Under the Mercy Trees (19 page)

27

Ivy

Today is the day Shane died. Every year on this day we put his picture in the paper. As my other two children's faces age, Shane's face in the photograph looks younger and younger. This year we're adding a nice poem Trina wrote about him. I wish I could write my own poem that would tell more of his story. How sweet he was as a baby and as a big brother to the other two, teaching Steven to ride a bike and Trina to tie her shoes. How he loved me even when he was giving me lip. Then the drugs that he must have thought would make the pain go away, but all they did was weaken whatever it is that makes us fight to stay here.

It would be hard to make all that rhyme.

There's another thing we're doing this year. Thanks to money Leon gave me, Shane's monument is finally paid for, and we can put it over his grave, instead of the little flat marker that's been there up until now.

Shane isn't buried in the family plot, high on a hill back of the home place, where my brothers and sister sometimes picnic for Decoration Day. When he died Eugenia called to say she considered it a sin for Shane to have killed himself and I ought to bury him somewhere else. Of all the meanness Eugenia has flung at me with her skinny little arms over the years, that one stings the most. I don't reckon she told the others she said that to me. I guess I could have told them and called for a vote, but Shane's dying had pressed all the argument out of me. So I buried him in the funeral home graveyard, which is between the funeral home and a Methodist church. The church doesn't have anything to do with the graveyard, but people driving by on the road don't know that. It looks like a place that God thinks is all right, not just dirt full of sinners who don't deserve a real resting place.

We are installing the monument at noon, but I drive to the cemetery early. I pass through the gate and park along the road. When I slam my car door it echoes. It's always quiet here. This graveyard has been here awhile, and the sidewalks that run in straight lines between the graves are cracked, some pushed up uneven where tree roots grow. I have never seen a ghost in this cemetery. Maybe they have too much else to do to stick around, or maybe the wind that blows through the shade trees, hot or cold depending on the time of year, wafts them away. Today the March wind is fierce and makes my nose run, even though the forsythia blooming yellow around the edges of the graveyard says it's spring, and robins are fighting worms out of the ground. I walk to Shane's grave. The monument people haven't delivered his stone yet.

Social Services had custody of Shane all those years, but when he died they said I could afford to bury him and handed him back to me. I rounded up pallbearers. Steven, Hodge Goforth, Leon, a teacher of Shane's, Martin came home for it, and then there was a man the funeral home lent for a fee. The coffin was a pretty cherry stain and heavy. I set a framed photograph of Shane on the lid. When he died I didn't have a recent picture of him. The principal at the high school gave me his eleventh-grade school picture, the one stapled to his permanent record, for me to enlarge and frame. It's the same photo we run in the paper every year.

I thought I'd never get the funeral paid for, much less be able to buy a monument. With everything, including the little flat plaque to mark Shane's place until we could get something better, the funeral cost me four thousand dollars. Four thousand dollars is hard to pay off at twenty dollars a week, with interest. Every Friday I went by the funeral home and made a payment, which meant that every Friday I had to remember Shane dying. It about wore me down. And that flat marker got me down, too. I wanted a real tombstone, so people wouldn't forget where Shane was buried. Then, when I finally got the funeral paid for and went to see about a monument, the monument people told me I had to pay for the whole thing in full before they'd start on it. I wasn't able to start paying on it at all until I got my disability money. Then I was back to paying a little bit every month.

One evening last August I was leaving the monument company after making my payment, and Hodge rolled up beside me in his truck, with Leon in the passenger seat. It was hot, but Leon wore a flannel shirt under his overalls. The arm that stuck out his open window was buttoned at the wrist. He wouldn't even roll his sleeves up.

“Who died?” Hodge called through Leon's window.

I waved hello. “Nobody.”

Hodge pulled over to the curb to talk. He was never in a hurry. I bent down on Leon's side so I could see Hodge. Leon was quiet between us. It took a lot to make Leon talk.

“Picking out your tombstone ahead of time?” Hodge said.

“No. I'm paying on one for Shane.”

Leon spoke. “He ain't got a stone?” Leon hadn't been out to see Shane's grave since we put Shane in the ground.

The leaning was hurting my back. I straightened up. “Just a flat marker. I have a nice monument picked out, but they won't cut the letters until I pay for it.”

Hodge said, “I reckon it's like a birthday cake. Once one person's name is on it, you can't sell it to anybody else.”

Leon's mouth worked. He looked mad, but that was pretty normal. “How much you owe on the monument?”

“Eight hundred ninety-five dollars,” I said. “I'll get it paid off one day.”

Hodge shifted his truck gears. “Well, I'm glad nobody died today. You worried me, Ivy, walking out of there. I thought somebody had passed without me knowing about it.”

Leon didn't say anything else. I told them good-bye and walked to my car. The next time I went to Leon's to get his laundry, he handed me twelve hundred-dollar bills, some crisp and some that looked like they'd been wadded somewhere for a while.

