Burial to follow

by Scott Nicholson

  They were still eating and chattering when the car headlights first appeared as specks on the dim end of the dirt drive, bouncing like twin fireflies.

  #

  V

  The knock was unnecessary, but Roby knew the action was meant as a sign of respect. Alfred, clean now except for a few stains on his shirt, swung open the screen door and held it as Barnaby entered. The undertaker wore his midnight blue suit, the one he wore when dropping in on a sitting. His black suit, the serious hand-tailored one, was saved for the actual viewing and interment.

  Roby nodded at Barnaby. Barnaby smiled in greeting while somehow keeping the undercurrent of sorrow fixed on his face. Roby marveled at the man’s professional talent. Or perhaps it wasn’t a talent. Maybe his face had grown that way, etched by a thousand funerals, the solemn features worn and eroded like a tombstone that had weathered too many storms.

  "Hello, Mrs. Ridgehorn," he said. The widow had risen to her feet and let Barnaby take her hand. "Hope this isn’t an inconvenient time to discuss the final arrangements."

  "Needs to be done," the widow said. "No use pretending he ain’t dead."

  "I’m handling it for Momma," Marlene said. "I’ll do all the signing."

  Barnaby, with his hunched back, long neck, and sharp face, had the aspect of a vulture. He hunched even lower in a bow of resigned agreement.

  "We don’t want nothing fancy," Alfred said. "A regular Baptist funeral, the preacher does his sermon, the choir sings ‘When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder,’ then a straight drive from the chapel to the family cemetery."

  "And no more wreaths," Marlene said. "Or memory books. No limousine, just the hearse."

  Barnaby looked to the widow for approval. She pursed her mouth. The casserole had given her lips a slick sheen. "I reckon Jacob would have wanted the bare bones," she said.

  "As you wish," the undertaker said.

  Roby caught a faint whiff of formaldehyde over the aroma of the food.

  Death seeped into a man when he was around it long enough. His breath became the gas of rot and his skin became dust. His eyes became dying lights, dry and gray and empty. He returned to the dirt more slowly than his customers, but the process was just as one-way, with the same end.

  "You want some food?" Anna Beth asked him.

  "No, thank you. I’ve already eaten." Barnaby made his way around the counter and shook Alfred’s hand. The veins in the undertaker’s neck throbbed visibly under his thin skin. "Alfred. Sorry about your loss."

  "Our loss is your gain."

  Roby stiffened, but the undertaker’s colorless smile took the edge off the remark. "When you stick out your chin that way, you look just like your father," Barnaby said.

  Alfred didn’t know whether to take that as praise or an insult. "Want some cake? The pie’s all gone but we got devil’s food and bundt. Pick your poison."

  "Thank you, really, but I just stopped by to take care of the details."

  "Come on, Barnaby," Roby said. "Make yourself at home."

  Their eyes met.

  "Any pie left?" Barnaby asked.

  "All gone," Roby said.

  "Must have been good."

  "It was. Beverly Parsons made it."

  Sarah got out a plate and set it before Barnaby. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Well, since you’re being so hospitable."

  Anna Beth nicked off some of the bundt cake. Barnaby was asking for seconds before Roby could make the offer. Roby wondered how the man stayed so thin, as many sittings as he’d attended over the years. After he’d finished off the second piece, he wiped the crumbs from his chin with a handkerchief he’d pulled from a hidden suit pocket.

  "I have the flowers out in the car," Barnaby said. "The usual way is for the flowers to stay at the house until the viewing."

  "No more wreaths," Marlene reminded him.

  "Oh, of course there will be no charge. These are gift flowers, sent in loving memory. Jacob was well-respected by the community."

  The widow choked back a sob and rubbed a hand across her eyes. "Thank you, Mr. Clawson, for your consideration in these trying times."

  "Ma’am, I talked to Jacob a few times in the past year. Even though the Lord took him before any of us expected, he was already laying plans. He didn’t want you to worry over the details."

  "He was a good man."

