Cancel the Wedding (36 page)

Now that Georgia was committed to our little venture she had a giddiness to her that I hadn't seen since we were kids and sneaking out of the house to break into the neighbor's pool. She told Logan to wear something dark. Well sure, black is all the rage with grave robbers this season.

We stopped by the inn and “borrowed” three shovels from the maintenance shed, and I had a flashlight in my car so we figured we were fully outfitted for our caper.

I followed the GPS's directions to the address Buddy had written on top of the box of pictures. We climbed the same switchback mountain roads that had led us to the old abandoned house, but then we were directed to take a turn following the crest of the ridge. The road ended in a large and mercifully flat plateau on which was a surprisingly grand and gorgeous mountain house.

After double-checking that I had the correct address for Buddy, we climbed out of the car. The front door was reached through a courtyard lined with pea gravel and hedged by native plants. The house itself had a steeply pitched roofline, perfectly angled to shed snow. There were massive windows facing the valley, which must frame expansive and impressive views in the daylight. The house itself was constructed entirely of cedar shingles and planks. It was much more practical for this environment than the whitewashed pine house with the tin roof that had been abandoned lower down on his property. On either side of the house stood massive stone chimneys climbing up into the darkening night.

I knocked. I rang the bell. I knocked again. The door flew open to Buddy in the middle of a rant. “About to damn near knock my door down. What are you doing here so late?”

I introduced Buddy to Georgia; he remembered Logan from our first “visit.” I returned the pictures he had let us borrow and asked if we could come inside.

“No.” Buddy took the box from me. “It's late.” He began to close the door.

I put my hand out before it could shut. “We need to know where the baby is buried.”

He stopped. “Dammit.” He left the door open and we followed him inside. He walked back to his family room returning to his spot in his recliner. “You're making me miss the end of my show.”

Georgia, Logan, and I sat at the edge of his sofa. I asked, “Why didn't you tell me that Janie and George had a baby?”

“You didn't ask.”

“Buddy, you must've known that we would want to know about him.”

“I told you; the past is done. There's no reason to dredge it up.”

“It isn't for you to decide what we should and should not know about our mother. Are there other things I haven't asked?” Buddy didn't answer; he just looked at us. I asked, “Is the baby buried in the Rutledge family cemetery?”

Buddy began his hand-wringing. “What good can come of you knowing about that baby? Does it help you to know that your mother lost so much? That you weren't her first family? I don't understand how any of this can bring her any comfort. Not now. Maybe she did things she didn't want you to know about. Did you ever stop to think of that? Or are you just so damn nosy you don't care? Maybe you'd better just leave it all alone.”

We didn't have time for life lessons according to Buddy. I stood up. “Can you just tell us if he's in the Rutledge family cemetery behind the house? I just need to know for sure. That's all.” Finally, he nodded.

Logan added, “Is it the grave to the side, with the stone marker?” He nodded again.

I said, “Thank you, Buddy.”

We ran back to the car and Logan decoded that exchange for Georgia. “There's this rock, like a marker, in the cemetery. It just has an
O
carved on it, no name. That must be where Grandpa had Oliver moved when he got him out from under the lake.”

Georgia asked, “How did Buddy know where the baby was? It sounded like Dad moved the coffin sort of secretly.”

I fastened my seatbelt. “Buddy seems to know everything that happens on this ridge.”

I cranked the engine and when my headlights flashed on I was startled to see Buddy standing in front of the car. He walked slowly, casually, to the driver's side window. I rolled it down and waited for him to speak.

“I wasn't sure if you knew the law here in Georgia regarding those who've passed.”

I said, as circumspectly as I could, “I would imagine there are a lot of laws regarding the deceased.”

Buddy spit on the ground next to my tire. “Probably. They make laws for every breath a man takes these days.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker. “One would need permission, legal permission, to disturb a grave.”

It made me nervous that Buddy had so easily figured out what we were planning to do.

He continued. “Though I always did think it was interesting that any person, any private citizen, is allowed to transport a body for reburial. You know you can just put it in your car”—he took in the length of my SUV—“or what have you and take it to the new cemetery. I might just be careful how I explained getting my hands on the body in the first place.” Without another word Buddy walked back into his house and slammed the door.

Georgia, Logan, and I were quiet as we drove back down Buddy's driveway and made our way to the graveyard. I had only been to the site of our mother's burned-out house and the family graveyard by boat. A boat driven by Elliott. I felt my face flush and my hand absently form a fist. I got lost twice trying to find the damn house in the dark.

As we parked on the gravel drive leading to the site of the house I asked Georgia, “Do you think she loved him, well, them—” My mind had an image of George and Janie, smiling, with a small boy between them swinging in their arms. “More than us?”

“No, sweetie. We know how much she loved Dad. She did. She loved him and she loved us. But we got to have her our whole lives. Maybe she just made a deal with herself, a long time ago, to be with George and Oliver again when she died.”

Logan's phone pinged in the backseat and she began to respond to the text. My voice sounded a little more desperate than I intended when I asked her who it was from.

“Oh my God, Livie. It's Graham. I promise if I get a text from Elliott I will tell you.” Admonished by my niece in front of my sister.
That was embarrassing.

When we got to the graveyard we went straight to work digging. It was so dark out there on that tiny rise above the lake that you couldn't see the edge of the water, just a huge black hole in the distance. Every once in a while the clouds would break for a moment and you could see the reflection of the moon rippling on the surface. I was grateful for the cloud cover. I felt like we could use all the stealth we could get.

We were only about two feet down when I started complaining. “Everything I have ever seen on TV about grave digging has been a complete lie.”

Georgia was hacking into the dense earth trying to loosen the soil. “What in the world are you talking about?”

