by Jaime Maddox
“So all the businesses are still running?”
“Yep, and Parkers are managing all of them. My uncle runs the excavating company and the landfill, and my dad is here and at the quarry. He actually overseees everything. But there are still Parkers in every one of the family companies.”
“I’m glad you survived Home Depot.”
“Yeah, me, too! People know us, and they trust us, so we hang in there. And we give good prices to the contractors, plus we’re in a convenient spot, so it works out. Hey, do you wanna look around? We have some pictures hanging in the office I’ll bet you’d like to see.”
Sure enough, a book of her family history written in pictures hung on the wall of the lumberyard office. She remembered some of the photos. They’d been there even when she was a child, and she told him so. Their rediscovery was like opening a gift on Chrismas. Smiling, she took a journey back in time. There was her grandfather and his brothers as boys, and again as young men, with mayors and governors and other stately looking people whose importance had faded with the ink on the paper. She noticed new photos as well, and newspaper clippings of Dale and Governor Shapp touring after Agnes, others with Congressman Dan Flood and the mayors and councilmen of the towns where the Parkers were helping to rebuild.
Trying not to show her emotions, Sandy cleared her throat and took a moment to collect herself before speaking. “These are amazing, Danny. Thanks for inviting me back here.”
Business had grown, and even though she had no connection to this branch of the Parker tree, a sense of pride filled her that they were still going strong. The grandfather who had climbed out of a coal mine in England with barely enough money to buy passage on the boat to this country had definitely left his mark.
“I’ll make copies for you,” he offered.
Sandy grinned in response. “Wow. That would be great.”
She dictated her contact information to Danny, and noted that he wrote with his left hand.“Another lefty,” she observed. She was also left-hand dominant, and her grandfather had been as well. In his day, it had been more of a challenge. Laughing, he’d told stories of trying to do things the “right” way for many years, trying to be just like his two older brothers before finally accepting that he was just a little different. He had tried so fervently to use his right hand that even as he grew older he still did some things with his non-dominant hand. As a young golfer, he’d never had much power off the tee until his father gave him custom-made left-handed clubs. With the proper equipment he went from shooting the highest scores in the family to shooting the lowest. As Sandy shared that story with her newfound cousin, she experienced great memories of her grandfather.
Danny shared some of his information with Sandy as well. The seventh man in the family named Daniel Trevor Parker, he was the only one in generations who was called Danny. The others had interesting monikers such as Cowboy and Bear, and his own father had always been known as Dan. He was a college student but had been working at the lumber yard since he was a kid. Since summer was the busiest building season, he worked full-time during breaks from school.
Impressed, Sandy was elated that she had made this spur-of-the-moment decision to stop in. As they bid farewell, Danny promised to personally copy every picture on the walls of the office and send them to her. And he refused to accept the money she offered in payment. He glanced at the note he’d written and confirmed the address.
“This address is in the Village, isn’t it?” he asked when he glanced at it. He looked up and studied her more carefully, clearly more curious about this long-lost cousin.
Studying him right back, Sandy nodded. How did a twenty-year-old from Nanticoke know the Village?
“I spend some time in the Village,” he confessed, and a knowing look passed between them. “I’m a senior at NYU. Well, I will be in a few months, anyway.” He told her where he lived and both suggested good places to eat in their respective neighborhoods.
Sandy smiled. “It’s a good place to live. You have culture, great restaurants, interesting people. Please call me if you venture downtown. I’d love to talk to you some more. You can even stay with me, if you’d like. I have a spare room.”
“I just might take you up on that. I usually need a place to crash when the bars close.” He glanced again at the paper Sandy had given him. “It’s just easier than trying to find a cab.”
Sandy tried not to sound too motherly. She’d been his age once, and she’d been as adventurous as anyone. “Spoken like a true kid. Are you even old enough to drink?”
“I’m almost twenty-two!”
“Practically ready for retirement. The bar scene grows old when you can afford to buy a whole bottle of your own booze.”