  "I think relieving a loved one of the burden of afterlife care is the best thing a person can do in this life," Barnaby said.

  Roby wished the man wouldn’t lay it on so thick. It’s not like he needed a sales pitch. He had the product that sold itself.

  "Where are the flowers?" Alfred said.

  "Out in my car," the undertaker said. "In the trunk."

  "Let me get them," Roby said.

  Barnaby fished in his pants pocket and came out with the keys. "You know the right key."

  Roby nodded.

  "Get the porch light," the widow said to Anna Beth. "It got dark while we wasn’t looking."

  Anna Beth followed Roby outside. He felt, more than saw, the dark hulk of the barn off the road to the left of the yard. The early stars were like cold holes in the night sky. The autumn breeze played along the tops of the trees, rattling leaves that had gone to red and brown. The stretch of Jacob’s farm was a distant, forgotten corner of a deep and heartless universe.

  "You wait here," Roby said to Anna Beth.

  "You might need some help."

  "I done this plenty. Don’t want you falling in the dark and getting your dress dirty."

  That was something she couldn’t argue with. She needed something for the viewing, and had to save her best for the funeral itself. That meant she’d be wearing tonight’s dress tomorrow. "Be careful."

  Barnaby Clawson’s car was parked twenty yards from the house. He could have driven closer to the door, but distance meant respect. And distance meant safety from prying eyes.

  Except from those eyes that could see in the dark, could see through skin, could see right into the heart of things.

  Roby inserted the key, popped the trunk, and looked back toward the house. Through the windows, the kitchen was like a lighted stage. Barnaby looked to be helping himself to a third piece of bundt cake. The widow held a mug of warm tea, Alfred and Cindy had an arm around each other’s waist, Sarah was at the sink washing the latest round of dirty dishes, and Buck was talking to Marlene, no doubt about tractors.

  He ducked under the trunk lid and rummaged under the bouquets of flowers. The smell of crushed petals was heady and sickening. He hurried in his task, eager to breathe the night air again. The suitcase was over the wheel well. His fingers found its familiar frayed piping, the ragged leather raised from its surface like warts on flesh.

  "I’ll be just a second," he said to Anna Beth, who stood under a swirl of moths that had collected around the porch light. "Got to get something from my car."

  His palm was sweaty around the handle of the suitcase, his breath shallow, his lungs burning though the air had a September chill. His arm ached, as if the contents were a hundred pounds instead of a few. He reached his truck, opened the door, and slung the suitcase into the passenger’s seat. Roby glanced up to the barn, its black mouth open to the world.

  Roby didn’t like that part of the job, the one that was far removed from bright kitchens, clean plates, solemn families, sweet pies.

  He hurried back to Barnaby’s trunk, stacked some bundles of flowers in his arms, closed the trunk, and headed for the safety of the front door. Anna Beth held the door open and he went in, peering through the stems, stalks, and leaves.

  "Lordy mercy, Roby, you look like you took ill," the widow said.

  "Where do you want these?" he managed to say, hoping his voice fooled them. All except Barnaby. The undertaker frowned around a forkful of cake.

  "In the living room," Marlene said. "On the hearth by the chrysanthemums."

  "You sure you’re okay?" the widow asked.

  "Just a little heartburn," he said. "
It’ll pass."

  "Hope it wasn’t them deviled eggs," Sarah said. "I knew we should have put them in the refrigerator."

  "Probably ate too much of that goddamned Parsons pie," Alfred said.

  Sarah turned from the sink. "No, if it was the pie, we’d all be sick. We all had some."

  "Not me," Marlene said. "I’m on a diet."

  Roby nearly dropped the flowers on his way out of the room.

  He’d forgotten Marlene.

  VI

  Barnaby left first, followed by Cindy. Alfred had to drive her home because she didn’t have a car. The widow had turned in early, and Anna Beth went upstairs to read to her, to help take the edge off the loneliness. Buck, Sarah and Marlene sat on the couch, Roby on a worn vinyl footrest. Jacob’s rocker sat empty beside the coffee table, and the four of them were turned as if Jacob still sat in it.

