by Meera Lester
“You don’t look so good. Do I need to pull over?”
Cars had been whizzing past them in succession during the eight-minute trip from town to the summit. The shoulder on the right had eroded in places from mud slides during the recent rainy season. Pulling off the road wouldn’t be that easy, but Abby didn’t want poor Philippe upchucking his breakfast muffin on his charcoal linen dress pants. She flipped on the turn signal and prepared to turn.
Philippe swallowed hard. He hung on to his seat belt with a white-knuckled grip. “Much farther?”
“Half a mile more.”
Apparently planning for the worst but hoping for the best, Philippe pressed a white monogrammed handkerchief against his mouth and loosened his raspberry silk tie. By the time Abby had turned off the highway and had traveled a mile or so down a two-lane ribbon of asphalt, some color had returned to Philippe’s cheeks.
They searched for signs along the road for the Church of the Pines, built during the last century. Abby couldn’t use the navigation app on her phone, because it had lost its signal. She braked and searched harder for signs for the church. It was a pretty drive through towering redwoods interspersed with fields. The houses were few and far between, but there were signs of a thriving community—bicycles and trikes in a driveway, a plot of tomatoes growing out front, and chickens and ducks roaming about. The mountain had its own way of linking families through its rugged environment. People had to depend on each other when misfortune or bad weather struck.
As she drove, Abby’s thoughts drifted to Philippe’s family. She wondered how the conversation might have gone between Philippe and his dad about where to bury Jean-Louis. All Philippe had told her was that he had talked with his father by phone and they had decided as a family that a quick burial made the most sense, especially since Abby’s private investigation was ongoing and the health of Philippe’s mother was deteriorating. Nevertheless, Abby decided to broach the subject of Sugar.
“Philippe, could you take Sugar when you return home to New York? I mean, the dog is thirty-five pounds of pure love. And since she belonged to Jean-Louis, isn’t there a chance your mom and dad would also welcome her into their lives? She just needs a bit of training, but she’s smart. Really smart.”
Philippe looked at Abby with an incredulous expression. “I am sorry, Abby. I know you think I should take her. But this dog, I cannot take. I am not a dog person. I do not want the responsibility. And my parents are not able to take the dog, either. My father has his hands full, and my mother, she cannot care for herself. A dog would be too much for them.”
Philippe pressed his white monogrammed handkerchief against his mouth.
“No, you are right. It wouldn’t be good for Sugar, either.”
“There!” Philippe pointed to a narrow dirt road that twisted away from the heat-shimmering asphalt several hundred feet ahead. The weather-beaten gate on the split-rail fence had been flung open wide, as if in permanent welcome to visitors. The church building itself appeared in harmony with a landscape that included many dark and deep canyons; the Las Flores River, which dried to a trickle in the summer but swelled in the winter to fill the local reservoir; and towering coast redwoods, pines, and oaks, which swayed year-round in an ancient dance orchestrated by forceful winds sweeping up the western side of the mountains from the Pacific.
The church’s dark exterior suggested to Abby repeated applications of redwood paint and annual coats of stain, a feature characteristic of buildings in the harsh microclimate of the mountains. A single wooden step rose from the thin soil to the black-handled doors of the sanctuary. From the roof overhang above the entrance, a solitary porch light hung inside a squat metal frame. As Abby studied it before stepping inside, she doubted a single bulb would cast much illumination, but any light, however dim, would facilitate finding the door during moonless nights or during the dark, stormy days of winter, when the fog wafted by in sheets so thick that you couldn’t make out the person standing next to you.
“During our brief phone call,” Abby told Philippe, “the priest said to push the button by the literature table.” She walked straight to it and pressed her thumb against it. “I guess it rings in his cottage behind the church, so he’ll know when we’ve arrived.”
