I raised my eyebrows, puzzled. I did. But it was an odd question. I nodded and she continued.
“He wrote something that I’ve never forgotten, and I love words. You can ask my husband. I buried him in words and music until he begged for mercy and married me.” She winked. “Edgar Allen Poe said many beautiful things—and many disturbing things—but they often go together, you know.”
I waited, wondering what this woman wanted me to hear.
“Poe said, ‘There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.’” Josie tipped her head to the side and looked back at her husband who hadn’t moved at all. Then she murmured, “I think your work is strange and beautiful, Moses. Like a discordant melody that resolves itself as you listen. I just wanted you to know that.”
I was a little speechless, wondering where and when she’d seen my work, flabbergasted that she knew of me at all, and still wasn’t afraid to approach me. Of course, her husband stood fifty feet away, and I highly doubted anyone messed with Josie Jensen on his watch.
Then they were gone, and no one remained but me. Levan Cemetery had the feel of a well-maintained pioneer cemetery—not very big, but big enough and constantly getting bigger as the town grew and buried their dead. It faced west, sitting above the rest of the valley on a rise beneath Tuckaway Hill, looking out over farmland and pasture. From where I stood I could see the old highway, a long silver strip, cutting through fields as far as the eye could see. The view was serene and peaceful, and I liked that Gi’s remains were here.
I walked down rows of stones, past Josie’s mother, until I reached a long line of Wrights, generations of them, four at least. I stopped for a moment at Gigi’s stone, laid a reverent hand on her name, but then moved on, searching for the reason I came. New stones, old stones, stones that were glossy, stones that were flat. Flowers and pinwheels and wreaths and candles decorated many graves. I wondered why people did that. Their dead didn’t need crap covering their names. But like anything, that was mostly about the living. The living needed to prove to themselves and to others that they hadn’t forgotten. And, in a small town like this there was always a little competition going on at the cemetery. It was a mentality that said, “I love the most, I’m suffering the most, and so I’m going to create a huge display every time I come so everyone knows and feels sorry for me.” I knew I was a cynic. I was definitely a bastard. But I didn’t like it. And I didn’t especially think the dead needed it.
I found a long row of Shepherds and almost laughed at the name of one. Warlock Shepherd. What a name. Warlock Wright—maybe that’s what they should have named me. I’d been called a witch before. I studied the stones, and I realized there were five generations of Shepherd grandfathers buried there as well, their wives buried at their sides. I found the first Georgia Shepherd and remembered the day I teased Georgia about her name. Georgie Porgie.
And then there it was, another generation, though it had skipped the one in between. A stone about two feet high and two feet wide, simple and well-tended, stood at the very end of the row, an empty patch of grass on either side, as if saving space for those who would come after.
Eli Martin Shepherd. Born July 27, 2007, Died October 25, 2011 was all it said.
A horse was etched in the stone, a horse that looked like his hind quarters were dappled in color. The Paint. A fat bouquet of wildflowers in a bright yellow vase sat beside the headstone and the song the woman had sung in Eli’s memory, “You are my sunshine . . .” caught in my thoughts, and I found myself saying the words. Georgia’s name wasn’t printed on the stone, but I knew with a clarity both sick and shocking that she was Eli’s mother. She had to be.
I counted backwards just to be sure. Nine months before July of 2007 would have been October of 2006.
Georgia was Eli’s mother. And I was Eli’s father. I had to be.
Georgia
I GAVE BIRTH TO ELI on July 27, 2007, a month before I turned eighteen. No one knew I was pregnant until I was three months along. I would have waited longer, but the snug Wranglers I wore every day wouldn’t button and my flat stomach and trim hips were no longer flat enough or trim enough to wedge into tight, unforgiving denim. The horror of my predicament wasn’t just the pregnancy. It was that Moses was the father, and Moses’s name had become a hiss and a curse word everywhere I turned.
My parents and I talked about adoption, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do that to Moses. It made what had been between us meaningless. And for me, it never had been and it never would be. Moses might never know about his child, and he might be forever alone in the world, but his child would not be. And even though I hated him sometimes, even though I’d made him the faceless man, even though I didn’t know where he was or what he was doing now, I couldn’t give his child away. I couldn’t do it.
But the day Eli was born, it was no longer about me, or Moses, or about being strong or being weak. Suddenly it was all about Eli, a boy conceived in turmoil, a boy who looked so much like his father that when I gazed down into his tiny face, I loved him with a fervor that made the regret of his conception quake and crack and then crumble into dust—powerless to hurt us, paper against the flame of devotion that welled in my heart and set my child’s precious face in stone, no longer faceless, no longer feared.
“What are you going to name him, Georgia?” my mom had whispered, tears streaming down her face as she watched her child become a mother. She’d aged in the months since I had unburdened myself on her. But with the sweetness of new life making the hospital room a sacred place, she looked serene. I wondered if the same serenity marked my own expression. We were going to be okay. It was going to be okay.
“Eli.”