Stanton- The Trilogy

by Alex MacLean

  Once more Philip looked out at everyone, smiled, and then began to sob.

  Allan shut his eyes.

  As the service ended, the choir sang “In Paradisum,” and the pallbearers slowly carried the casket from the church. Philip and Cathy followed close behind, their heads bowed, their eyes grave.

  It was a beautiful morning outside. The sky was an impeccable blue, yet the air brought in a slight chill from the nearby harbor.

  Allan paused on the church steps, took out his cell phone and pager, and turned both of them on. Then he shaded his eyes with a hand and watched Philip and Carol get into their car behind the hearse.

  Allan wouldn’t follow the cortege to the gravesite. Instead he would go home to change, say his good-byes to Buddy, and then head straight to Acresville with hopes of finding a killer.

  35

  Acresville, May 19

  1:00 p.m.

  As he drove his pickup into Rolling Hills Cemetery, Hoss fought a deep urge to turn around and leave.

  The cemetery was aptly named. Fifty-two acres of gently sloping meadows were graced with mature sugar maples and crisscrossed with winding footpaths. A crumbling stone wall, over a century old, enclosed rows of granite and marble slabs, crosses and brooding angels with upraised arms that rose and fell in swells of green with seemingly endless continuity. Scattered here and there, colorful flowers and garlands bespoke the existing presence of loved ones.

  The largest, oldest, and only nonsectarian cemetery in Acresville, Rolling Hills first opened its gates in 1825. Since then, generation upon generation of families had chosen the Hills as their final resting place. The north side of the cemetery contained its oldest section. Time had faded both the epitaphs and the memories they bore. Many of the town’s first settlers were buried there.

  Hoss looked around, seeing no one. He came here to locate a certain grave. He hoped the caretakers hadn’t covered it yet with sod. From a shirt pocket, he retrieved a slip of paper and double-checked the name written on it. He picked up the binoculars from the seat beside him and stepped outside.

  The day was warm, the sun brilliant. Fetching arcs of clouds swept the sky.

  Hoss followed an uphill path, his gaze exploring the area. The cemetery wasn’t as he remembered it. It had grown at an alarming rate—crowded, choking for breath. Only now did he fathom the lives lost in the eighteen years since he’d been here.

  At the crest of the hill he stopped, looking off to his left. For several moments he stood there, overwhelmed by sudden feelings of guilt and sadness.

  She was out there; he could feel her.

  He knew he should go see her. He hadn’t visited her since she died. The grief and shame had been just too great.

  With faltering steps he started through the stillness. He cut across the top of the second hill on a diagonal. By memory, he searched an area near the maple trees.

  Moments later, Hoss stared down at a small granite marker set into the ground. Dead leaves partially covered the inscription. There were no fresh flowers. No flowers at all to mark someone’s remembrance, and that embarrassed him.

  Hoss knelt down and brushed away the leaves. The stone felt cool and rough beneath his trembling fingers.

  He whispered, “Hello, Maman. It’s me, your orphaned son.”

  Alongside the grave lay an empty plot for her husband, his father. As Hoss stared at it, he became very still. For a moment he closed his eyes, lost to the past.

  > > > < < <

  Hoss approached the entrance to the hospital with leaden steps. When he reached the doors, he stopped, turned, and looked up at a drab sky that had just begun to squeeze out a cold shower. He felt as if he were wandering through a dream, more mind than body. The cars pulling in and out of the parking lot, the people brushing past him at the doors, the rain turning everything to a glassy sheen were all surreal fragments on his consciousness.

  Slowly, he went inside.

  In the lobby he pressed a button for the elevator, waited. The doors opened, and a couple of people came out. After stepping inside after them, Hoss pressed the button for the third floor. The doors closed behind him with a hiss. On this day his nerves were on edge. The tiny compartment made him feel caged, almost claustrophobic.

  With a bump the elevator began to move upward. Hoss gripped the rail, his face pinched. He shut his eyes.

  Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

  The chime of the elevator made him flinch. The doors opened to the second floor. In a mire of anxiety, Hoss didn’t look up. He heard some people shuffle inside, felt the car shudder with the weight of their unseen bodies. Over their whispered voices, he heard the doors hiss shut again.

  He swallowed.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

  In quick succession, the chime rang for the third floor. Something inside made him shiver. Lifting his head, he watched the doors open to a glossy corridor. He stepped off, resisting the urge to turn back. His slow walk was a series of half-noticed impressions—a blue-uniformed housekeeper stuffing soiled laundry into a chute; a gray-haired doctor emerging from a room, his gaze focused on a chart; an elderly man in a robe shuffling down the far end of the hallway, an IV pole trailing him.

  Doors ran down both sides of the corridor. From a room up the hallway came a plaintive cry for someone named Ivan. Moments later, a nurse hurried past him, carrying a bottle of medication. He listened to her squeaky footsteps fade away to silence. There was the sound of a door closing, and then the cries stopped.

  Room 532 was the sixth one on the left, right across from the nurses’ station. As Hoss reached it, his breathing became heavy. He froze in the doorway, ashamed at his cowardice to enter.

  His mother, he saw, was as she had been the day before, resting peacefully in her bed. A heart-rate monitor was clipped to one finger. An oxygen tube was strapped under her nose. Overhead, the fluorescent lights captured what devastation cancer had done to her, a wasting disease that knew no mercy.

  She was a ghost of the woman she had once been. Emaciated. Bald from weeks of chemo. Her face, barely recognizable, had become a loose mask collapsed against the bone. A yellowish hue saturated her skin. The hollows of her eyes were in shadow.

  The hospital had called Hoss an hour earlier. The voice at the other end was soft, reluctant. An on-duty nurse. His mother had taken a turn for the worse. Family members were asked to be at her bedside. There wasn’t much time left. Listening to her, Hoss felt the words in the pit of his stomach. His eyes closed. A painful lump formed in his throat. He couldn’t speak.

  When he put down the phone, all he could think of with certain dread was this moment now. The final good-bye he’d have to face.

  Her bed was partitioned off from the others by a curtain. Looking around, Hoss was surprised at his father’s absence. At fifty-three, the man had become a withdrawn, brooding presence. If not working the farm, he would be drinking alone, mumbling resentments at the world. In his own self-hatred, he was unable to face the man he’d become or acknowledge the suffering he’d put his wife and son through. He seemed to care little about them.

  Hoss loathed him for it.

  There was a chair by the bed. Gathering himself, he moved toward it and sat. The room was cool and quiet. He laid a hand on the sheets, inches from his mother’s arm. She seemed to be barely breathing.

  On the other side of the bed was a heart monitor. The line on the screen had the appearance of a soft wave rolling.

  For nearly a week his mother had drifted in and out of consciousness. Often she would only stare vacantly at the ceiling, as if he were invisible. Incapacitated by the morphine administered to her for the chronic pain. Other times she would be confused as to where she was. Thinking she was still at home, she would try to get out of bed to do her housework. Too frail, she would collapse on the floor.

  It was hard for Hoss t
o see his mother like that, wasting away in both body and mind. Every day it agonized him more to come here.

  He leaned forward in a whisper. “Maman. I’m here.”

  There was no response. For a long moment, Hoss didn’t say a word. The only sound was a steady blip from the heart monitor.

  Her pendant necklace lay on the bedside table. Slowly, he reached for it. The pendant had a raised image of Saint Christopher with an infant Jesus on his shoulder. Turning it over, he saw his mother’s name inscribed on the back.

  For as long as he could remember his mother had been a practicing Catholic. At a young age, she had shared her faith with him, reading to him from her Bible whenever his father wasn’t around. On Sundays, she would take him to church for morning service. The ritual became persistent throughout his childhood. Hoss took comfort in the church’s tranquility, its open vastness, and its beautiful stained-glass windows. It was also his refuge away from home. If only for once a week, he could at least escape.