“Maybe, but I’ll probably never have a dance floor or a DJ in my house.”
Laughing, Sandy shook her head. “You’re not like the Parkers I remember, Danny. In fact, if you didn’t so strongly resemble them, I might wonder where you came from.”
Rolling his eyes, he sighed dramatically. “I wonder that all the time.”
*
After avoiding West Nanticoke for all those years, Sandy found herself back for the second time in as many weeks. Passing through the grand gate of Riverview, she pulled her car to the curb. Workers were disposing of a fallen tree, cutting it into small logs that would surely become their winter firewood.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she greeted the two workers. “Can either of you tell me who’s in charge at Riverview?” The funeral director had handled all of the arrangements for her grandmother and she hadn’t spoken to anyone from the cemetery on the day of the funeral.
Wiping his hands on his shirt, the elder of the two men stepped forward and held out his hand in greeting. About her age, he appeared neat and clean despite the job he was doing. “I’m Rob Burns, the superintendent.”
Sandy stared at his face for a moment before breaking into a wide grin. “Robbie?” she asked. Robbie’s father had managed all of their rental properties, and Robbie had often helped on projects at the house on Canal Street. He had also been her classmate.
“No one has called me Robbie in a long time,” he answered, his tone light.
“I’m Sandy Parker.”
“It’s been a long time, Sandy, hasn’t it? You left after Agnes, right? Never came back?”
She nodded. “Haven’t been back till a couple of weeks ago.” She studied him for a moment. His dark hair was covered by a baseball cap, but showed a touch of gray on the sides. He was never handsome, but his face was gentle and there was still a smile in his eyes. And he was tall! The scrawny boy had filled out into a well-built man with a long, muscular frame.
“I’m sorry about your grandmother. She was always very kind to me. She was a good cook.”
Laughing, Sandy didn’t betray the well-kept secret that Nellie’s cook prepared all the meals she never failed to take credit for. As a youngster she was quite a fussy eater, and Sandy was tortured by the cook’s menu. Preferring peanut butter and jelly, she was forced to sample such delicacies as lamb chops with mint jelly and rare prime rib. She had spent mealtimes sweating through the few mandatory bites required to qualify as having eaten dinner before escaping the table. Later, after all the offensive food was put away, she’d eat cereal or a cookie. It wasn’t until college that a regular diet of cafeteria food made her realize the error of her ways.
Apparently Robbie Burns’s palate had evolved at a more hurried pace than her own. “Oh, God, Robbie. You should have lived there. I’d have killed for a burger for dinner once in a while.”
He gazed off into the mountains across the Susquehanna, the expression on his face reflecting the sweet memory. “Well, the grass is always greener, isn’t it? Anyway, how can I help you today?”
“I need some information. I want to put a gravestone on Jeannie Bennett’s grave, and I don’t know how to go about doing that. Do I need to contact the family to get permission? How does this sort of thing work?”
Robbie was silent, apparently thinking. “I don’t believe I know the answer to that question. I’d start by just asking the family.”
“Okay, I can do that. Do you happen to have contact information?”
“How about meeting me in the office in about fifteen minutes?” He pointed in the direction of an unpainted cinder-block structure off in the woods to the left of the main cemetery road.
She agreed and climbed back into her car, then headed toward her family plot. She was able to see the stone from the car, but climbed out anyway. It was beautiful, with a delicate latticework of flowers bordering it on the left and top. Her grandmother’s date of departure had been carved into the granite, completing the work that had been started when her grandfather passed away so many years earlier.
As was her habit, she sat and enjoyed the quiet beauty that was Riverview. After a while, she spoke. “I’m probably going to be back here again soon, but don’t worry—I won’t make a habit of it. I’m buying Jeannie a headstone. Can you believe the Bennetts? I don’t even know what to say. You of course probably wouldn’t care, but I do. She was an amazing girl, and there should be a little piece of rock over there that says so.”
