Grave Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  The radio weathercast now predicted six to eight inches. Even Pace’s bursitis had underestimated the accumulation. I had the choice of driving five miles out to my cabin or spending the night at the funeral home. The only obligation I had at the cabin was my roommate, George Eliot. George was a Peruvian long-haired guinea pig, and her three water bottles and self-filling feeder ensured she would survive the blizzard for a few days.

  Although the jeep could navigate the roads without any trouble, it wasn’t the roads I was worried about. Other drivers were the greatest hazard to my safety. Give a southern good-ol’ boy a snow-packed road and he’ll do something stupid with it every time, usually involving a souped-up Camaro and a six-pack. I decided I’d enter the funeral home vertically instead of horizontally.

  I drove down Main Street without passing another vehicle, which in my hometown wasn’t unusual after eight at night. The light from Gainesboro’s streetlamps became pyramids of animated snowflakes, and the dying business district took on a charm that temporarily masked the ravages caused by the strip malls along the nearby interstate. At least Wal-Mart wasn’t offering funeral services—yet.

  Clayton and Clayton Funeral Directors operated from the same white antebellum home my grandfather purchased in 1930. Set back on a rolling hill on the outskirts of town, it projected a tranquility and stability that served our clients well, and it was also a home in every sense of the word. Mom and Dad still lived on the second floor.

  Jack Clayton had been a pillar of the community, a revered citizen and friend to those in need. So, when one day he pulled out of a funeral procession and passed the hearse, not only was the family he was driving shocked, but the whole town was shaken by the revelation: my father suffered from the early onset of Alzheimer’s.

  That had been over six years ago. For the next three years, he and Mom tried to run the business while searching for a buyer. None of the chains were interested, and my uncle Wayne had neither the finances nor the desire to take on full responsibility. By then Dad’s condition had deteriorated to where there were more bad days than good days and all the cheat sheets and memory tricks he had devised no longer served to get him through basic interactions.

  So, I left my job on the Charlotte police force, abandoned my criminal justice studies at the university, and returned home to help. The choice cost more than my career; my marriage didn’t survive the strain and Rachel had moved to Washington D.C. and all the things Gainesboro was not. Although the divorce was amicable on the surface, bitterness filled my life and threatened to consume me with self-pity.

  Then about two years ago I met Susan Miller. She had appeared at a graveside ceremony, standing with the family of a seven-year-old girl her skills had not been able to save. Their grief was her grief, and her tears had touched my heart. Now I feared an intruder in the grave of Pearly Johnson would become an intruder between Susan and me. Where one grave had brought us together, another might tear us apart.

  I turned onto the unblemished snow-covered side street by the funeral home. The second floor lights were on and I caught a glimpse of my father peering through his bedroom curtains at the wintry spectacle captured by the outside floodlights. He could have been standing there for a minute or for an hour.

  The garage behind the funeral home had been constructed to shelter four vehicles: a hearse, a family limousine, a personal car, and an ambulance. From 1930 to 1962, Clayton and Clayton Funeral Directors also provided emergency rescue service for Laurel County. Dad told of many a night being roused from his bed to transport a birthing mother whose baby wouldn’t wait or a bleeding driver who had tried to straighten out a mountain road. When the county established its own paramedic unit, my father and my uncle Wayne gladly sold them the ambulance as backup. I had always wondered why the community wanted a business whose revenue came from burying the dead to be responsible for keeping someone alive. It must have been a tribute to the integrity of Clayton and Clayton that no one saw the conflict of interest.

  I parked my jeep in the bay once occupied by the ambulance and tromped along the hidden sidewalk to the back door. My Docker moccasins were no match for the snow and I felt the cold powder penetrate my feet from heel to toe. Fortunately, I kept extra clothes and boots in a spare closet just for such an unexpected overnight visit. Weather respects neither the living nor the dead.

