When her father’s disappointment in her welled up, she drowned it with a cup of hot coffee. For good measure, she pushed that disappointment down into her gut with a layer of crisp toast.
Beebe set her dishes in the sink and heard her father’s truck just firing up. That was odd. She went out to the side porch in time to see him backing the Ford down the driveway.
Huh, she thought. Then she noticed Hal Garrett’s pickup parked beside the block building. When had he arrived?
She went back. Opening the door and stepping over the threshold, she said, “Morning, Hal.”
Hal occupied the chair behind the desk. He looked up from some paperwork. “Hey, Beebe. How are you doing?” His inquiry was appropriately sincere for a family in mourning.
“I’m worried.”
“Oh?”
“It’s Daddy. Was he just back here?”
“He was. We discussed the change in timing for the reburial.”
“Yes. Sunset? Is there some ritual about reburials taking place at sunset?”
“Not that I ever heard of. In my life, I attended one burial at sunset. My wife’s father. But he was navy. The sun over the yardarm and all that was my take. A color guard attended. Someone played Taps.”
Imagining that scene caused goosebumps to prickle her skin. Involuntarily, she rubbed her arms. “Can you see well enough at that time?”
Hal sat back. The chair emitted a squeak. “Cliff asked me to get here at eight. We’ll lower your mother into the ground at nine. Earlier in the day, I’ll do the preliminary work, then wait until evening to get the vault handler in place to exhume the vault. That’ll take a little time since we’re doing things backwards, but I can keep the schedule and see well enough.”
She hung onto the words, “see well enough.” First, she spoke them, then Hal. Admittedly, she, too, saw well enough to know her use of “rising sun” in the death notice was a poetic approach. Her father intended his choice of “setting sun” to be a literal, time-specific one. What simple analogy better highlighted the differences between father and daughter? She had no expectation that a small group of mourners would gather around the new grave in the chill of the morning with dew still clinging to the world.
Thanking Hal, she stepped out into the warm morning, feeling the weight of— Of what, where her father was concerned? Obligation? Yes, but the air around Cliff when she was in his company seemed charged, the way static electricity feels, like a kind of force field. Static electricity sometimes pulls the inanimate object toward you. Sometimes, it repels contact. When she braved to stand close enough, how would she find her father’s force field charged? Negatively or positively? That test must wait until after the funeral.
She raised her face to the heavens, eyes closed to the surrounding scene. Her father’s heart and soul fell the night he learned about his wife’s death. So many others who spoke of their grief described a great emptiness. She imagined the crushing emptiness in his chest, the painful emotions, all bathed in the hot red the sun painted behind her eyelids.
When she lowered her chin and opened her eyes, her line of sight found the sycamore and glider. The glider seemed to be a trigger for her father’s grief. An idea formed and she pushed herself into motion toward the swing where she sat with him at dusk after his first visit to the grave back by the blue spruce. His words came back to her. That night he spoke of “lies at sunset.” In his mind, was the burial at sunset Cliff Walker’s way of mending one jagged rent to heart and soul caused by grief?
Beebe corrected that. She thought burial at sunset was Cliff Walker’s way of giving honesty its due. And grief had a name. That name was Abigail Walker.
* * *
Beebe swung into town on the main drag. She got caught at the traffic light guarding the mid-block crosswalk. Up at the corner, she saw her father coming out of Rosemary’s restaurant. A woman with a long braid walked out with him. She patted his back. This must be Rosemary, Beebe thought. From this distance, it was difficult to peg her age, but not so difficult to say that Cliff and she were good friends. Curiosity first surged when Beebe heard about Rosemary from Vincent yesterday after church. Beebe wanted the story that so far Cliff neglected to shed any light on.
Cliff crossed the street and walked the half block to the alley that ran behind the hardware store. By the time Beebe got the green light, the woman Beebe assumed was Rosemary disappeared back inside the restaurant. Neither observed Beebe’s right-place, right-time nosiness.
Before she delivered her mother’s obituary to the newspaper building for publishing in tomorrow’s edition, she stopped at Crossroads. The flashdrive in her purse contained two versions of the death notice. Yates would determine which one got printed.
She parked on the street and walked over to the community center. She knew it would be closed due to the holiday. If she couldn’t raise Yates or Vincent at either the front door or the back, she’d head to the park. When she peeked through the glass in the front door, the men were sharing a bucket of sudsy water. They each dipped and wrung a rag, then worked at the task of wiping down the tables and chairs. Her knock brought Barleycorn in from the side hall, but it was Vincent who admitted her.
“Morning. Come to help?” he said.
“Oh, how I wish I could.”
“Liar.” He grinned and closed the door.
“Actually, I came to speak with Yates a minute.” She scratched Barleycorn’s noggin.
“Me? What about?”
“Can we sit a minute, hopefully on a dry chair?” Beebe teased.
“Over here,” Yates said. He led her to a cluster of chairs by the wall. Vincent stood nearby.
