Written on My Heart

by Morgan Callan Rogers

  “What happens to them now?” Bud asked.

  “Well, Andy was a minor when he did it. Got to figure out the particulars of that. We’ll let the law work it out. The crime took place in Crow’s Nest Harbor, so what happens will happen up there. The Barringtons have called their lawyer.”

  “What happens to Patty?” I asked.

  Parker frowned. “Nothing. Patty overdosed on painkillers. She’s dead. I got the call when I was at your house yesterday.”

  We all paused, and then Bud said, “Probably best. It appears she fucked up a lot of people.”

  Parker pursed his lips but didn’t say anything. I noticed how tired he looked. He said to me, “You sit tight and we’ll see what happens with the Barrington boys. Although the chances of you sitting tight are slim to none, I imagine.” He smiled at me.

  We all stood up and I gave Parker a hug. I said, “You said you’d do it, and you did it. Thank you.”

  He coughed and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Bud and I drove home in his pickup, holding hands across the front seat. When we got back to the house, Robin was there.

  “How did you know?” I asked, holding her to me. “I didn’t have time to call.”

  “Bud called me and I came right away,” she said.

  We sat at the kitchen table over coffee and tea while I blubbered out my grief and confusion. “I loved Andy,” I said. “How could he be with me without . . . feeling anything? How could he act like nothing had happened? What was in his head?”

  “People compartmentalize things,” Robin said. “They put traumas in dark closets way back in their heads and they nail the door shut. The problem is, they leak out somehow. Didn’t you tell me once that he did tons of drugs and never met a school he couldn’t flunk out of? And he had his father holding it over him too.”

  “He was scared shitless of Edward,” I said.

  “We should all be scared shitless of Edward,” Robin said. “From everything you’ve said about him, that guy has no heart. Or conscience. He’s a textbook sociopath.”

  Travis, who had been napping in his crib upstairs, yelled, “Bup. Bup.”

  I said, “I’ll get him.” I climbed the stairs toward him, my heart lifting at the thought of seeing my baby boy. My girl, who had ruined her dress and salvaged my heart at the same time the day before, had gone to work at the state park with Dottie for the morning. Ida would care for her later that day, while Dottie, Bud, Robin, and I headed up to Long Reach and the funeral home.

  In the days to come, we would know more about Edward and Andy’s plights, and newspapers would pick up Carlie’s story again until they moved on to something else.

  But at that moment, I filled my arms with my wriggling son.

  “I forgot to ask you,” Robin said as the four of us headed up to Long Reach, “when we figure out when the memorial service is, would it be okay if my family rented your dad’s house for a couple of weeks? It would be Dad, Ben, Valerie, and me.”

  The thought of having my mother’s family, my family, being close to us, and soon, perked up my heart and I said, of course, and welcome. “I’ll have to get it ready,” I said.

  “Well,” Robin said, “if you agree, I’d like to stay there until they get here, and then I can pack up my apartment and fly home with them. Maybe I can help you work on it.”

  “Sounds good,” Bud said. “Keep Florine out of mischief.”

  “I’ll give you a hand too,” Dottie said.

  “Okay,” I said to Dottie. “You make the cookies and bring them with you.”

  “I ain’t making nothing,” she said. “But I’ll help eat whatever’s there.”

  The funeral director, Mr. Desmond, had a nice smile. He asked us to wait in the hall for a few minutes. He walked away, his shiny shoes making no sound on the thick rugs that led to somewhere in the back.

  This was the same place we had come to when Sam had died. In the daytime, it looked different. Rich colors seeped through the rooms. Everything in the hallway was dark red. The carpets, the little flowers on the wallpaper, the runner coming down the dark, polished stairway. A clock ticked somewhere. The sound of a television or a radio barely reached my ears.

  “They live here, you know,” Dottie said. “You imagine?”

  “Well,” Robin pointed out. “Someone has to live here. Who would take care of the dead people? Who would receive them and stay with them?”

  I grabbed her hand as Mr. Desmond walked back down the hall.

  “Are you all going in?” Mr. Desmond said.

  “No,” I said. “Just me.”

  “You sure?” Bud and Robin said at the same time.

  I nodded. Mr. Desmond took my arm. “She’s in the sun room,” he said quietly as we walked. “She’s was buried in the ground for a long time,” he said. “Please understand that. Time takes its toll on the body.”

  “I just want to be with her for a couple of minutes,” I said, and then, through no thought on my part, I bent over double and began to howl. My heart chose that very moment to cleanse itself of years of worry, grief, hurt, and anger. Hurried footsteps thumped up the carpet to Mr. Desmond and me. Bud knelt beside me, took a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped my face with it. After a couple of minutes, with his help, I stood upright again on shaky legs. “You don’t have to do this,” Bud said. “It will be okay with Carlie, I’m sure.”

  Mr. Desmond added, “It might be best if you remember her as she was.”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Let’s go,” I said. I dug my fingernails into Bud’s arm as we finished our walk up the hall.