  I slipped my shoes off on the back porch and entered the kitchen in damp stocking feet. Mom stood at the kitchen sink, wearing a calico apron and washing up the supper dishes. “Trying to sneak up on me?” she asked without turning around.

  “I knew you saw me through the kitchen window.”

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Yes, and for a moment your hair was as white as mine. Dry it with a towel before you catch your death.”

  Mom and Uncle Wayne both had hair the color of cotton, but where she stood a smidgen under five feet, my uncle topped six. Mom was a rotund bundle of energy; her brother, an easy-loping “tall drink of water,” as the locals described him. Walking together, they looked like a bowling ball and a bowling pin.

  “Do you want something to eat? There’s some cold chicken in the refrigerator.”

  The mention of food triggered a pang in my stomach. My last meal had been a bowl of granola and apple juice at breakfast. “Thanks, and I’ll finish cleaning up. I’m here for the night, if that’s all right.”

  Mom grabbed a plate from the shelf. “I’ll rest easier knowing you’re not out on the road. Sit down and I’ll fix you a plate.”

  I slid into my customary place. The chrome and Formica kitchen table had been in the funeral home as long as I had. Mom set a blue and ivory dinner plate in the spot once reserved for my favorite “Peter Rabbit rounding the cucumber frame” bowl. She retrieved a platter with three pieces of cold fried chicken and a Tupperware container of coleslaw.

  “I can make you something hot if you’d like.”

  “No, this is fine.”

  She gave me silverware, and then said, “I’ll put on a kettle for tea.”

  She brought a gas burner on the white enamel stove to a blue flame and centered her kettle over it. “Your dad was fascinated by the snow. That’s why we ate so late.”

  “He was still at his window when I drove in.”

  Mom untied her apron and hung it on a peg under the red electric wall clock. It was nearly eight.

  “Oh,” she said as she sat across from me. “Before I forget, your uncle Wayne wants to talk to you.”

  “I hope he’s not thinking of driving in tomorrow.”

  “No, talk by phone. He asked me to have you call him as soon as I heard from you. He doesn’t like leaving messages on that answering contraption.”

  “Mom, he needs to get used to it. The world’s turned into a bunch of machines talking to each other. People expect it.”

  “Not your uncle.”

  I didn’t argue. Mom would vigorously defend her brother and I saw no upside to offending my favorite source of fried chicken. “Yeah, Uncle Wayne probably has the only rotary phone left in the county.”

  “And it still works fine,” Mom said. “So, call him when we finish our tea.”

  “Tonight?”

  “He said it was important. He’ll be up late. His GRIT Magazine came today.”

  I laughed out loud. GRIT Magazine made Reader’s Digest look like a sleazy tabloid. The publication dated back to the 1880s and used to be sold by kids door-to-door in rural communities across the country. Uncle Wayne said it was his first job and his first reading primer. For years, he insisted on keeping a copy in the family visitation room because “the happy stories will lift their spirits.” I finally got him to stop when the Yankee retirees kept mistaking it for a southern cookbook.

  “Then Uncle Wayne might be up till nine,” I said. “Maybe even nine-thirty. I’ll call him after I see Dad for a few minutes.”

  “Your father had a good day,” Mom said. “I think the snow kept him focused.”

  “One day
at a time,” I said. It was how we lived with Dad—on a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs, learning to communicate with fewer and fewer words. His medical treatment now included Aricept, which seemed to have slowed the degenerative progress of the disease, but neither that drug nor anything the doctors foresaw on the horizon promised the return of husband and father to our family.

  “How was your day?” asked Mom. “You get finished at Eagle Creek before the storm?”

  “There was a complication, a serious complication.”

  “Oh?” The wrinkles in Mom’s round face deepened.

  Before I could continue, the shrill whistle of the kettle penetrated the kitchen. “Why don’t you make our tea, and I’ll tell you about it.”

