by Jenny Goebel
CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
THE REASON I NEVER ACT SAINTLY IS ’CAUSE I’VE GOT TOO much want in my heart. Mama was cursed with a wanting heart, too. That’s why hers is broken now.
You see, want always seems to drag a heartache right along with it. It’s also something that can get you darn near dead when it’s the wrong thing you’re wanting after.
Trust me, I know.
I also know, when it’s right, want can get you the whole blue-green world. The trick is figuring out which is which. And I had a lot of figuring out to do when it came to Abbot Stein.
When he walked into our family work place, I pegged Mr. Stein as one of those poor souls Dad calls “struck by lightning.” I saw him as an earnest, devastated, sorrow-dripping-out-of-his-pockets griever. And grievers are the worst part of being in a business that revolves around dead people.
But, to be honest, if the trade is something that calls to you, like it did my grandpa, owning a monument company isn’t such a bad way to go. No creepy stiff bodies. No bug-eyed faces to stitch shut. No trying to make a three-day-old corpse look like a living, breathing person simply taking an afternoon nap. It’s just about dealing with people full of sadness and making headstones as hard and cold as death itself.
Then again, the headstones themselves are really kind of beautiful if you try to forget what they’re used for. Slabs of granite with flecks of quartz and monuments made of swirly marble. Smooth crevices you can dip fingers in and trace the letters of a name and a person’s entire history between two dates.
The morning Mr. Stein barged into our lives, Dad was setting to work on one beauty of a marker, tall and sleek with a natural, unpolished edge. Dad didn’t know it, but I had my own ideas for what should be carved into the massive piece of rock. I thought if I could take over a bit of his load around Alpine Monuments — I mean doing the real stuff, like coming up with marker designs, not just the housekeeping and errands — he’d have more time to spend with Mama. And Mama certainly needed more attention than any block of stone, no matter how large and beautiful it was.
I’d worked hard on my sketch. I’d done everything I could to make my design good enough for the headstone. But the thing is: Antlers are tricky. I hadn’t wanted the buck to look top-heavy, so instead, I might’ve drawn his antlers too small. It most likely wasn’t good enough, yet I was getting up the nerve to show it to Dad anyway when Mr. Stein opened the glass door to our den.
Almost thankful for the distraction, I dropped my sketch of the deer behind Mimi’s desk and let it roll back up on itself. I peered through the open archway connecting the den (which doubled as a showroom) to the garage. Dad was already raising his head. His sandblasting stencils were strewn across the concrete floor, and the sizeable headstone rose at a sharp angle between us. Crumbles of stone dusted everything.
Dad shifted his gaze toward me before lifting his eye protection, and then we both took in the appearance of the distraught-looking stranger. The man’s choppy salt-and-pepper hair stood on end like it’d been blown wayward by the wind, except it was a perfectly calm and sunny July day. He wore a heavy black overcoat buttoned all wrong in the ridiculous heat, and his long face was so sunken in, his eyes so hungry, I’d have bet he hadn’t eaten for days.
I might’ve grabbed his hand and led him to a chair to wait until Mimi came around (my grandmother’s great with the ones whose feet have been pulled out from under them), except when I started toward Mr. Stein, I got a funny feeling. There was something off about him — something that caused the blood in my heart to race straight down to my legs, making them feel all heavy and stuck to the floor.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my father removing his face mask. “Can I help you?” he called out. He didn’t usually deal with the customers (or me, for that matter), and his deep voice did nothing to hide how put-out he felt. When the answer he was looking for never came, Dad finally shed his work gloves. He entered the den with a frown and heavy footsteps.
I picked up a rag and faked like I had been too absorbed with dusting a row of display urns to be hospitable to the stranger.
Handling people going through such a hard time took patience, a smidgen of restraint, and a whole lot of tenderness. Dad never could manage the right balance of it all, nor did I imagine he wanted to. He preferred the flat, polished stones to sobbing, heartbroken souls. Can’t say I blamed him. But Mimi was off delivering banana-nut muffins to a funeral reception at Sacred Heart, and here I was pretending to be quite concerned with the gleam of each and every urn.
I was sorry for making Dad drop what he was doing, but at the same time, I felt relieved. I’d sat in with my grandmother recently as she was comforting a family and presenting them with various epitaph ideas. To say the least, it hadn’t gone well.
At one point, the elderly aunt turned to me and said, “Why, young lady, you’ve been silent this whole time.” It was true; I’d been keeping my mouth shut, and for good reason. But then she pressed further. “Why don’t you tell us what you’d want people to say if you were the one who’d died?”
Mimi nodded at me encouragingly, and so I thought about it and then gave my very best, most honest answer. I said, “Well, ma’am, I think I’d want them to say, ‘Look, she’s still moving.’” Problem was, I felt sincere about my answer, but the aunt thought I meant to be disrespectful, and the whole thing just went downhill from there.
So I thought it best for all if I hung back on this one anyway. I did, however, turn and stand in a position where I could keep dusting and still watch what was going on. The stranger unbuttoned his overcoat and pulled out a thin, jagged piece of black granite from an inside pocket. He then handed the granite to my father without ever saying a word. As soon as my father’s fingers wrapped around the tile, his expression changed. He no longer appeared put-out. He looked like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
The catch of my father’s breath followed by his low, soft whistle was enough to make me drop the dust rag and go on over for a look-see.