  As a teenager Hoss’s church attendance began to slip. With adolescence came self-consciousness. He was pressured by how others at school might see him. Something about a teenage boy going to church with his mother seemed awkward, embarrassing. His mother appeared to understand.

  Now he hated himself for it.

  Only once in that time had he returned to his faith and to God—three weeks ago when his mother was hospitalized. For the first time in many years he slipped into the rear pew. The church was jammed. Neither the soothing voice of the minister nor the melodious hymns of the choir did much to quell the storm of emotions raging inside him.

  When the service was over and most of the parishioners were gone, Hoss walked up to the altar. Slowly, he genuflected, crossed himself, and prayed to God for his mother’s recovery.

  Squeezing the pendant tightly in his hand, he prayed now for the repose of her soul. Then he sat there, listening to his mother’s shallow breathing.

  Muffled voices came from the hallway. Now and again, a nurse would come into the room, making her rounds. Hoss checked the doorway every few minutes for his father, but he never showed up. Hoss didn’t know where he was. The man could be dead somewhere for all he cared.

  Hoss looked at his watch. 7:38 in the evening. He’d been sitting there for over three hours.

  An abrupt movement came from the bed, a jerk of an arm. Hoss saw his mother’s head turn on the pillow, heard the change in her pattern of breathing. He leaned closer, fighting a wave of emotion.

  “Maman.”

  Slowly, his mother’s eyes opened and rolled toward him. She looked pitiful, he thought, a confused little old woman. He watched her lips part as she recognized who he was.

  “My son.” Her voice sounded tiny, weak, almost inaudible. Hearing it made him cringe.

  “Please.” He gently touched her forehead. “Don’t try to talk.”

  “I...I’m going back to God now.”

  The words alarmed and overwhelmed him. He felt too much to speak. His eyes became wet.

  Seeing her son’s tearful expression, her own eyes glistened. “Don’t cry.” With great effort, she reached for his arm. Her hand felt skeletal, her fingertips cold. Their touch made him shiver. “I’ll be all right.”

  Hoss’s face began to crumble.

  His mother turned her head on the pillow, gazing up at the ceiling. A trace of a smile formed on her lips, a dreamy look in her eyes.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she murmured. “So beau...”

  A soft gurgling sound came from her throat. Her hand released his arm. Then the heart monitor let off a piercing alarm. The line on the screen went flat.

  “Maman.”

  Hoss stared into his mother’s face. Her eyes were fixed wide, unblinking. It was an image that would haunt his dreams for nights on end. As if to rouse her, he touched her arm.

  His voice cracked. “Maman.”

  A red-haired nurse rushed into the room, breaking the moment. She checked his mother’s vitals, never lifting her head. Hoss watched her, feeling helpless. He began shaking. No longer able to look at his mother’s face, he turned away.

  At once, the nurse stopped and seemed to inhale. She flipped a switch on the heart monitor, and the screen went black. When at last she looked up, her sympathetic expression said it all. His mother was gone.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  > > > < < <

  Hoss held a bouquet of flowers in his hands. It was a beautiful autumn day. The sun was bright, and patches of clouds flecked the sky. There was a chill in the air, a promise that winter wasn’t too far off. Fresh-fallen leaves carpeted the grass, and the smell of their decay mingled with wood smoke from nearby houses.

  In front of Hoss sat a coffin on top of a lowering device draped with a royal-blue skirt that ruffled under the hint of a breeze. A floral arrangement spread color across the coffin’s lid.

  He knew many of the faces surrounding him. Parishioners from his mother’s church. Her older sister, Marjorie. Her two brothers, Pierre and Ray. A handful of cousins, nieces, and nephews. Some of their expressions were broken, others stoic and unreadable.

  As Hoss looked at them, he felt the passage of time, the unforgiveness of age. They all appeared old to him, graying or balding. Most he hadn’t seen since childhood. He doubted he’d see any of them again.

