I cry and laugh and cry until I use up all the Kleenexes that Taco has prescribed.
Taco’s boss comes back. She sits behind her desk. “I hope you don’t mind that I left. I thought you could use a little time…and a Taco.” She smiles.
She’s not talking about food, Marty. Just treating you like a normal person. Get used to it.
“It’s a little inside joke around here. Whenever someone is sad, we say they could use a Taco.”
“He must be a busy dog in a place like this.”
“He certainly earns his keep. We don’t allow dogs here, but two years ago he ran away from a funeral and into the bottom drawer of my desk. The old man who was his best friend is buried under there,” she says, pointing to a tree about forty feet from her window. “When I found Taco, I called the relatives but nobody wanted him. He looked so small and sad and scared that I started to cry. He handed me a tissue and I hired him.”
I stroke Taco, who is sleeping on the job.
She leans across her desk and talks to the lump of warm dough, rising and falling in my lap. “Okay, Taco, pick up. Good boy.”
Taco stands, stretches, and takes a little snaky lick of Lily’s cupcake. He picks up Kleenexes from my hand and jumps down to get those that have fallen on the floor. He drops them in the wastepaper basket and disappears around the desk. He gives one sharp bark and scratches at the drawer. The woman opens it and I hear Taco jump in.
She unfolds a pamphlet and pushes it across her desk at me. “Lily is buried in section 32. I’ve drawn a yellow line to show you how to get there.” She clears her throat and says, “I assume you didn’t know Lily for long since you don’t know her last name. Something about Lily’s gravesite struck me as odd, so I did a little digging–sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. What I’m saying is, Lily’s site was purchased almost nine years ago.
“You look upset. I’m sorry. When a child dies, it’s always a tragedy. A tragedy that many people who were close to the child never recover from. I would guess that when Lily was born, something was so wrong that they thought she wouldn’t live.”
“She had a heart condition. I didn’t know until after.”
“And if she’d wanted you to know, she would have told you. Maybe to you she wanted to be just Lily.”
“Maybe.”
“And knowing that she might die, you can only hope she led a full life.”
“Mostly she ran on empty. But I hope she’s making up for it.”
Section 32.
I head for a big cross on an ominous monument. Knowing Lily’s parents. The gravesite is immaculate. Well watered and not a blade of grass any higher than its neighbor, like it was clipped with manicure scissors. And it has a tin cup in the middle. Like a putting green with flowers instead of a flag. It’s not Lily’s. It’s some guy’s named Fred.
I almost miss her grave. Because it’s not the way I imagined.
It’s the way I imagined mine.
Gravestone–black granite. Untidy. Wild roses–pink. Blooms, big and flat like the palm of a hand. Open, so you can see the parts the closefisted roses always hide.
Dandelions stand in the tall grass, like children looking up at their relatives.
Even lilies. With the flowers gone. Only the stems to remind me that they were there at all.
I would love a grave like this. Except for the name…
LILY HILLS
And the date…
DIED–TOO SOON
More Than You Can Chew Page 18