Sitting in silence, she studied some of the stones in her sight. A few were emblazoned with flowers, like her grandparents’. There were quite a few crosses and cherubs. Lute Grabowski, her old fishing buddy, had died in 1978. A true outdoorsman, his stone was a piece of art, adorned with a hunting cabin and a pond, and a twelve-point buck looking off in the distance. Sandy wiped away a silent tear. Lute was two years younger than her and only twenty years old when he died. Sandy never even knew he was gone. Just like Jeannie, he was someone of such great potential, cut down when he was just a baby.
Preoccupied with finding the protocol to obtain a stone, she had given little thought to what she would actually put on it. At a glance it was obvious that she couldn’t go wrong with flowers. Or cherubs. The cross was out. At the time of her death, like many of her generation, Jeannie had been vacillating between atheism and agnosticism. This while she attended the weekly church services required by her parents in exchange for such privileges as spending the night at Sandy’s house.
The carving Sandy chose was quite literally going to be set in stone, so she realized she would need more time to ponder her options. Jeannie deserved something special. She wanted it to be perfect.
Wrapping up her thoughts she walked toward the building Robbie had specified. It wasn’t much of an office, more of a garage with a desk tucked neatly into a corner, but it was well organized and clean. She accepted the proffered seat in a busted office chair. She crossed her ankles and leaned back, trying to relax. Just thinking about the topic agitated her.
“Now tell me what you’re looking to do, Sandy?” he said.
Sandy offered the abridged story.
“I can check with the attorney, but like I said, it might be best to just ask the Bennetts about it.”
Robbie turned and removed a primitive file box from a corner, and as he rooted through the Bs Sandy marveled that so many dead bodies could be linked to so few filing cards. It was because of people like the Bennetts, who were buried by the dozen in the family plot. All of them shared one card.
“Here it is,” he said. “Helen Bennett.” He read the phone number.
Sandy tried to keep the chuckle out of her voice as she pointed over his shoulder through the wall of the garage and into the cemetery. “Robbie, Helen Bennett was planted over there almost ten years ago.”
Looking contrite, he offered an apology. “Someone just forgot to make the change on the card. It’s not a big deal, really—we don’t usually have to call families. Once in a while if there’s a storm and damage to a headstone. Usually people are the ones calling us.”
“Does that card tell you which grave is Jeannie’s?” she asked, nodding to the paper in his hand.
“No, but the blueprints do. No need, though—I can tell you she’s buried right next to her father.”
Swallowing a lump that formed unexpectedly in her throat, Sandy nodded. “Oh. Okay.” That was fitting, it seemed. They had been close.
Robbie pulled something from his pocket and began rubbing it between his fingers of his left hand as he wrote with his right. He suddenly seemed nervous, moving in his chair and glancing over her shoulder and out into the sunshine. He handed Sandy a scrap of paper that he had inscribed with Helen Bennett’s number.
“This is Mountaintop, isn’t it?” she asked, glancing at his writing.
He nodded in agreement and Sandy probed further. “Is there anything at all you might have written down? How about the name of the funeral home they used, or maybe an address?”
Frowning, he shook his head and shrugged. “I wish I could do more to help you.”
As Sandy studied him, Robbie moved the object in his left hand to his right and she caught a glimpse as his thumb began rubbing circles around what appeared to be a watch face.
“Whatcha got there?” she inquired. It looked like a pocket watch, an old model from what she could see.
Nervously, Robbie chewed his lip and contemplated for a moment before he lifted the watch to show her. “My grandfather’s watch. I inherited it when my father died.”
Her jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide as she sat forward in her chair, focusing on the watch in his hand. Then she gave a peaceful smile as she remembered a similar watch once worn by her own grandfather. “Wow, Robbie, it’s amazing that you still have this. May I?” she asked, and held out her hand.