My own breath stuck just shy of my lips as I inspected the portrait engraved on the stone.
The detail was amazing — far beyond what could ever be achieved with our old sandblaster — and we were well aware of the type of machinery an etching like this required. We just couldn’t afford it. However, what made the portrait special was not the fact that we couldn’t have made it ourselves. It was the woman’s face that drew us in like horses to a salt lick.
She was hauntingly beautiful.
Her round, clever eyes seemed oddly alive — even frozen like they were in the cold, hard granite — and she was far too young for a gravestone portrait. I felt a slight twinge of sorrow just knowing she was dead.
I wished I could tell the color of her hair, but etchings were always a ghostly gray. Pale blond or otherwise, the lady looked a lot like Mama with an ocean tide of wavy locks flowing down her back. Of course, that was before Mama got so sad she went and snipped her hair short and lifeless around her ears. Dad m
ust’ve been thinking about Mama, too, ’cause he seemed unable to pull two words together.
“That’s a real nice etching, sir.” I spoke up, knowing what my dad would say if he wasn’t tongue-tied. “But we’ve got no use for a fancy laser here. You might want to travel on down the road to one of the touristy towns. They have loads of money to spend on their dead.”
Mr. Stein turned toward me. I noticed for the first time that his eyes were wide set and the color of cement. His jaw hardened, the clenched bones obvious on his gaunt face. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, I think I heard his teeth grinding together.
I took a step back and lightly bumped my head on Dad’s cotton-shirted shoulder. He was a whole foot taller than me, not to mention twice as wide. But the soft thump I gave him was enough to wake Dad from his trance, ’cause right away he said, “My daughter’s right.”
I turned my head and lifted my chin.
Dad caught me smiling at him, and I hoped like mad he would smile back, but he didn’t. “We can’t afford a laser, and even if we could, the people around here can’t afford the etchings. So we’ll keep on sandblasting our headstones, like we always have.” As he said this, my dad once again gazed wistfully at the etching of the attractive woman, and then he stepped forward to usher Mr. Stein out the door. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Mr. Stein held his ground. “I’m not selling lasers.”
My father scratched his head with two fingers and scrunched his great brow, like Mr. Stein was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.
“Whatcha doing here, sir, if you’re not selling anything?” I felt a surge of sympathy, thinking maybe the man was a griever after all.
“I’m not selling lasers. I etched this portrait myself, with a chisel and a hammer.”
Dad pulled the stone from Mr. Stein’s hands. He seemed even more dumbfounded as he reexamined the woman’s face. “Not too many people still do hand etchings. Kind of a lost art, isn’t it?”
I gaped again at the portrait and then at the stranger. Now that I knew he was an artist, and an incredible one at that, I was seeing him in a whole new light. I figured I’d only imagined the wrongness I’d noticed about him before.
Mr. Stein watched my father, his gray eyes never wavering in my direction, but he didn’t answer.
“Well, she sure is breathtaking,” my father said after a short while, and I wasn’t sure if he meant the lady herself or her portrait. “But artwork like this? Now I’m certain we can’t afford your services. Thanks again for stopping in. You have a nice day.” My heart sank a little when Dad handed the portrait back to Mr. Stein. As it traveled in front of my face, I tried to memorize it, thinking maybe I could re-create it later in my sketch pad. My hopes weren’t real high. Like antlers, faces were tricky, too.
Mr. Stein nodded his head, and then turned to leave. He was almost to the door when he stopped, and said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve fallen on some hard times. What I’m most in need of is a roof over my head and food in my stomach.”
“Hmmmm.” Dad rubbed his hand over the gray and brown hairs sprouting from his chin. I knew he was thinking about the old carriage house behind the garage. Even though he came off like a grizzly sometimes, deep down Dad was the biggest sucker of us all when it came to hard-luck cases. More than a few headstones in the Stratwood Cemetery were placed there on nothing more than empty pocketbooks and the kindness in my father’s heart. Plus, good, cheap labor was hard to find, and Dad had been desperate for some since Grandpa died. My own help may have come cheap, but I was still working on the good part.
“We do have the space …” Dad said. “If you’re willing to work for room and board, plus maybe a small commission, well then, you can stay with us until you get back on your feet.”
I sucked in my breath. I hadn’t been sure if I wanted the man to stay or not, but as soon as Dad extended the invitation, I started looking at Mr. Stein as one big, giant opportunity. I’d never seen Dad’s eyes light up for any of my artwork. And even though Mr. Stein seemed to be shaking slightly with his back still turned to us — like a kite twitching in the wind, slight enough to be carried off on the next big gust — I hoped he’d stick around long enough to teach me a thing or two about etching.
“Of course, I’ll have to speak it over with Bernie’s grandmother,” Dad added. “She’s out at the moment, but when she returns, I know Mimi will be happy to fix you something to eat, and that’ll also give her a chance to consider taking in a …” Dad paused like he wasn’t sure what to call the man. “… well, a guest. In the meantime, there’s running water and electricity in the carriage house. Why don’t you go ahead and settle yourself out there for now?”