While they waited for the priest to show, Philippe strolled up the center aisle, hands outstretched, briefly touching each carved pew. His steps ceased before the altar, a simple wooden table with four straight legs and draped in a cloth of white lace. The weekly bulletin had been placed on the table, next to a vase of wildflowers and a white pillar candle. Philippe bowed his head slightly and made the sign of the cross so quickly that it almost seemed like a circle. Perhaps it was an old habit, learned in childhood but not practiced so much in adulthood. He walked back to the rear wall, where a religious painting caught his attention. Darkened possibly by candle smoke and exposure to the elements, the painting required close examination to make out the figures. Abby stepped aside so Philippe might peer closely at the images.
He murmured, “This is old . . . beautiful. It needs cleaning.” He stood with fingers interlocked behind his back. “To her, the Samaritan woman, He revealed himself.”
“Yes,” Abby, replied, not sure what to say. She, too, looked intently at the painting, trying to discern the images of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, a Bible story she actually knew. The Samaritan woman was neither Jewish nor chaste, having had five husbands and living with another. Even she was surprised when Jesus asked her, a woman shunned by her own people, for a drink of well water, knowing that it would necessitate Jesus—a Jew—to use her utensil, and that doing so would make him ritually unclean. But he spoke of living water and revealed himself as the Messiah. Philippe was right. Jesus had revealed Himself to her and on many other occasions had demonstrated His inclusiveness of women and men whom society had marginalized.
Philippe heaved a heavy sigh. “God willing, my brother’s soul can rest in peace now.” He stared at the painting, then finally turned and retreated to a pew, where he slid onto the ages-old, worn wooden seat. Hunched over, eyes closed, Philippe fell silent.
Abby strolled quietly and slowly toward him. She marveled at how the clerestory window light bathed the interior and splayed across Philippe’s dark hair, highlighting strands and creating shimmering undertones of color. Shut out of his interior world, she imagined he was thinking about the site they were about to see and perhaps wondering what criteria to use in deciding if it would be the right place for Jean-Louis. Or maybe Philippe was reacquainting himself with interior prayer.
She strolled to where he sat. As she gazed down at his bowed head and perfectly proportioned hands folded in his lap, her heart swelled with the desire to throw her arms around him and to whisper words of comfort. Wasn’t that what he needed? What everyone needed when they felt bereft and alone? But Abby stopped herself—as she always did—with thoughts of how such spontaneity could muddy the boundaries of their relationship. Maybe if she were entirely truthful, it was she who needed the warmth and the words of comfort. She quickly moved past the thought, turning her attention to the church’s sparse design and interior furnishings.
With its lovely simplicity, the small sanctuary could be appreciated not in terms of what it had, but in terms of what it didn’t have. It had no fancy architecture, no stained-glass windows, and no statuary in niches. Rather, the small church offered a cool refuge against the heat of the mountains, a quiet place to sit, and nothing to detract from prayer. The room smelled woodsy, earthy, as if the wooden surfaces had been anointed with oil of cedar, sage, and camphor.
Absorbed in her observations, Abby was surprised to hear Philippe whisper her name. His hand reached for hers. Taking it and responding to his gentle tug as he scooted over, Abby permitted him to pull her gently down into the pew.
Philippe whispered hoarsely, “Who could have imagined such an ending for someone on purpose with his life? He was destined for better things. I can’t make sense
of it.”
Abby shook her head. She was aware only of the gentleness of his hand wrapped around hers, the warmth of his fingers.
“I wrestle with what is not possible to know. Did he die quickly”—Philippe’s voice faltered—“or did he know in his final moments that he was leaving?” He fell silent for a beat. “Has his spirit ascended some great distance or to a place unknowable except in death?”
Abby tried to think of something consoling to say. “Some say we can feel those who love us around even after they are gone.”
“I cannot feel him. And I know not about an afterlife, although my faith tells me there is one.” Philippe stared at the altar.
Struggling with her own feelings of sadness, Abby remained quiet. His dark despair might seem unbearable to him now, but she knew it would eventually lift. She would do whatever was needed to help him through this period—be the caring friend, a warm body sitting close, fully present to his pain.