The day after Leon gave me the money, I went back to the monument company. The monument company is next to a hair cutting place. It's small. Sample headstones sit in a little yard outside, behind bars and barbed wire, leaning different ways in shallow dirt and crabgrass. To the side of the building is a big pile of mistakes, leftover granite scraps with one side smooth and the other rough, some with one letter carved in them. It makes you wonder whose name they'd been trying to spell when the chisel slipped.

I went inside. They had paneled off a little front office, but the thin wall didn't keep out the noise of saws and sanders, or the granite dust. There were no ghosts here. If there had been, the dust would have made them visible even to other people. I breathed shallow so I wouldn't choke.

The owner's wife, who ran the front office, knew me well by now. I knew exactly what I wanted. Granite that was so deep a gray it was almost black, with these words:

SHANE ABSHER OWENBY

JUNE 20, 1949–MARCH 2, 1966

We will always remember,

We will always be true.

I plopped down my cash, proud to finally be able to place my order.

“He'd a liked this stone,” the lady said, counting my money.

“He was a good boy,” I said.

“He had a good mama,” she said.

*  *  *

And here the headstone is. Three men from the monument company drive their truck through the cemetery gate. The older man driving sticks his head out and says to me, “Owenby?” I tell him yes and point to Shane's plot. They park and unload the monument off the back of their truck onto a big dolly. It's wrapped in a brown quilt.

I've seen the stone, in the dusty dimness of the monument company's workshop, but I can't wait to see what it looks like in the sunshine. “Can you unwrap it?”

The two younger men take the quilt off and work to position the stone on Shane's grave. The monument is beautiful, more so because the grass around Shane's grave has had so long to grow. The stone is wide and as high as my waist. Its polish throws the sun back to heaven.

The driver hands me papers. I sign where he points and hand them back. Trina and Steven drive through the gate in Trina's Corvette. Hodge and Martin are right behind them in Hodge's pickup. They all get out and walk over to where I stand. The monument men step back so we can do our thing.

“It's nice.” Trina touches the stone, tracing the words I took from her poem.

Martin stands back at first, like he doesn't want to get too close, but then steps forward and rests a hand on the monument's smooth top.

Steven shifts from foot to foot. We give it a moment of silence. I breathe on my hands to warm them. The tips of Hodge's ears turn pink. I look at Steven. He was supposed to say a little something, but I see now he won't be able. He lays his palms on the tombstone, and the words he can't say sink into the granite. I hope Shane can hear them.

Hodge clears his throat, and I look over at him. “Hodge, could you say us a prayer?” I like Hodge's praying because he knows better than to go on too long.

“Surely.” He thinks a minute, then prays in one long string. “Lord, we know you have your arms wrapped around this family's son, and, Lord, we pray that you will bless this family and heal the pain that they still feel, and, Lord, bless this hallowed spot and let this fine marker be a monument to your love and grace, in Jesus's name we pray.”

As Hodge finishes up I throw my own thank-you out to Leon, wherever he is, for the monument. I know the stone doesn't really change anything, but it makes me feel better.

“Amen,” Hodge says.

Martin mutters another “Amen” as an echo.

Trina and Steven move in front of the stone with their shoulders touching. Hodge goes and puts a hand on each of their backs. The smooth granite reflects their legs and the long blades of grass that blow at their feet.

Martin comes over to me. His face shows more pain than Shane can account for. “What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“About all of them,” he says. “Shane, Leon. Mama.”

He turns and searches my face, the way some people do when they know about me. They're mostly sure I'm crazy, but there's just the tiniest bit of wondering about the things I say I can see.

“What happens to them, Ivy? Where do they go?”

“Some don't go anywhere,” I say.

“What about Mama?”

I take his arm and squeeze it hard, so he will believe what I say and never have to wonder again. “Mama is at rest, Martin. She's in a better place.”

The monument men move in closer. “You ready for us to install it, ma'am?” I tell them yes. Trina and Steven each take one of my arms, and we all walk back to our cars. We leave the men to sink Shane's monument in cement, to make it permanent and real, a spot to mow around and take notice of, instead of mowing over.

28

Bertie

Bertie took advantage of the first warm day in March to get out in the yard and coaxed James into getting out there with her. They'd about cleared all the rotten leaves from the front flower beds when Bobby and Cherise drove up. It wasn't Sunday, and Bertie hadn't made enough supper to feed them. James straightened up and leaned his rake against a bush. He'd lost weight since fall. His dungarees were too loose in the seat, and bony wrists showed between his shirt cuff and the top of his worn leather work gloves. It made Bertie think she needed to feed him better.

Bobby got out of his truck and headed toward them. Cherise eased herself out of the passenger side, breathing hard. She had ballooned in the last month. Bertie remembered what it was like to be that pregnant and almost felt sorry for the girl.

Bobby was carrying a paper. “We got something to show you.”

James took off his gloves and took the paper Bobby handed him.

“It's a deed,” Bobby said. “We got it in the mail yesterday, from Leon. It must have got lost, just like that package Leon sent to Martin in New York.”