  "I still say we sell it all," Buck said. "Except the tractor."

  "When did you become part of ‘we’?" Marlene said.

  "He’s my husband," Sarah said. "We share and share alike."

  "He wouldn’t be saying that if Alfred was here."

  "Don’t worry about Alfred," Roby said. He was trying to figure out a way to get Marlene out into the kitchen. He’d have to scrounge through the trash can and find some of the pie that he’d swept up. Then trick her into eating it somehow.

  "Well, I don’t want to stay in these mountains forever. You ever been to that mall in Raleigh? They got a fountain right there in the middle of it, under a glass roof, and a hundred stores, half of them selling nothing but clothes. Name stuff, fancy, not those off-the-rack seconds we get in Barkersville."

  "Marlene, why don’t you think about somebody besides yourself for a change?" Sarah said.

  "Just ‘cause you’re stuck here don’t mean I have to be."

  "We’re all stuck here. You’re part of this place, no matter how far you run."

  "Now," Roby said. "You girls just lost your daddy. Don’t be at each other’s throats."

  "Since when did it get to be any of your business?" Buck said.

  "I’m almost as much family as you are."

  "Why don’t you take your ass to the kitchen and let us work this out? Better yet, why don’t you just get on home? You’re way past polite, to be staying this late."

  Roby knew it. There were unwritten laws to sittings, the food, the settling of affairs, the burial arrangements. He was a creature of habit, steeped in tradition, and had been to more sittings than he could count. He’d eaten dozens of death pies, he’d served up thousands of plates to grieving relatives. And easy rested those who’d trusted their hearts and souls to Roby.

  Except for Jacob Davis Ridgehorn.

  Roby stood. "Maybe you’re right, Buck. Forgive me, ladies." He bent low. "I reckon I’ll see you at the viewing tomorrow."

  "Wait a second," Marlene said. "You going to help clean up the kitchen?"

  "It’s the least I could do," Roby said.

  VII

  He’d washed the last round of dishes, including another go at Jacob’s denture glass, before he tried anything on Marlene. He knew he didn’t have Harold’s good looks or charm or pure heart. All Roby had was a stubborn streak. And a crumpled piece of pie.

  "Want to go for a walk?" he asked, careful to keep his voice even.

  "I don’t know. I’m awful tuckered."

  "Just to get some fresh air. I’ll have you in bed before you know it." He realized what he’d just said, how she might take it. "I mean-"

  She grinned and shook her head. "Roby Snow. I thought you didn’t have a single bad thought in your head."

  "I don’t-I mean, well, it’s a pretty night, and I could use some fresh air. This kitchen has got me feeling cramped." He thought of Jacob, who’d soon be confined in a casket.

  Marlene looked toward the kitchen entrance, considering. "Well, okay. Just don’t try nothing. I’m not in the mood."

  "I’m not, either."

  She gave him that patented Marlene pout and put away the last of the food. The Frigidaire was jam packed, the freezer so full that bags of raspberries fell out when the door opened. The top of the refrigerator was covered with the remnants of cakes and homemade loaves of bread.

  They went outside into the cool darkness. The dew had settled early, fat and slick on the blades of grass. Alfred had put the cows in the barn on his way out, and now the pastures were empty under the weak gleam of moon. Black trees stood like long, scrawny scarecrows along the fence line.

  Marlene walked a few steps ahead, following the worn path that bordered the garden and led to the creek. The water was silver in the night, gurgling and licking at the smooth stones. The aroma of cow manure and cut hay filled the sky. The tobacco had been harvested and speared on stakes to dry, and the silent rows seemed alive with small moving shadows.

  "How could you ever leave this place?" Roby asked.

  "Easy. If you lived here, you’d want to be gone, too."

  "No. I’ve been out there, to other places. The big city. I’ve been places where you wouldn’t believe, even if I told you."

  Marlene stopped along a broken wooden fence and leaned against a post. Her face was turned to the moon, its light soft on her cheeks. Roby realized she was probably beautiful. Maybe this is what Harold saw in her, what all those other men had seen in her. A glow that came from inside.