His voice cracked as he spoke again. “But I am thankful for you. . . . Vous êtes ma lumière.”
She swallowed and looked away. There were times when she wished she could allow herself to express her feelings at the moment she felt them. Referring to her as his light was such a tender thing to say. It deserved a response. But which? A hug, a kiss, a thank-you . . . ? Abby briefly tightened her fingers against his but said nothing. More moments passed, during which she was acutely aware that not only were their hands touching, but so, too, were their thighs.
Abby felt the tension dissipate as the priest walked into the back of the church. She quickly pulled her hand from Philippe’s to swivel in the pew. Philippe lifted his head in alertness as he, too, turned to look at the man of the cloth. The priest looked like an elf. He was short, standing maybe five feet, plus an inch or two. He had a head of thick reddish-brown hair and a short cropped beard. He wore slacks and a dark shirt with a cleric’s collar.
“I see you found the way.” The priest smiled and set aside his walking stick to shake their hands warmly, putting them at ease with a genuine friendliness, which Abby hadn’t quite expected. In truth, she hadn’t known what to expect. But her heart felt lighter, for she thought that perhaps this man of God could help Philippe in his darkest hour.
Abby stared at the walking stick, remembering the story her grandfather had told her about the Glastonbury hawthorn tree that supposedly grew from the walking stick that had belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. After Joseph had journeyed to Glastonbury, in England, he’d plunged the walking stick into the ground, where it rooted. He bequeathed the tree to Glastonbury, but the Puritans came along and destroyed it. But leave it to the monks to have taken cuttings and therefore to have ensured the tree’s survival. After hearing that tale as a six-year-old, Abby had stuck every kind of stick into the ground, hoping for roots, but to no avail.
They followed the priest out of the sanctuary and along a stone path up the steep hill in back of his house behind the church. Alongside the path, chaparral, sagebrush, yarrow, and lupine grew in wild abandon. Abby pointed to the top of the hill, where she could see several moss-covered headstones leaning sideways, as if destined to collapse before another century on the mountain had passed.
“If you would follow me,” the priest said, running his finger around his white neck band. His damp face glistened with sweat from the exertion. Beneath bushy brows, his dark eyes shined. “I have a site in mind. Just over here.”
He led them to a sheltered area under the largest live oak that Abby had ever seen. The girth of the trunk seemed in excess of a couple of yards. The lower limbs curled outward, like ancient gnarled arms of a wise old woman welcoming all to take shelter. When Abby heard the nasal yank-yank from the top of the oak, she smiled in recognition of the red-breasted nuthatch. For a moment, she considered how it might have pleased Jean-Louis to have a feathered friend who, too, flitted between America and Canada.
When Abby climbed a few more steps up from the oak and saw the view, she instantly forgot the bird. Her smile widened and her breath caught in her throat. She could hardly get out the words, “Hurry, Philippe. The fog is rolling back in. You can see across every mountain ridge . . . all the way out to the Pacific. Oh, my . . . it feels like we are next door to heaven.”
Philippe picked his way up to her, the wind whipping at his trouser legs and shirtsleeves. When he finally caught up to her, he was out of breath. He stood quietly, closed his eyes, and seemed to be fully present and anchored. Perhaps he wanted to listen to the birdsong and the wailing wind. Finally, he opened his eyes to take in the 180-degree view. Abby gazed with him. In the foreground were blue-green ridges, like waves on the sea, which towered on a north-to-south axis. The ridges were punctuated with plunging, green forested valleys. More ridges jutted upward as one’s gaze moved farther out, before finally resting on a slip of white coastline and, beyond, a gray fog bank that merged with the sky. In the coastal waters near the beach, the shimmering blue sea was dotted with the white triangles of sailboats, their crews apparently sharing an optimism that the sun would hold and the afternoon sailing would be smooth.
A sudden gust tugged at Philippe’s trouser legs, ruffled his curly hair, and nearly knocked him off balance, causing him to reach out to Abby. “Magnifique,” he whispered. Eyes shining, sounding almost joyful, he practically shouted to Abby, to the priest, to anyone within earshot, “C’est magnifique!” He stepped forward, turned his gaze to the sky, and threw his arms out wide. “Brother, do you not love this place?”