Cherise waddled over to stand beside Bobby. Bobby had this big surprised smile pasted on his face. Bertie wondered if he'd practiced it in the mirror.

“Where's the envelope?” James handed the deed to Bertie to look at.

“Cherise didn't keep it,” Bobby said.

“I threw it away when I opened it, before I realized what it was.” Cherise looked James straight in the eye when she said it. She'd had long years of practice at lying, but her eyes dropped when they got to Bertie.

“Why would he mail it to you, instead of just handing it to you?” Bertie said.

Bobby shrugged. “Maybe he knew he was going somewhere.”

James tried to talk them out of the lie. “Bobby, if that deed is a fake and you try to claim it's real, the sheriff is going to assume you had something to do with Leon's disappearing.”

“Who says it's a fake?” Bobby got hot. “I can't believe my own parents don't believe me. I'm telling the God's honest truth!”

“Leon did all kinds of things like that right before he went missing. That money for Ivy and giving his knuckle knife to Steven,” Cherise said.

“He liked me and Cherise way more than them, so why don't you believe he gave us the deed to his property?” Bobby said.

Bertie had never looked closely at a deed, but she didn't trust Cherise LaFaye one bit. The document in her hand was dirty and creased, which it would have been if it came from Leon's house. It described the boundaries of the Owenby property. It was notarized, but the name on the seal hadn't come through and the notary's signature was smudged.

“Can you at least hold off telling anybody about it?” James said.

“We're taking it to a lawyer today.” Cherise reached for the deed. Bertie held it away from her, like they were playing keep-away.

“Give me that,” Cherise snapped. She reached up for it, then bent over in pain and gasped. “Shit!”

Bobby said, “What'd you do, pull something?” But Bertie had seen the wet patch spreading over the crotch of the girl's sweatpants.

“She's having the baby,” Bertie said.

Whatever Bertie might think of Cherise LaFaye, Cherise was carrying her grandchild. “James, get your truck.” Bertie ran inside, dropped the deed on the kitchen table and grabbed a stack of towels for Cherise to sit on so she wouldn't mess up James's truck seat. When she ran back outside, Bobby was standing there with a dumb look on his face. He had no idea what to do. Cherise was bent over, swearing with pain. Good. A little pain served her right.

James pulled the truck around. Bertie helped Cherise, all two hundred pounds of her, into the front seat, spreading out the towels before she sat.

“Bobby, we're taking Cherise to the hospital. You follow along behind.” Bertie and James would do Cherise a lot more good than Bobby would. Bertie made the girl scoot over so she could get in and then slammed the door. Bobby was just now starting to move. At this rate, he might get to the hospital sometime after the baby had already come. Bertie rolled the window down. “Hurry up!”

Cherise leaned across her. “Bobby! Get the deed!” As in pain as she was, she could still connive. Bobby disappeared into the trailer. James, perfectly calm, drove to the hospital.

Of course Cherise didn't let Bertie be with her for the birthing. Bertie would have understood it better if Cherise had had her own mother there, but Cherise probably didn't even know where her mama was. Cherise had to have a cesarean section. Bertie started to follow along behind her and Bobby when they wheeled her to surgery. Cherise pointed at her, real mean, and said, “Not her!”

Bertie sat with James in the waiting room until Bobby came out, looking shaky. “It's a girl. They're both okay. They took Cherise's liver out and laid it to the side to get the baby out, I swear to God.”

Bertie didn't know enough about anatomy to know if he'd seen right or not, but he got green telling it.

“I liked the old days when the daddy got to wait in the lobby and pass out cigars,” James said.

Bertie was so doped up when she had her children, she didn't remember a lot. That was how they did it then. “Where's the baby?” she said.

Bobby motioned down the hall. “They're cleaning her up, then you can look through the window and see her.”

Bertie didn't need to be told twice. She took off down the hall. The nurse was writing “Owenby” on a sign on the front of a little crib, and there the baby was. When Bertie saw the baby she didn't care that Cherise and Bobby hadn't included her in the birth. The baby was just precious. Perfect little hands and feet, not too fat or thin, those big, knowing eyes peeking out from under the beanie they'd put on her head to keep her warm. Bertie couldn't get enough of her.

Bobby and James came up behind her. The nurse saw Bobby and mouthed, “Do you want to come in?” Bertie nodded yes for him, and the nurse motioned them around to the door.

The nurse asked Bobby, “Do you want to hold her?”

His eyes got real big, like he wasn't sure.

“Yes, he does,” Bertie said.

The nurse lifted the baby out of the crib, wrapped in her blanket, and laid the baby in Bobby's arms. Bertie tucked the blanket in and made sure Bobby supported the baby's head. The baby started to fuss, smacking her lips and arching her back. Bobby looked scared to death.

“Give her here,” Bertie said. He handed the baby over, and she settled right into Bertie's arms. Bertie tickled the baby's palm with two fingers, and the baby grabbed hold. In the clutch of the little fist, Bertie felt like she'd been handed another chance, a feeling she hadn't had in forever. She needed another chance.