size. Vincent nodded.
“Five and a half acres, all told. There’re two older, much smaller lots across town. All of them are dwarfed by the new one, though.” He looked around. “This place was the primary cemetery in town for seventy years. It’s pretty big. The Dreyfus family donated most of it, with the stipulation they get exclusive use of the section closest to the road.”
They turned right and were now walking north, toward the deepest part of the property. Ornate statues loomed over some of the gravesites. Weeping angels, mischievous cherubs, a great many depictions of the Virgin Mary.
They were a hundred yards from the farthest corner when Nathan stopped. Vincent and Reverend Hayden continued on, the caretaker asking the pastor what his plans were after he left the church. They didn’t notice the younger man staring transfixed over the tops of the tombstones.
Two stone angels knelt upon a raised pedestal, wings spread in a glorious and time-stained image of prepared flight. The tips of one merged with the other to form a stone canopy over the gravesite. They were bathed in soft shade from the trees looming over the wall from the woods behind, but he recognized them as the ones from his dream. Had he been here before, maybe as a child? He didn’t think so. Nathan had never been a boy who found graveyards fun places to visit.
When he realized the other men had turned and were regarding him, Nathan forced himself to look away and catch up.
“Everything all right, Reverend?” Ralph Hayden asked.
Vincent Tarretti followed Nathan’s earlier gaze, then looked intently back at him.
“Fine,” Nathan said. “Just admiring the statues in this section. Some are very elaborate.” Try as he might, he found his gaze returning to the far corner, to the twin angels. “Who—I mean, how old are the graves in this area?”
Tarretti continued staring a heartbeat longer before answering. “Oh, quite old,” he said at last. “Most around the turn of the century... the twentieth century, I mean.” He nodded toward the back of the grounds. “Any statue strike you in particular, Reverend?”
The question was unexpected. Nathan was unable to answer at first, feeling like someone caught stealing candy. Tarretti’s eyes locked on him. But he hadn’t done anything. No one knew about his dreams; they couldn’t know. Nathan shook his head. “No, not really. No.”
Vincent sighed and looked at Hayden. “Well, if you two will excuse me, I have a few more things I need to do here before heading back. It was very nice meeting you, Pastor.” He extended his hand, and Nathan took it only after realizing he’d been addressing him, not Hayden.
“You, too.”
“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”
Nathan figured he must be tired. Not sleeping enough, with the nightmares. He nodded and lowered his hand. “I’m sure.”
The three men walked back to Tarretti’s Blazer in silence. After a final round of goodbyes, the two ministers continued on, leaving the cemetery and turning right along Greenwood, heading for Dreyfus Road.
Vincent watched them disappear around the corner then walked back among the tombstones, deciding to do a perfunctory inspection of the grave to assure there were no signs of tampering. The young minister took too much of an interest for his liking. He had no reason to think Dinneck knew anything more about this place than he’d been told today. Still, the unquestionable fact remained that his secret, revealed to the wrong person, risked that knowledge finding its way to his enemies.
Then what?
It was a question he’d asked himself on and off for years, a question his predecessors over the centuries must have asked themselves. A question, he knew, that could never be answered. The Lord didn’t play to lose. It wasn’t His style.
He walked around the base of the statue, below the angels’ dispassionate faces. The grave was, in fact, a crypt built nearly a hundred years ago. It was the only one in this corner of the property. Even so, its nature wasn’t immediately obvious. Vincent wiped a stray hair from his face and looked at the name on the placard. There was no one named John Solomon buried here, save for the legacy of his famous namesake. The groundskeeper thought it was a foolish name to use, too much a beacon to those in pursuit of the treasure.
He thought again of the impending doom that had settled on his heart lately. Change always set him on edge, made him look for the menace behind every new face in town. All this time, and no one overtly paid any attention to this distant corner of this forgotten cemetery.
Until now.
Even so, he needed to be careful. Such an isolated life, even one as self-imposed as his, brought with it too much of his own imagination. At some point, however, his time would run out. Vincent Tarretti was caught in the midst of a cat and mouse game played over the millennia. He didn’t plan on being the one to finally lose. God wouldn’t abandon him. Every change around him promised danger, but there was always hope.
Diligence Always, was his motto. It had to be. In this morning’s case, much could be implied in the changing of the guard at the neighboring church. The old minister’s departure, local boy Dinneck beating the odds and getting such a position.
Maybe.
Vincent squatted and picked up a broken piece of branch, probably fallen in the heavy winds of the night before. He walked to the far wall and tossed it over, then hefted his trash bag and moved slowly back toward the entrance.
Chapter Nine
Late Saturday night. Nathan laid the pen down on the paper and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hayden had turned in at his usual time, leaving him to work on tomorrow’s sermon in peace. Nathan wanted it to be special. Hard enough starting out in a new parish, but his entrance here had to assert his role as spiritual leader over that of little Nate Dinneck come home to roost. His thoughts wandered between the story of the prodigal son, or perhaps Jesus’ return to his own hometown. Of course, in the latter tale, the Lord was not accepted, and in the end the people were worse off
for it.
No, no. Comparing himself to God? Bad idea. He picked up the pen and crossed off that section of his notes.
Over the past few days his concentration had been pulled by the memory of the angels he’d seen over the gravesite on Wednesday. He wished they’d walked the grounds more that morning, gotten closer so he could be certain of what he’d seen. Tarretti seemed to have cut the meeting short after Nathan’s reaction. The caretaker had sensed his thoughts, or so it appeared at the time.
In retrospect, after three days and nights without nightmares, Nathan understood what was happening. First-day jitters. He still couldn’t remember being in Greenwood Street Cemetery, even as a child, but he must have seen the statues before. A brief glimpse walking through the woods, or passing the graveyard in winter when the sheltering leaves had fallen.
The week had been busy, traveling with Hayden to the homes of parishioners unable to leave their houses for services. They moved room to room at both Lakeside Hospital and Saint Vincent’s in Worcester, following the list provided by the administration of Baptist and unaffiliated Christian patients. The Commonwealth had recently passed a law prohibiting hospitals from disclosing patients’ religious affiliations, but Hayden was a very persuasive man when he wanted to be. Besides, most of the staff thought it such a ludicrous law they usually ignored it.
It had been an educational and pleasant few days. Hayden wasn’t much of a talker, but like on their walk in the cemetery, Nathan never felt uneasy with his silences. The old man projected a calm and assurance that was contagious.
He looked back at the paper, considered readdressing Jesus’ homecoming with less emphasis on the comparison to his own situation.
An image of the stone angels came so clearly to his mind again that he had to blink, concentrate to see the hand-written words on the page. An itch in his brain, a feeling like something forgotten. He couldn’t continue like this. He needed to clear the air, somehow dispel any lingering flotsam from his old dreams. Clear his mind for what was most important.
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