Gingerly, he placed the watch in her palm. Bringing it closer, she studied the piece. It was a replica of her grandfather’s, a side-winding, stem-wound model popular during an era when men wore three-piece suits and the pocket on the vest wasn’t sewn closed. The gold face was carved into the image of one of the collieries that processed the coal from the Parker mines. The glass had suffered minor scratches over the years, and the gold was worn, but the face was still perfect. As she held it in her hands she listened to the rhythmic ticking that hadn’t been audible from just a few feet away. For the second time in an hour, Sandy journeyed back in time, and for the second time it felt good to make the trip. After spending a lifetime avoiding her childhood because of the memories of Jeannie Bennett, she was glad she’d finally come home.
“I remember your dad talking to my grandfather about the mines. They were just about closed by the time I was born, but your dad still remembered when they were running. Your grandfather was a miner?”
“They gave him this watch for saving some miners in a collapse. He drug seven men to safety, risking his own life. Right after he rescued the last one, the mine flooded. If it wasn’t for my grandfather, they all would have drowned.”
Sandy leaned back into the creaking chair and smiled at him. “Wow, Robbie, what a great story. He was a hero.”
“Yes, he was.” Rummaging through a file he pulled from a drawer, Robbie located an ancient newspaper article depicting the tragedy at the Parker mine. There was a picture of her great-great-grandfather, who was still in charge then, and a young Bill Burns, the hero who had saved his co-workers. Sandy read the article with a sense of both pride and sadness. It mentioned the outstanding safety record of the Parker mines, yet she knew many men had died in them over the years, enabling her family to make their fortune. Even though the mines had given her family their start, she was happy they had closed and men no longer had to crawl in the dark earth to earn their keep.
Handing the watch back to him, she wished for a moment her own grandfather’s timepiece had survived Agnes. Just like everything else, it had been lost in the flood.
Sandy shook his hand and wished him well, thanking him for his troubles. She was just about to turn and walk away when she spotted a battered tome atop a filing cabinet. The spine was facing opposite her, so she couldn’t be sure what the book was.
“Is that a phone book?”
Robbie glanced over his shoulder. It was indeed. A ten
-year-old issue. “But you already have the phone number.”
“But not the address. If I find the address, I can show up at her house. Maybe the new owner will have some information for me.”
Handing her the battered book, he congratulated her on her great luck and good idea. It would have been a huge effort to track down a phone book from the years before Helen Bennett died.
“Cross your fingers, Robbie,” she said as she flipped through the Bs. Then she sighed, and Robbie did as well. While hundreds of people were named Bennett, none were listed as H. or Helen Bennett.
“I guess it was too good to be true.”
With nothing else to say, Sandy agreed. “Yes, I guess it was.”
*
Robbie Burns stood watching, silent and still, as Sandy Parker drove away. If appearances meant anything, Sandy Parker still had money. One could never be sure, Robbie knew—many people splurged on fancy cars and expensive clothing, but at the end of the month they couldn’t pay their bills. He still owned the apartments his father had purchased from the Parkers years earlier, and he often walked past brand-new cars to knock on tenant doors in search of the rent they owed him. It wasn’t unusual to be turned away until payday, or to be handed a check dated a few days ahead.
Sandy’s loafers would probably have paid his cable-television bill for the month, and that included high-speed Internet access. She’d driven away in an expensive foreign car, her diamond earrings glittering in the morning sun. More than that, though—she still carried herself with a confidence that gave a legitimacy to all the props. He knew the purse was authentic Coach and rocks were not cubic zirconium. Sandy Parker still had money.
It shouldn’t have surprised him that she was doing well. Unlike his people, everything had always come easily to the Parkers. His ancestors had toiled in the mines, contracting diseases like cancer and black lung that sent them to early graves. Nellie Parker had lived to be ninety-eight! With the exception of this generation, no Burns family member had ever lived to their seventh decade. For their sacrifice they were paid a pittance. And while the Parker mines were known to pay a more generous wage to their laborers than the others, it was nothing compared to the fortune the owners brought home. The Parker mines claimed the best safety record of any mine in Pennsylvania, but that meant nothing to the families of the men who were killed in the explosions and drowned when the mines flooded. They gave their lives, and the Parkers took the profits.