I couldn’t remember where they kept the babies. I knew Peanut was in some special area. My parents were too young to have a family plot already. We didn’t have a lot of money, and insurance on the kid of a kid isn’t a lot. We had something like two grand to work with.
Regardless, my mother wouldn’t hear of her grandbaby getting cremated. I hadn’t had much say in any of it because I was back in the hospital getting my wrists stitched back together. Due to that, Mom had arranged everything herself, putting together some sappy dirge-filled funeral-home grief show that I didn’t want to be at myself.
Pretty much no one came. Nobody at my school for pregnant girls knew what happened. I think maybe an administrator popped in for a couple minutes. My grandparents were dead. The baby’s father was already poking some other hole. Well, probably not yet. But he was on the lookout. His vacating our garage apartment was what sent me over the edge.
Nothing was good here. Nothing. I had been right to leave.
But here I was.
Leaves crunched beneath my chunky boots. I felt adrift, wandering lost among the dead.
Then I stopped. Everything aligned, like a camera lens coming into focus.
This was it.
All the graves spread out in front of me were low. Toward the back was a large angel statue.
There were more graves than I remembered, but of course, it had been five years, six, really. Many more babies to bury.
I paused, hair in my face, wishing I’d thought to bring my hat. My eyes watered in the cold wind as I stepped between the rows, peering at names. So many of the little stones bore only a single date. Babies who left on the day they arrived.
Like mine had.
Where was he?
I spotted a bush that seemed familiar. It was cut into the shape of a ball, sitting by a bench, like an oversized beach toy nobody would ever play with. Horrible idea, but they’d kept it up all these years. If I was right, Peanut’s grave was angled off from it.
I stepped carefully through the dead smashed grass, avoiding the headstones, wincing at the thought of the tiny skeletons in their small boxes below my feet. I hated that part of walking in cemeteries. You couldn’t help but tromp over people’s bones.
My heart beat faster as I recognized some of the names on the carved stones set into the ground. I’d read them before on walks like this years ago. The consonants and syllables had left impressions, a signature burned directly onto my memory.
I had arrived.
The stone was small and gray and printed with simple text.
Peanut Schwartz.
February 3, 2009.
Uncut grass had encroached on the corners and then died, brown and wispy, fluttering with each gust of wind. I pushed it all aside so the edges of the grave were clear. No one had been here in a long time.
“Sorry, Peanut,” I said. “I just couldn’t come home for a while.”
I should never have let them bury him. I could still picture the tiny powder-blue coffin. I was probably sitting on it right now.
And inside it would be the baby, threadbare bits of his sleeper spread over whatever was left of him.
I couldn’t bear it.
If I had a shovel, I’d take it to the ground right now. Slam the point into this cold hard earth and get my baby out. Take him to be cremated. Keep him with me.
I never should have left him.
During a pit stop yesterday in Arizona, I called the caretaker to ask how to have the grave exhumed. I was forced to leave a voice mail, and I hadn’t heard back.
But I had money now. I would make this happen.
Another sharp gust of wind sent leaves dancing. This one didn’t bring me down, though. A wave of exhilaration surged through me. I felt powerful and in control. I would right this wrong.
I held on to my necklace, the shell with Albert’s ashes. I would mix some together. Carry them always. No one would tell me I couldn’t. My life was my own. I would bear my grief however I chose.
Something crunched behind me, and I jumped to my feet, my heart thumping.
I almost fell backward in my haste to turn around. My heel caught on the grave, and I stumbled, horrified that I was stepping on Peanut’s grave. I lunged away, finally finding my balance again.
That’s when I saw her.
My stomach turned. I hadn’t looked at that face in five years.
My mother.
She held out her hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I took a step back, carefully avoiding the grave.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
She retracted her arm and tugged her worn sweater more tightly around her middle. She looked older than I remembered, her thick hair almost completely gray. She must have stopped dyeing it.
“The man who runs the place called with a quote to get the grave exhumed,” she said. She looked uncertain now. “He had my number on file. I hadn’t contacted him, so I figured it must have been you.”
“Have you been waiting here?”