  When we reached the doorway, I blinked. I had wanted to view her body before having what remained of her cremated, but I had expected to view that body in a simple pine box. Instead, a rich mahogany casket lay on a maroon velvet platform in the middle of the bright sun porch, surrounded by bouquets of spring flowers.

  I gasped. “What . . .”

  “The casket is borrowed for the morning,” Mr. Desmond said gently. “And the flowers are from your uncle—her brother, and his family. I thought it might be more pleasant for you to see her in the light, and to be able to look outside. After your viewing, we will proceed with the cremation, per your request.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “We have covered her body with a blanket,” Mr. Desmond said. “If you would like the blanket removed, I can do that.”

  “No,” I said. “I just want to see that it’s her and that’s she’s somewhere that’s not just in my head.”

  We walked forward and I dug my fingernails into Bud’s hand. A crumbling skull rested on a blue velvet pillow. Thin bits of colorless hair still clung to it. A small gap between her two front teeth brought back her smile.

  I shook as I let go of Bud’s hand. “Can I be alone?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Mr. Desmond said.

  “I’ll be right outside the door,” Bud said.

  After they left, I stood until I stopped trembling. I took a deep breath, and let it out in tears that drenched what remained of Carlie’s face. “I missed you, so much,” I said. The light outside gave Carlie’s skull an odd ivory sheen. I reached out my hand and touched it. It was cold and hard, not like my Carlie at all. But the bright spark that had occupied my mother lived on in the face of my daughter.

  Cheery birdcalls came from outside, and I looked out into the backyard. Fat robins hopped on the lawn. A blue jay bossed its way among bright, light, young leaves. I lifted my hand from Carlie’s skull.

  Soft footsteps behind me stopped as Bud put an arm around me. We stood silent.

  Bud cleared his throat. “You know, them bastards didn’t win.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, wiping my face.

  “Well, they may have buried her body and not told anyone about it until they got cau
ght, but they’ll have to live with it until they die. Carlie will be here a long time after they will. When they buried her, right away she became part of everything around her. She’ll be here long after they rot in hell.”

  Tears trickled into my mouth and I tasted salt. “She’s gone,” I said. “But she’s home. Welcome home, Carlie.”

  I leaned into the coffin and kissed her skull. Then my husband took my hand and we walked down the hallway.

  49

  We gathered on the little beach at the end of The Point at dusk on the second Sunday in June. Me, Bud, the kids, Ida and Maureen, Madeline, Bert, Dottie, Archer, my uncle Robert and his wife, Valerie, and my cousins, Robin and Ben. Ray and Glen were there and Parker and Tillie Clemmons stood off to the side together. Even Cindi, from the Lobster Shack, showed up per my invitation.

  Torches stuck into the gravel and sand turned our faces into the flickering, bright-orange glow offered up by the insides of jack-o’-lanterns.

  Glen knelt down by a big rocket containing a mix of firecracker powder and Carlie’s ashes, and waited for our signal.

  Billy and Maureen stood together facing us.

  Maureen began to sing “Amazing Grace,” and I swore that even the ever-flowing tide in the harbor paused to hear those beautiful sounds. Billy stood beside her, swaying, his eyes closed, listening to her sing. Something told me that in a few years, if all went well, they would be together.

  As Maureen finished, an owl from somewhere across the harbor cracked open the twilight hush. “Who?” it demanded. “Who?” We laughed. I leaned against Bud and watched Arlee follow Travis as he wove an unsure, stubborn path through the little stones on the beach. He might fall, but he would pick himself right back up and go on. That was his way. And she would always watch him, because that was her way.

  Billy said, “I have only a very few words to say, because Carlie, like her daughter, didn’t like sermons. She relied on what her heart told her, and she had a good heart. My father and I went into the Lobster Shack once, after we’d been fishing, and she was running around waiting on people, carrying plates, smiling, twirling around to dodge anyone who got in her way. I was about fifteen and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was like the light itself, flitting around the room. She was a woman who danced through life. And I admired that. What happened to stop that dance will never diminish the woman she was, nor should it. She was a beautiful soul who served the lord as a wife, a mother, a friend, a sister, and an aunt. She was a free spirit, and that spirit lives on in Florine and in her children. Carlie never came to church, but I’m sure that Jesus was with her always. How could he not be, when she was so much fun? There is no doubt in my mind that they knew each other well.

  “I’ll finish up with a couple of lines from Revelations: ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

  “I would also like to add a few lines from a poem by William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet, because as her brother, Robert, whom we are blessed to have here with us today, has reminded us, Carlie would have loved these lines. The poem is called ‘The Fiddler of Dooney,’ and these are the two last verses:

  For the good are always the merry,

  Save by an evil chance,

  And the merry love the fiddle

  And the merry love to dance;

  And when the folk there spy me,

  They will all come up to me,

  With, ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’

  And dance like a wave of the sea.”

  I listened to the hushed water in the harbor whisper against the shore, and just as I almost caught what it was saying, my uncle Robert took my hand into his own sturdy one. He was tall and shy, unlike his sister, and dark, with curly hair. I saw her in the freckles on his face and in the laughter in his eyes. Arlee, who was hanging on to his leg, adored him, her aunt Valerie, and her cousin Ben.