  A plate of Mom’s Christmas butter cookies had been served with the tea, but my description of the events at the cemetery had so far kept either one of us from eating them. I was grateful for Sheriff Ewbanks’ admonition not to tell anyone too many details. Although I’d confided in Tommy Lee and Susan, it gave me an excuse to stop the story with the discovery of the wallet and to emphasize the official procedures the sheriff said he would have to follow.

  “Of course, it should be kept a secret until they notify next of kin,” said Mom. “I wouldn’t want to know.”

  “I expect they’ll be able to do that quickly.” I relaxed and grabbed a cookie. Mom’s reaction was more of concern for possible loved ones than curiosity about the body.

  “And poor Senator Richards’ family,” she added. “A delayed burial and now all this snow.”

  “Reverend Pace said the public memorial service can go on as scheduled. It wasn’t tied to the interment.”

  “That’s a blessing. Reverend Pace is the perfect man to comfort them.”

  “Pace said there isn’t much family. Evidently Richards’ relationship to his sister was cool at best, and the senator had been divorced for years. That’s another reason he wanted to be buried next to Turncoat Turner.”

  “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Barry.”

  “Sorry. I just meant there weren’t family ties to keep him from resting beside his hero.”

  Mom took a cookie. “Must have paid a pretty penny to get Pearly Johnson moved. If someone ever wants my plot, you get a good price.”

  “Mom, I’d never sell your grave.”

  “Don’t be silly. Your dad and I will be in a better place than a patch of dirt. And he’ll be in his right mind again. If you’re in your right mind, you’ll take the money. Just keep us together, and maybe not too close to a road. They’re always widening them.”

  “Tell you what, Mom. When the snow melts, we’ll go look at some backup plots.”

  She laughed and got up from the table. “Why don’t you take a glass of milk and the cookies up to your father. Then you’d better call your uncle.”

  I found Dad still standing at the bedroom window, his head rhythmically bobbing up and down as he watched the flakes tumble through the floodlight. His face was so close to the pane that his breath fogged the glass. His right hand rested against the sill. One suspender dangled to his knee while the other looped over his shoulder. Belts had been traded for suspenders since they were easier for him to manage when using the bathroom. A pair of gray flannel pajamas lay across the foot of his bed. I suspected he had started to get undressed and caught a glimpse of the snow. Perhaps during the time he had eaten dinner, he had forgotten about it.

  With cookies in one hand and milk in the other, I couldn’t knock on the open door. I cleared my throat softly, and then whispered, “Dad.”

  His reaction came a few seconds later. He turned and the light of recognition sparkled in his eyes. It was a wonderful sight. “Barry,” he said.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “It’s snow,” he said, and turned to make sure the snowflakes still fell. “Snow,” he repeated.

  When my father spoke, he kept his sentences short. Too often his words collapsed in on themselves as the thought he wanted to express evaporated.

  “Yes, Dad. Snow.”

  He kept staring out the window.

  “Dad, I brought cookies and milk.”

  Again, I waited for him to respond. After a few seconds, I started to speak again.

  “TV,” he said to the night sky. Then he turned around and looked at the cookies. “TV.”

  He had made the association. We always had our cookies while watching television.

  I helped him change into his pajamas and walked him to the den at the end of the hall. He settled in his easy chair and I spread an afghan over his lap. I found the remote control on top of the set and started flipping through the channels. I’d glance at the screen and then at my father’s face to see if the picture caught his interest. As usual, he grunted approval when I reached the Cartoon Network.

  I sat on the sofa and watched a couple minutes of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo trying to outsmart the ranger. At first Dad would look over at me every few seconds to make sure I was still there. Then his attention became focused on the talking animals. When the on-screen action was at its most frenetic, I got up and stepped in front of the set. “Bathroom,” I said.

  He shook his head and waved me aside.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I explained.

  “Go,” he said.

  Mom and I were blessed that Dad still could handle his own toilet functions and he never questioned when we said we had to go. It became the easiest excuse for leaving him.

  I met Mom as she came up the stairs.