“I take it this spot will do?” the priest asked.
“Certainly seems so,” Abby replied, grinning at Philippe’s exuberance.
Philippe reached out and vigorously shook the man’s hand. “Yes, indeed. This is the place.”
The smiling priest fixed his eyes on Abby. “On the phone, you suggested a short graveside service, right?”
Abby sobered and looked to Philippe for a response.
“Oui, très simple.”
The priest nodded. “Very well, then.”
Stealing a final long look out over the vista, Abby felt a sense of accomplishment. This tiny mountain cemetery might not be the right choice for everyone, but it seemed to have pleased Philippe, and therefore, it was perfect, although the headstones and slabs in the sunny areas were losing the battle with sticktight weeds, sweet broom, and wild onion, and those in the shade had moss creeping over them.
“The area could use a little weeding,” Abby opined on the way back.
“Yes, that work is done by our volunteers, but the work parties are only scheduled the last weekend of the month. No worries. I’ll get a parishioner up here today to whack the weeds so it’ll look nice for tomorrow.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Our community up here is small. It’s made up of independent-minded folks who help one another. It’s not easy in the winter, what with the frequent power outages, fallen trees, and washed-out roads. Old folks want the certainties of retirement living, which includes access to medical care, so a lot of them move back into Las Flores.”
The priest gestured toward the path. Leading the way back down, he explained the burial arrangements as he walked.
“You’ll have to sign some papers, Mr. Bonheur. I’ll need a copy of the death certificate. I ask for a donation only for the graveside service. However, your donation is separate from the plot and the fees for the diggers.”
After nearly slipping, the priest stepped off the path, then dragged a tissue across his forehead to sop up beads of perspiration. With a self-deprecating chuckle, he placed a large boot-clad foot forward a little more carefully.
Nearing the bottom end of the path, the priest raised another concern. “Shadyside Funeral Home will transport the body up here, but do you want a closed casket or a viewing at the grave site?”
Abby looked to Philippe for the answer.
Philippe hesitated, chewed his lip, as if measuring the pros and cons. He ran his hand through his hair. “We’ll have open viewing at Shadyside’s chapel,
but perhaps for a moment or two, I might like to see his face one last time at the grave.”
“So that’s settled.” The priest mopped his face again. “Shall I contact some of our flock to serve as pallbearers?” The diminutive man of the cloth chuckled as he verbalized his thought. “Barring heavenly intervention, I can’t see another way to get the casket up the incline.”
Abby’s wide-eyed gaze met Philippe’s. “We must have them,” she said.
The priest cleared his throat. “Surely the deceased had friends who would want to bring the body up here.”
“Oh, that’s a problem.” Philippe’s face took on a stricken expression.
Abby replied as diplomatically as she could. “We would welcome volunteers.”
“I’ll make some calls,” the priest said. “We’ll gather at the church at four o’clock tomorrow.”
During the car trip back to town, Philippe sat in silence, hands folded, head only slightly moving in gentle rhythm with the radio music. Abby navigated the switchbacks more slowly on the descent, expecting Philippe to get carsick again, but he seemed kind of peaceful, with no signs of feeling ill.
“In about a minute, Philippe, we’re going to take the exit ramp right down Main Street on the way to Jean-Louis’s apartment. What do you think about posting a notice in the window of the pastry shop?”
“Burial notice?”
“Yes. I realize how painful all this is for you, but there might be customers, friends, or acquaintances of Jean-Louis who would want to be there, you know, to honor his life, to say their final good-byes.”
“I do not know his friends. And the notice, it would be too late, n’est-ce pas?”
“Perhaps. But remember, we have his cell phone in the box of materials from the police. We can call the numbers stored in the cell phone contact list. Those phone numbers belong to people that Jean-Louis surely considered important in his life.”