“I like microwaves,” Jeffrey stated. “My daddy used to make me Hot Pockets. I liked the pepperoni.”
I offered Jeffrey a smile of acknowledgment from across the short distance, my back hunched over, my hands gripping the shovel as I continued to dig.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss having electricity,” Atticus said. “But I’ve grown used to not having it, that’s for sure. Stopped flipping useless light switches when I passed them years ago—electricity was like a phantom limb for me for a while: it still felt like it was there and my brain sure as hell refused to let it go.” He reached behind him and scratched the back of his neck.
Esra nodded, wiped his face with his palm, smearing more dirt and sweat.
“Only thing I miss ‘bout ‘lectricity,” said Esra, “was watchin’ the local news in the mornin’, sittin’ at the kitchen table with my June and cup o’coffee and the local news and weather playin’ on the TV—never cared much for the sports.”
“I miss goin’ to the movies on Tuesdays with my dad,” Jeffrey put in. “He always took me to the movies on Tuesdays. Daddy never worked on Tuesdays. It was the best day of the week!”
Atticus and I glanced at one another, putting the same piece into the puzzle: So that’s why Tuesdays were so important to Jeffrey.
“If I had to choose what I miss most about electricity,” Atticus said, “it would have to be—well honestly, I don’t miss any one thing more than anything else. I think if I could choose, I’d take it all. Everything. Working light switches, television, microwaves, central heat and air—all or none.”
No one could argue with that.
“What about you, love?” Atticus looked over at me; I was drenched in sweat. “What do you miss most about electricity?”
I stopped digging, propped my arms on the shovel’s handle with the spade stuck in the dirt. I wiped sweat from my forehead and looked up thoughtfully.
“Music,” I answered. “I would love to have music to dance and sing along to.” I came out of the reverie briefly. “My mother and my sister and I would sing to the radio every morning in the car on the way to school. And on the weekends our mother would be cleaning the house, and she’d turn on the stereo in the living room and the volume up real loud, and she’d sing her heart out as she cleaned.” I stopped to let the memory run its course; the smile never left my face. “Sometimes me and Sosie would join in—Momma would sing into the broom handle like she was on stage with a spotlight beaming down on her. Me and Sosie were her backup singers, and we’d all dance and it was a lot of fun.”
I looked up to see everyone looking at me, especially Jeffrey, whose smile had split his face to show his teeth; and he wrung his awkward fingers together on his lap.
I finally went back to digging.
When Atticus insisted I had been digging long enough and it was time for him to take over again, Jeffrey stepped in.
“No, it’s my turn,” Jeffrey said, taking the shovel from my hands. “I’ll dig for Thais.”
Once the grave had been dug, Esra demanded that we leave him to the rest, and that was what we did.
Jeffrey took Atticus and me to the treehouse and played host, brought out glasses filled with pink lemonade, and plastic plates lined with crackers and dry Ramen noodles and slices of raw potato with the skin still on them.
“Grandma June can’t make you lunch anymore,” Jeffrey said as he handed me a plate, “so I do it now, okay?”
“Thank you, Jeffrey. This looks delicious.”
Jeffrey disappeared inside his bedroom at one point. “I’m going to find it for you Thais!” he shouted from the other side of the wall.
“What are you looking for?” I shouted back.
“It’s a surprise!”
The pounding of Jeffrey’s heavy footsteps lumbering across the floor, and the shuffling of items in a drawer and maybe a few boxes was all we heard of him for a while. Until Jeffrey cursed.
“God-dang it! It’s lost!”
I startled when a sharp bang! sounded and the photographs hanging on the wall in the living room rattled on their hooks.
“DANG IT!”
Bang! Bang! Jeffrey’s hand hit the wall a few more times in frustration.
He gave up after a while.
“I’ll find your surprise later. I promise.” Jeffrey was smiling again when he came out of the room.
“I know you will, Jeffrey,” I said with confidence. “Just be patient.”
Still, we waited a long time for Esra, becoming impatient.
“We probably shouldn’t have let him try to do it himself,” I said, growing concerned by Esra’s absence.
Atticus shook his head, nibbled a cracker. “No, the man wanted to bury his wife. We have to respect that, no matter how much help he might need.”
“How’d he get her in the casket to that spot anyway?” I wondered.
“Grandma June died down there,” Jeffrey spoke up. “Grandpa said she knowed she was gonna die, said she went down there in the night when Grandpa was sleeping and she died on the ground by the tree.” He stopped to chew and swallow a cracker, wiping stray crumbs from his lips with the edge of his hand. “I miss my Grandma June.”
Then he cried again, out of the blue—his emotions often came and went like summertime popup showers. I started to set my plate aside and go over to comfort him, but before the bottom of the plate touched the table, Jeffrey’s tears had already dried up. He stuffed another cracker in his mouth and chewed cheerily, as if he’d never been crying.
Esra finally made his way back to the treehouse, and it was dark when Atticus and I finally headed for home.
“I’ll come tomorrow on Tuesday. Sorry I missed today.”
“It’s okay, Jeffrey.” I bent to place a kiss to his cheek. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Esra gave Atticus another baggie of bullets before we set out.
“I never want to be buried in a box,” I told Atticus when we were home. I was lying atop his chest; he squeezed me in the fold of his arm.
I raised my head, leaving the lulling sound of his heartbeat for a moment so he could see the gravity in my eyes.
ATTICUS
“When I die, Atticus,” she went on, “I want you to wrap me in a sheet—(I flinched)—from head to toe, front to back, and maybe tie a flowered vine around my head. But promise me you won’t put me in a box like June.”
“Why’s that?” I stroked her hair.
“I want to be laid right into the cold ground so that I can feel the soil all around me, suffocating me, taking my breath from me and the pain from my heart, the same way your arms do when you hold me at night.” She looked into my eyes, and I looked back into hers; I brought up my other arm and wrapped them both tightly around her; I kissed her chin, her lips, her soul. “When I die,” she continued, “I want to feel like you’re still there with me, holding me, just like you are now.”
My hands smoothed across her back, up her arms and over her shoulders until they found her cheeks where I stopped and held them. I peered deeply into Thais’ eyes.
“When you die,” I whispered, “you won’t need the soil to hold you, Thais, because I’ll be right there next to you holding you myself.”
54
THAIS