“I’m in town to place Mother’s obituary in the paper so it runs tomorrow. That’s what Daddy wants: the obituary in the paper the same day the grave is transferred.” Beebe spoke directly to Yates. “Daddy was so taken with you and your love for Mother that he asked me to include you in the obituary. I’ve written it out. I didn’t want to turn the obituary in without gaining your permission.” She pulled a printed copy from her purse, opened the folds, and handed it to Yates. Saturday, when she spent time at Crossroads, she got distracted and forgot to approach Yates about her father’s revision.
Yates read the obituary through. His face registered a measure of surprise when Beebe thought he reached the phrase containing his name. He looked up. Clearly, he was moved. The first few words of his answer were choked. “Yes. I’d like to be included. Thank you. It means a lot.”
Yates passed the sheet to Vincent.
“Will you two come to the funeral?” Beebe sent her gaze from Yates up to Vincent. “I first thought there’d be a conflict with keeping Crossroads open and both of you couldn’t be there, but Daddy’s planned the services for evening.”
“Setting sun?” Vincent’s quick read of the death notice reached the end. The quizzical look he sent her said the timing Cliff chose was definitely out of the ordinary.
Beebe downplayed it. Cliff’s feelings were personal, and she would not discuss them. It went without saying that Cliff hadn’t shared his perspective, so there was really nothing to discuss. “Yes, he wants Mother reburied at sunset, so it works out if you two want to attend. Hal will start the retrieval process around eight. If you could get there after eight, we’ll be ready for the reburial, which is set for nine, or thereabouts.”
“Sunset? Do you know why?” Vincent pushed again.
“I talked with Hal about it. He knew of no ritual, so...” Shrugging, Beebe trailed off. She withheld her deduction that the timing for the reburial was a symbolic gesture, meaningful only to Cliff.
“Can my dad come? I said I’d ask.” Yates’s raised eyebrows disappeared under his mop of tou
sled hair.
Beebe, touched by the request, would have jumped with an affirmative response, but for Cliff. What would his reaction be? His emotions bounced around with great agility lately. With her next breath though, she decided the Walkers would be hospitable. “Yes, we’d love to have him. Apologize for the late hour.”
“I don’t think he’ll mind.”
Beebe patted Yates’s knee. The motion attracted the dog. A cold, wet nose routed its way under her elbow. Barleycorn would not be ignored. She moved her arm. The dog’s snout took its place on her thigh. She scratched the spot between his eyes until they closed with contentment, then she scratched a little longer.
* * *
A young woman tagged Tiffany Clark looked up from her work at the front counter of the Larkspur News when Beebe walked in. Tiffany chose a short cut; her hair stood straight up at her crown. Her smile of greeting was so bright, it seemed to light up the ends of her hair.
Beebe handed her the flashdrive with a brief explanation. Tiffany plugged it in and downloaded the second version into the newspaper’s specialized software. When she turned her computer screen around so Beebe could proofread, Abigail Walker’s obituary had quickly been massaged into a narrow column. Beebe double-checked for Yates’s name, then setting sun in the closing sentence, glanced through the rest, and gave Tiffany the okay. She pressed a few keys on her keyboard and an invoice printed from the Epson nearby.
While Beebe selected the correct bills from her wallet, she heard the door open and close behind her. She handed the money to Tiffany. Beebe looked up when Mona Gabriel sidled up beside her at the counter. She recognized her as the Crossroads board member she met last week.
She didn’t bother to say hello. “I heard some interesting news the other day. About your mother. Well, not perhaps interesting. More startling. Maybe you can confirm it. Someone told me your mother would have been arrested on a narcotics charge for stealing drugs from the hospital, but she fled the jurisdiction instead? I understand it was quite a hot topic when it happened.”
Beebe stammered a bit, shocked by Mona Gabriel’s blunt side, in complete contrast with her soft, feminine wardrobe of the day. Then Beebe managed her best smile. She fully suspected that story wended Mona’s way through Mick Nettleman, the pool player she met at Crossroads. She overheard Mick speak openly of his intentions to search Mona out. He called her the doctor’s wife.
On the other side of the counter, she knew Tiffany took in every word and nuance. She held Beebe’s change. Beebe would have preferred discretion. Situations like this were just what she and Cliff would face after the obituary ran the next day. She might as well begin developing a tough skin now, just two seconds after she placed the death notice, before it even hit the doorsteps of every home in Larkspur.
“Yes, that is true. It happened thirty years ago,” Beebe said casually, turning to take the coins Tiffany offered. She eyed Tiffany whose face revealed an expression that was a cross between sympathetic and engrossed. For Tiffany’s benefit, Beebe played a bit of Mona’s forthright game. “You know Mother died several months ago. My father and I wrote this obituary for tomorrow’s paper. We Walkers don’t run from adversity. We meet and deal with it.” Beebe held up the invoice, which contained a printed copy of the obituary.
“May I?” Mona said.
“Please.”
When Mona’s eyes stopped following the lines of type, she raised them to Beebe’s. “A bit glowing for my tastes, considering.”
Beebe held her tongue. Tiffany sat down.