  Maybe that’s why people gave their hearts to each other.

  No. That was foolishness. Roby had a job to do. Something more important than the things between a man and woman, the twin beating of hearts. His business was between life and death.

  "Can I ask you something?" Roby asked.

  "You just did."

  "Something scary."

  She looked at him, then back to the house with its distant squares of light. "Roby, I do believe you’re trying to get fresh."

  "Hey, I’m serious."

  "Yeah. Just like every other man."

  "It’s about your daddy."

  The crickets chirped louder. Something moved in the shrubs along the creek.

  "I don’t want to talk about him," she said, so low that Roby could barely hear her.

  "This is important."

  "I don’t care. He’s dead."

  "I know. But he talked to me, told me what you folks ought to do."

  "Well, he told Momma, too. And Barnaby Clawson. And just about every damned body except us. The ones who have to decide."

  "He told me last night."

  Marlene had no answer for that. Her breath came fast and shallow, her eyes wide and wet with moonlight. "Don’t talk like that."

  "He come to me, Marlene. While I was asleep." A little lie, but he’d told worse. In truth, he hadn’t been asleep at all.

  "Don’t tell me you’re one of those crazy people who dream about dead folks? I liked you better when you was just another guy trying to work his way inside my dress."

  "This ain’t about liking or not liking. It’s about doing what’s right." Roby eased forward, his boots hushed in the grass.

  "Marlene turned, tried to run, but was cornered by the fence and the underbrush. "Get back, or I swear I’ll scream."

  He stopped a few feet from her. She could scream, but Buck and Sarah wouldn’t find them for at least two minutes. Plenty of time. "I ain’t going to hurt you. I just want you to do one thing."

  "Sure you do. And I was ready to do it. Only now I don’t want to."

  Roby reached into his pocket and brought out the mashed and balled wad of sweet potato pie. He held out his fist, hoping his hand wasn’t shaking. "Here."

  She was suspicious. "What’s that?"

  "For you."

  She looked at his hand as if he held a snake. "What is it?"

  "Eat this."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Eat it. It’s what your daddy wanted." He used the past tense, to make it easier for her.

  It’s what your daddy wants. Because he loved you, and you have to love him
in return.

  "I ain’t eating that. Whatever it is."

  "Pie. It’s good."

  She looked up the path, at the house that now probably seemed a hundred miles away. "I’m sure it’s good. Because Beverly Parsons made it, right?"

  Roby smiled, but the expression felt wrong on his face. He pressed his lips together. "She made it special for you folks. Wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, now. That wouldn’t be neighborly."

  "What about my feelings, Roby? You got no right to scare me out of my wits. You’re a real creep, you know that?"

  "Eat up. It’s good for you."

  "No." She eased deeper into the shadows, edging for an escape up the path.

  "Your daddy wants it this way."

  "Leave me alone."

  "You won’t scream. You won’t, because then I’ll have to tell."

  "Tell what?"

  "About Alfred’s fifteenth birthday present. Behind the barn."

  She said nothing. There was nothing she could say.

  Roby held out the clod of pie.

  "Nobody…" Her voice was like a wind over ice, brittle. "Nobody saw."

  "Family secrets. We keep it in the family."

  "Nobody saw."

  "Somebody did. How do you think I found out?"

  "Nobody saw."

  "Your daddy did. And he told me all about it. Last night."

  Her words were like notes played on the wet rim of a crystal glass, uneven and piercing. "My daddy was dead last night."

  "I know."

  "My daddy was dead and nobody saw and you’re crazy and you and your pie can go to hell." She sprang forward and slapped at his hand.

  The pie flew from Roby’s open palm, parted some leaves in the underbrush, and landed in the creek with a liquid thunk. Marlene clawed her way past him, screeching. He looked at his empty palm under the moonlight, then watched her grow smaller and darker until she was nothing but a moving shadow. Then her figure was outlined in the light of the screen door. She went inside and the door to the kitchen slammed closed.