Mr. Stein turned back to face us, and it looked as though he had to force his lips to curl into a smile. “Thank you. That would be wonderful.”
I finally released my breath and Dad reached out to shake the man’s hand. “Fine. Fine. It’s settled, then. I’m sure when the people from town see what you can do, they’ll be lining up for your etchings. Bernie, please show Mister … Mister … I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“Mr. Stein. Abbot Stein.”
“Very good. Show Mr. Abbot Stein to the carriage house, would you?” Dad said as he walked back through the archway.
Mr. Stein raised his eyebrows up in two pointy arches. “Shall we?”
“Don’t you want to grab your stuff or something first?” I asked.
“Everything I own is right here,” Mr. Stein said, unfolding his arms like all decent, normal people carry everything they own in their pockets. The overcoat was still unbuttoned, and as he extended his hands, the lapels fell back to reveal an old iron chisel and hammer stuffed inside. They were rusty-looking, but otherwise kinda dull. Not exactly what I’d expected, having seen how sharp and clear the marks on the stone were. Still, there was something creepy about the hammer and chisel, and I couldn’t stop myself from shying away from them.
Mr. Stein seemed to notice my reaction, and he quickly threaded the buttons back through the holes on his overcoat. He matched them up correctly this time so that the inside pockets and the tools were once again concealed.
It was silly, not to mention childish, to be frightened by a rusty pair of iron tools, and I straightened up tall as I could. All five feet of me turned on my heels as I said, “Let’s go.” Then, to prove to myself I hadn’t been alarmed by Mr. Stein, nor by what he was carrying in his pockets, I retrieved the sketch I’d tossed behind Mimi’s desk.
It seemed horribly bad in comparison to the lovely portrait, but I was gonna show it to him nonetheless. Not to Dad. Not now, at least. But maybe after I’d seen Mr. Stein to the carriage house, he could give me a few pointers. I really did have a lot to learn before I’d be able to take on any of the monument-designing myself, and I felt foolish for thinking otherwise earlier.
Dad had his stencils back in hand, and the sandblasting machine turned on. He didn’t even look up as we exited the door behind him. I led Mr. Stein away from all that dust and humming, and we walked down the flagstone path — the path that paved the way to the carriage house.
“Where you from, anyway?” I asked as I kept my back to him and stepped from one salmon-colored paver to the next, avoiding the grassy spots growing in between.
“Silverton,” Mr. Stein said.
“Did you carve stones for a living there, too?” Silverton was only about an hour away, and I’d been there a few times myself. Though I didn’t recall seeing another monument company when passing through.
“Bernie seems like an odd name for a girl,” Mr. Stein said flatly, ignoring my question.
I stopped. With my toes butting up to the edge of a paver, I turned my head and jutted my chin up to face him. “It’s short for Bernadette,” I said curtly. “I was named after a saint, but since I never act like one, everybody calls me Bernie.” Then I clamped my mouth shut and started walking again. Even if his comment was kinda rude, I should’ve remembered to be nicer.
Things weren’t exactly bright and cheery around here to begin with, and I didn’t need to be unfriendly as well — especially if I still wanted him to take a look at my sketch.
Our land stretches farther than most backyards — though not by much — and all of our blank headstones line the path on either side. It feels an awful lot like having a cemetery right out our back window, even though there aren’t any dead people buried there — just a rooster (Mimi’s), two guinea pigs (mine), and a dog (Dad’s). But, although it’s not a real cemetery, it is enough to keep most kids my age away — not exactly the most uplifting spot for a hangout. And then, of course, there was my sad, dreary mother, always sobbing at the unexpected.
I stole a glance back at Mr. Stein and tried to gauge whether or not he found the headstones unsettling, but I couldn’t tell. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had changed his mind about staying with us. It got a little uncomfortable around here, even for me, with all the teary-eyed grievers stopping by to make their selections.
Michael Romano didn’t seem to mind, but he also didn’t count. I didn’t want him hanging around. He had spooked me just a few days prior by jumping out from behind a towering gray monument while I was taking inventory. Since I didn’t put it past him to try it again, I braced myself as Mr. Stein and I approached the big blank marker. When no one popped out at us, I relaxed my shoulders.
I didn’t want Mr. Stein thinking I was the jumpy sort, so I turned my head and gave him a sugary smile. But his eyes weren’t on me; they were taking in the sight of the carriage house.
In any other backyard, it might be considered a coveted playhouse or fort. In ours, the carriage house just adds to the overall freakiness of the Morrison homestead. Never mind the whispery aspen trees and wild columbines growing about. With its triangle-shaped tin roof and weathered planks, the carriage house looks more like a horror movie shack sitting behind all our headstones than a cozy hideout. Not to mention, it only has one window, and it is ’round the back side of the building.
Its unwelcoming sight didn’t seem to bother Mr. Stein any, however, as he was smiling a thin smile. I wouldn’t say he looked happy exactly — though it was difficult to tell, considering his face was naturally as tart as Mimi’s rhubarb pie — but he did seem pleased.