I could already feel the blisters rubbing their way into my palms. “On
Buffy
, when they dig up a grave, it only takes them an hour and the sides are all perfectly straight and then boom! They hit the coffin.” I looked at our mess of a hole with its uneven edges and misshapen oval outline.

Georgia sounded so tired. “Oh my God, you're so lame.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
?”

“What? What's wrong with
Buffy
?” I was resting on the handle of the shovel now looking in the dim light at my palms. Logan was moving the flashlight a lot because it was attracting so many bugs. I had to keep readjusting my hand to keep it in the light.

Georgia glanced at me and huffed a little at the fact that I had stopped for five seconds. “Well nothing, but you're upset that a show about vampires misled you about how long it takes to dig a hole.”

I said, “I still don't see your point.”

“Forget it.” Georgia wanted me to shut up and dig or get out of her way.

I glanced up at Logan. “We should've bought some gloves at Walmart.”

Georgia threw a clod of dirt at my back. “Stop bitching!” Then looked at her watch for the one-millionth time.

I threw a lump back at her. “Quit it!”

Georgia brushed the dirt out of her hair and said, “Keep digging or get out of my hole.”

“Fine. I'm taking a break.” I stepped out of the hole.

Logan took the shovel and pointed it back and forth between Georgia and me. “I don't want any more fighting from you two or I will turn this car around.”

I sat down on the rock with the
O
carved into it and tossed dirt on her too. “Very funny, Lugnut.”

As we dug down into the dense red Georgia clay you could smell the dampness of the earth. We took turns with the flashlight since we could really only fit two people in the hole at one time to dig. We had long since stopped talking to each other. We were singularly focused on getting to the bottom of this grave.

By two o'clock in the morning we had been digging for five hours and the hole was only at shoulder depth. I wasn't sure if we could finish this before sunrise. Each shovel of dirt that we dug up had to be lifted and tossed over our shoulder to get it out of the hole. Did they really bury caskets six feet underground? My right shoulder was burning in pain. We were moving more and more slowly.

I wondered what would happen if we were still here and some park ranger or sheriff came by and found us desecrating a grave on a historically preserved site. Was it a felony? What was the punishment? A fine? Jail time?

I was so filthy and sweaty and sore and my mind was completely preoccupied by mounting a vigorous defense for myself when Logan yelped.

“Logan! Don't scream like that! We're in a graveyard in the middle of the night. You scared the—”

I glanced up to see a face peering down at me from ground level. Irritated by his appearance I turned away and started digging again as I called over my shoulder, “What are you doing here, Leo?”

He said, “I came to help you.”

“I don't need your help.”

“Don't be stupid. You can't do this by yourself, Olivia.”

“Of course I can.” I stabbed the tip of the shovel into the dirt for good measure.

“You're being a stubborn asshole, Livie.”

“Oh, I'm the asshole? Go away, Leo.”

He said, “You
are
the asshole.” He took a deep breath and made a conscious choice to change his tone. “I came to help. You have something like three feet left to dig.”

That didn't sound like a helpful observation. I didn't respond. I just kept digging with a new force and energy. Funny how fury can revive your energy stores. I barked at Georgia, “Did you call him?”

Her voice was indignant. “It wasn't me!”

Leo broke in. “William called me.”

I was still glaring at Georgia. “You told William?” Why did she have to tell her husband every single thing she did? I was vaguely aware of Logan and Leo saying an awkward hello on the edge of the hole we were standing in.

Georgia was tired and there is nothing more quick-tempered than a tired Georgia. “Shut up, Olivia! Of course I told him.” I started to admonish her but she cut me off. “Can you just stop being selfish for five seconds? You're the one who made us come out here and do this and we could use the help.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper. “Besides, if he's here then there are probably some things he wants to say.”

Things he wants to say? I wanted to tell him to go home; there couldn't possibly be anything left to be said regarding our relationship. Or lack of relationship. I said, “We've got this, Leo.”

He squatted down to be closer to my face and asked me calmly, “Really? What are you going to do if there's a vault?”

The vault.

Dammit!

I threw the shovel down. I thought I might start crying. I had forgotten about the vault.

Until very recently, I had no idea that in a lot of places you could not put a coffin, by itself, in the ground anymore. More disinformation about burials courtesy of
Buffy
. When we were making the burial arrangements for our father we were told about the vault. Oftentimes, depending on the rules of the cemetery, the coffin is actually placed into a concrete or metal box called a vault and then that is buried in the grave. It was explained to us that if you don't put the coffin into a vault then eventually the coffin decomposes causing a depression in the earth. So you either have a very lumpy graveyard, or you use vaults.

Would Georgia and I have the strength or the leverage to lift a lid made of concrete or metal? This caper was falling apart.

Leo put his hand out to help me climb out of the hole. I couldn't take it. I just turned away, trying not to cry. I picked up my shovel from the ground. My arms and shoulders felt like lead. I was talking, mostly to myself. “Forget it. Let's just rebury it. We can't do this. What was I thinking? This is crazy.”

Logan and Georgia were both ignoring me completely while they had some conversation about shovels and pulleys. Logan pulled out her cell phone. “I'm going to see what's keeping Graham.”
Graham? Is Graham coming? Are we having a party out here?

I climbed up out of the hole and spoke to Leo. “Why did you come out here?”

He was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. I knew there was a well-rehearsed speech in there but I wasn't sure if he would recite it or not. Leo's closing arguments always got jumbled when his temper got in the way.

“Listen, Olivia, I'm sorry for, well, most of the things I said yesterday. I was already feeling so emotionally raw about everything and then . . .” He stopped himself before bringing up Elliott. I gave him a lot of credit for that restraint. It was more than I deserved.

I led him farther away from Georgia and Logan so we could have some privacy. “Where have you been all day?”

“I've been in Atlanta. I met with—never mind. It doesn't matter.”