  The graveside service was short and decorous—his mother’s dying wish. No one revealed that she had grown up in a small village in Quebec, had married there, and then migrated shortly afterward to Nova Scotia to start a family farm with her husband. The details of her death were not mentioned. All that was spoken was the fact that she had been a devoted Catholic and had accepted God as her savior.

  At the head of the coffin, an elderly priest in a black chasuble began to read from his Bible. In unison, the people bowed their heads.

  “...And as Jesus said unto Martha, ‘I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;

  “‘And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die...’”

  The priest moved forward and anointed the coffin with holy water.

  “May eternal light shine upon her, O Lord: With Thy Saints forever, because Thou art gracious. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her: For evermore with Thy Saints, because Thou art gracious...”

  The coffin began to descend. Inch by inch it lowered into the ground. Watching, Hoss’s eyes filled with tears. He was barely conscious of the quiet sobbing that broke out over the crowd. The thought of leaving his mother alone in the coldness of the earth made his heart ache. A nightmare. None of this could be real.

  “...The Lord be with you. And with thy spirit. May she rest in peace. Amen.”

  With slow steps Hoss walked toward the coffin. For a moment, the world around him disappeared. He became a little boy again, lying in bed, listening to his mother read him bedtime stories.

  Biting his lip, he tossed the bouquet on top of the lid.

  Abandoned. He felt abandoned.

  The crowd slowly started to disperse. His mother’s sister and brothers filed past him, muttering their condolences. As if in valediction, each gently squeezed his arm and was gone.

  Behind him he heard footsteps rustling through the leaves. He turned around and saw his father. Despite being in his fifties now, the man still looked rugged. Barrel chest, broad shoulders. His hair was thin and steel gray. Age had brought his skin closer to the bone. His face looked desiccated, every line and wrinkle brought out by the bright sunshine. A crosshatch of spider veins stained his cheeks. In his fierce gaze there seemed a cold indifference to his son’s sorrow.

  He gripped Hoss’s arm. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Hoss flinched, afraid to move or speak, weakened by the primal fear his father still invoked. Never had the impulse been so strong to break free of this place and this man.

  His father’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I said, let’s
get the hell out of here. There’s work to be done.” He tugged on his son’s arm, pulling him forward. It was at that moment that Hoss smelled the booze. “And don’t make a scene either.”

  > > > < < <

  Throat working, Hoss snapped out of the daydream. Once more he stared at the granite marker before him.

  “You should’ve never left me alone with that man,” he brooded softly. “Why did he hate me so much? A helpless child. I don’t think you realized how badly I suffered at his hands. The childhood that I lost. The scars I still have to this day.”

  Briefly, Hoss touched his eyes. Then he turned to the empty plot beside his mother’s grave. A sudden image, like a flashbulb, burst onto his mind—his father’s head at his feet, stricken eyes gazing up at him, a stream of blood trickling from his parted lips.

  Hoss shut his eyes against the image. Only then did the tears roll down his face. One last time he reached down and touched the marker.

  “Good-bye, Maman,” he said. “I hope for your sake God does exist and you’re in Heaven. You won’t see me there. No angels will be coming for my soul.”

  Rising to his feet, he found it hard to leave. When at last he did, he wiped his eyes and didn’t look back.

  He followed a gravel path that led to the rear of the cemetery. He took his time, reading inscriptions and searching for the grave he had come here for. Soon he entered an area where the headstones were oddly similar—tilted yellow slabs that looked ready to fall over. He walked slowly among them. All he could hear was his breath, the susurrus of his footsteps through the grass.

  Crusts of lichen hid many of the inscriptions. Pits made other markings barely readable. Looking at the dates, Hoss realized that this was the oldest section of the cemetery. Some of Acresville’s earliest inhabitants were buried here.

  For all the memories of the living, there wasn’t a single flower on any of the graves. That struck Hoss as rather sad. This was how we’d all end up someday. A forgotten name etched in a stone to mark our short time here.