  Travis tugged at me to be picked up. I let go of Robert’s hand and hoisted him into my arms. Bud pulled me closer.

  Glen, still kneeling by the rocket, cleared his throat, and I nodded to him. He struck a match, lit the fuse, and we all stepped as far back as we could go without falling into the beach-rose bushes. Sparks traveled up the length of the fuse and the rocket took off, streaking into the dark purple of the summer night. It exploded into a swirl of brilliant colors and scattered Carlie’s ashes all over creation.

  50

  Evie Butts came to see me one morning shortly after Carlie’s memorial service. She strolled into the house without knocking while I was feeding the kids breakfast.

  “Thought I’d come say hello,” she said. “I’m living at home now.”

  “You moved back?” I said. “What about Albert?”

  “Right. Albert. He’s gone. I’m here, for now,” she said.

  She looked worn down. She would always be one of the prettiest girls in the room, but something old clung to her face, though she was only seventeen years old. She sat down at the kitchen table, folded her hands, and watched Travis munch down cornflakes.

  “He’s big, isn’t he, for his age?” she asked.

  “Daddy was a big guy,” I said. “Travis will be as big as he was, if not bigger.”

  “Want to play dolls?” Arlee asked Evie.

  “Not right now,” Evie said.

  “I color good,” Arlee said. “Want to see?”

  “Sure,” Evie said.

  Arlee ran upstairs. “Be careful,” I called.

  Evie raked her fingers through her dark curls.

  “I love your hair,” I said to her.

  “It’s a pain in the ass,” Evie said. “I wish it was straight, like Cher’s.”

  “I loved my mother’s hair. It was bright red, like Arlee’s. Mine is kind of butterscotch with a little bit of pink in it. It’s just strange.”

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Evie said. “I’m sorry she’s dead.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You been through some things,” Evie said.

  “So have you.”

  “I guess. How did you know what to do to make it all right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Evie twisted her hands around each other. They were small compared to Dottie’s fists. “Well, you got a guy and you got pretty babies and a nice house.”

  I laughed. “You think I planned this? No way. It all happened on the way to somewhere else.”

  “Where was somewhere else?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Just somewhere. I was going to show everybody.”

  “What?”

  “Hell if I know. I was mad at everybody.”

  “I am too. They all drive me crazy.”

  “They do. But sometimes it’s good crazy.”

  “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out for me. I got this kid I don’t know what to do with. Somehow, I got to figure out how to raise him.”

  “You have help.”

  “Yes. But I don’t know as I love him like I’m supposed to. Did you love your kids from the start?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said. “And I love them more every day. They drive me nuts, but I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt them.”

  “When I had Archer, I just looked at him and waited to feel something, but I didn’t. It freaked me out. I felt bad about that. And now, every time I look at him, I remember that, and it still freaks me out.”

  “You had a hard time having him,” I said. “That probably had something to do with it. With Arlee, I felt a flood of love. But I had a C-section with Travis, and I felt fuzzy for a while. Every time feels different, I imagine.”

  Evie picked at her fingernails. “Seems like I do stuff all wrong and it don’t even matter to me that I’m doing it wrong. I just”—she shrugg
ed—“do it.”

  “I used to be like that. I didn’t care what I did. I didn’t care that I didn’t care.”

  “Me too, but I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to be like that.”

  Arlee carried three coloring books over to Evie and plunked them on the table in front of her. “Crayons,” she said. She ran back upstairs to her room.

  “If you stick around, you’ll get to know Archer,” I said. “Madeline, Bert, and Dottie know him better, because they’ve been raising him.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’ll see if that works,” Evie said.

  Travis threw a wet cornflake and hit her in the face. “Hah!” he crowed.

  “Ewww,” Evie said, and Travis laughed.

  Evie’s mouth quirked a little bit. “Ewww,” she said again.

  Travis laughed harder. She smiled more.

  He threw more cornflakes, she said, “Ewww,” and they laughed until Arlee came downstairs carrying her little treasure box in her arms.

  “I thought you were going to bring down some crayons,” I said.

  “Evie,” Arlee said, ignoring me, “want to see inside?”

  “Okay,” Evie said. “Hit me.”

  Arlee looked confused. “No.”

  “It’s something people say,” Evie said. “I would love to see what’s inside that box.”

  Arlee opened it up and pulled out her shells and flowers and a new blue jay’s feather I hadn’t seen. While Evie was admiring them, Arlee pulled something else out and held it behind her back.

  “Guess,” she said to Evie.

  “I don’t know,” Evie said. “Give me a hint.”

  “A hole in it,” Arlee said.

  “Is it a doughnut?”

  Arlee rolled her eyes. “No.”

  “Give me another hint.”

  “Yellow.”

  Evie shook her head. “Is it an egg yolk?”

  “An egg yolk?” I said. “Really?”

  Evie shrugged. “I don’t know. Tell me.”