  “I’m going to call Uncle Wayne,” I said. “Dad’s changed and in the den.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you want to use the office? I’ve already locked up and turned out the lights.”

  “No, the extension in my room is fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Uncle Wayne talks on the phone like he’s paying by the word.”

  My bedroom was officially the guest room, but it still bore the décor of my youth. Mom had kept my model cars and planes, various sports pictures and trophies, and a sprinkling of favorite knickknacks on the shelves and bureau. It wasn’t so much a preservation for my benefit as a haven for Dad. Old memories are the strongest and wandering down the hall and into my bedroom would reassure him he was in familiar surroundings.

  I closed the door and sat on the side of the single bed. Nine-fifteen. My uncle should still be awake. I dialed the number.

  His black rotary phone sat on an end table in his living room, hardwired into the original jack in the baseboard. I always expected at least eight rings before he answered because Uncle Wayne was never in the living room. After his wife, my Aunt Nelda, died in 1983, Wayne spent all his time at the kitchen table in the winter and on the screened back porch in the summer. He claimed no one ever called him but us, so if he didn’t get to the phone in time, he just dialed the funeral home.

  After the tenth ring, I heard his raspy voice announce “Thompson.”

  “Uncle Wayne, it’s Barry. Did I wake you?”

  He cleared his throat. “Oh, no, just haven’t used my voice in a while. I don’t talk to myself—yet.”

  “So, are you reading about a woman who grew a turnip that looks like the Pope, or a man who built his own fighter plane?”

  “A husband and wife who drove their Airstream trailer around the world. Lived in it on board freighters.”

  My uncle took his GRIT seriously so I moved on. “Mom said you wanted me to call.”

  He cleared his throat again. “I didn’t mention it to Connie, but when I was in the office this morning, we got a call from some man named Ted Sandiford.”

  “Sandiford? Never heard of him.”

  “That’s cause he was calling long distance, though you could have fooled me. Sounded clear as you.”

  Since Wayne didn’t like answering machines, I wasn’t about to get into the wonders of digital technology. “Long distance from where?”

  “Atlanta, Georgia,” he said with the same awe as if the city had been Paris, France. “He said he w
as interested in our market.”

  “Our market?”

  “I didn’t know what he meant, either. I asked him if he was talking about Winn-Dixie or Ingles. One’s good for meat, the other for produce.”

  “That’s not what he meant.”

  “Right. Wished you’d been here. He said we were a growth market and he wondered if we’d be interested in selling the business.”

  I stood up from the bed and looked back to make sure the door was closed. “He wants to buy Clayton and Clayton?”

  “Yep, but not him personally. He’s with some company. Hoffburg or Hoffton.”

  “Hoffman?”

  “That’s it. You heard of them?”

  “It’s a huge chain with funeral homes all over the southeast. What else did he say?”

  “Not much cause I told him to save his breath.”

  My stomach inverted and I struggled to keep my voice below a shout. “You did what?”

  “I said you’d be making any decisions so he should talk to you. I didn’t want to leave a written note in case Connie found it. Figured you’d want to handle it quiet like.”

  I sat back on the bed and took a deep breath. I should have realized Wayne would know exactly what to do. When you calm and console grieving families, you become adept at avoiding anything that causes anxiety. Mom didn’t need to worry about any business issues until we were more certain of the possibilities.

  “Did he leave a number?”

  “Yes, you got a pencil?”

  I fished one out of the nightstand drawer and wrote Sandiford’s number on the back of a magazine. “Thanks, Wayne. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  “What are you going to tell your mom?”

  “That you wanted to check our work schedules. That okay?”

  “Yep.” He paused, and then cleared his throat a third time. “Barry, you know I don’t mind working, but you do what you think is best.”

  “I’ll find out what this Sandiford is proposing, and then we’ll see what’s best for Mom and Dad.”

  “And what’s best for you, Barry. It’s okay to think about that.”