She stared out at the sky, tucking a loose bit of hair behind her ear. The rest was tied up in a messy knot. At last she said, “I asked him to call me if anyone showed up near the baby graves.” Her eyes dropped to the stones, seeming to count all the loss that surrounded us. “I knew you would come back one day.”
“I called you,” I said, feeling my defenses rise up. “I let you know I was getting married.”
Her gaze moved back to my face then, searching my features, looking for an answer in my expression. “It was wonderful to hear that news.” She glanced down at my ring. “It’s lovely.”
I resisted the urge to cover it with my hand. I had vowed not to shut my family out any longer. I had promised it to myself. But I hadn’t done it. A phone call or two, prodded by Darion. Birthday cards, at least one to Mother. I might have forgotten Dad’s.
“I had hoped you’d come for Christmas,” she said.
“My friend was dying,” I said. “I couldn’t leave.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“He did die. In January.” My words were a rush. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to justify my absence to — my mother or myself.
She took a step forward. “I’m so sorry. She must have been special to you.”
“He,” I said before I could stop myself. “Albert. A painter. I was learning from him.”
I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I was distracted from my purpose. I turned around and sat cross-legged in front of Peanut’s grave. Maybe she would take the hint and go away.
But no, she sat next to me, her practical thick-soled shoes sticking out from her paisley skirt. She shivered. “Didn’t predict the cold,” she said.
You can go home, I thought, but didn’t say it aloud. I was freezing too but wouldn’t admit it.
“He was such a lovely baby boy,” she said.
My eyes smarted with tears in the cold. My anger rose up, but I stuffed it down. This is what I was supposed to be doing. Grieving. Processing. Figuring it all out.
She cared about him. So did I. I had to get control of my reactions.
“He’d be what — six now?” she said. “Tearing around, getting into things. First grade.”
I could sense her wistful smile even though I refused to look. I didn’t want to see her version of Peanut. I only wanted my own. He was mine.
But she went on. “My first grandbaby,” she said. “And when I got the news you were getting married, I couldn’t help but hope there might one day be more.”
“He can’t be replaced,” I said, my voice dark and bitter.
“Of course not,” she said. “He’ll always be the first.”
I refused to talk, waiting out the swirling emotion. I felt my anger drain away like a swimming pool emptying out. There was a lot of it to let go, so we sat a long time, enduring the wind and the cold.
But before I could say anything else, she stood up. “Come home for a while. Let me make you some coffee. We can go over the numbers the caretaker sent me. I’d love to hear your plans for Peanut.”
She held out her hand. The heat rose in me again, that old familiar resistance to her I’d known my whole life. Where did it come from? It was so persistent. So hard to stuff down.
I forced myself to take her hand and let her help me stand up.
If I was going to get better, get past my hang-ups and put my life back together, it might as well be now.
And it might as well be with my mother.
~*′`*~
The caretaker sat across from me and Mom, grim and serious. He wore a black suit and tie. We were in his office, small but tidy. Even though this cemetery was bare and sparse, the sales office gave the impression that your family would be taken care of.
He pushed a paper across the table showing the expenses. “We need some permits,” he said. “And a funeral director oversees the process of opening and closing the grave.” He tapped a line. “This is for transport to the crematorium.”
My mom gasped, but I didn’t blink at the number. I had zero interest in cost. I just wanted my baby out of the ground. “How soon can we do it?” I asked.
“Depends on the city,” he said. “It’s the permit that delays it.”
“What sort of permit is it?” Mom asked.
“Just a hoop or two to jump through to make sure all is in order,” he said evasively.
But I already knew. “That there isn’t a public health threat,” I said. “And that we aren’t stealing it.”
The man’s expression didn’t change. Funeral directors should be poker players. They’d never give a thing away.
“How long to get the permit?” I asked.
“Could be a few days if the right person is in the right office and actually doing their job. Or, could be a week or more,” he said.
“And what about your part of it, once we have the permit?” I asked.
“Just a day to work around any funerals,” he said evenly. “We want quiet for the serenity of this work.”
And to not upset anyone that I was checking out while they were checking in, I surmised.
“Will I see him?” I asked. I’d been watching grave exhuming relentlessly on YouTube. I knew the casket could be opened.