“We’ll continue this discussion at the upcoming board meeting,” Mona said. “The members should know.”
“Are you saying I’m not suited for the position? How is my mother’s background tied to my work at Crossroads?”
“It’s tied to perception, my dear, to the perception of the people who remember what she did. Those people are older now. Those people are the ones Crossroads serves. Please excuse me, I have a meeting upstairs.”
Mona’s closing statement was said to Tiffany. The clerk nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Beebe wondered what kind of a meeting would take place on a holiday, but then newspapers never took a day off. She folded the invoice in half twice. Holding it up, she said, “Tiffany, thanks for your help.”
The young woman’s eyes merely widened in response, pulling the corners of her mouth up into a macabre smile, what with her hair standing on end.
Beebe crossed the tiled floor to the double front doors, wrapping a simple rhyme into her memory: Silence from young Tiff, just like silence from old Cliff.
Apparently, Beebe was the only one talking.
In an afterthought, she tallied up two more: the partnership of Mona Gabriel and Mick Nettleman.
* * *
At the foot of the newspaper’s front steps, Beebe looked down the street to Rosemary’s restaurant. She wondered if Rosemary might offer insight into Cliff’s current emotional state. Surely a restaurant owner, like a bartender, was congenial, open, a people person, full of advice. Beebe was determined not to push Cliff to open the lines of communication until after the reburial, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t prepare herself in advance. Nor did it mean she shouldn’t figure out if Cliff and Rosemary were sweet on each other.
Beebe pushed through the diner’s door, catching Rosemary’s eye immediately. She appeared to be organizing invoices. Business was slow; Labor Day, the cause. Most people headed toward backyard barbeques with family and friends. The Walkers would not celebrate the day with a holiday feast.
Beebe selected the third booth and sat down with a view out the long expanse of glass. Rosemary cut a jagged path through a warren of tables, carrying a menu.
Up close, Beebe estimated Rosemary’s age to be within the late-fifties range. “Hello, I’m Beebe Walker,” she said right off. “I understand you’re friends with my father.”
Laying the menu down, Rosemary thrust out her hand. “Rosemary Olmsted. Nice to meet you.”
There was a straightforwardness about the woman Beebe liked. “Sit down if you have time.”
“Thank you. Today, there’s time.” She slid onto the booth. “I’ve known Cliff for ten years, I expect. I opened the restaurant about that time. Of course, the hardware store is just down the street.”
Beebe found the time frame so coincidental, she couldn’t help but comment, with a dash of straightforwardness herself. “About ten years ago, we now know my mother was saving a man’s life in a car crash.”
“Yes, I heard.” The woman’s folded hands rested motionless on the table.
“Daddy filled you in, then?”
“He confides in me.”
Beebe accepted that without craving details. She did not feel any tinge of unfaithfulness on her mother’s behalf. In fact, she was glad for Rosemary’s closeness to her father for his sake. “I hope he’s giving you the full story.”
“Since I don’t know the full story, I can’t confirm or deny. But he is sharing, and he knows I will listen to whatever he has to say.”
“Good. But I’m wondering, have you noticed a difference in him these last few days?”
“He’s upset. Reasonably so. He talked about you and Abigail and himself, how you’ve all changed.”
“Of course, he’s grieving.” Beebe watched the other woman.
“You’re not?” Her gaze never wavered.
“I accepted my mother’s death several months ago when I heard.” Beebe considered what might have passed between her father and Rosemary on the subject of timing, since Beebe heard in March, but said nothing until late August. “I’m worried about Daddy, though. I have the benefit of living once before through Mother’
s escape from her troubles and how Daddy responded. The background I’ve acquired since gives me knowledge into the way people grieve. I can apply that. Daddy seems headed for a rocky period. I’ll need help. It’s difficult to counsel your own family. Can I count on you for help? You have the knowledge of the man you’ve known for ten years. There’s value in that. We may need to pool our resources. I want to curb his suffering. Can we work as a team?”
Rosemary waited a moment, then said, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you to feel that you’re betraying him, but the change I see and the comments he makes have me concerned. Truth is, I may need a confidant, too. He’s not explaining himself. No, that’s not accurate. When I ask for an explanation, I get anger. Directed at me. I understand. It’s because I’m here, not Mother.” Beebe watched a look of something very near sympathy or, perhaps, she thought, a specific memory—surrounding Cliff, since he was the subject—pass across Rosemary’s face. “What change do you see? What comments do you have? Can you tell me?”
Rosemary’s eyes searched Beebe’s briefly. She said nothing.
“He’s trying to handle some deep-seeded emotion with Mother. There are several specific things. Has he said anything to you about the glider in our backyard?”
Beebe could tell Rosemary thought that a strange statement. Immediately, she shook her head.
“About the empty grave nearly haunting him—my word,” she said, “after Mother’s casket is moved?”
“Sorry.”
“Has he told you he wants her reburial at sunset tomorrow?”
“Yes. I guess I did think that was odd. I asked him, why so late? I assumed some ceremonial rite with reburials. I didn’t know.”
Proper Goodbye Page 23