Crossing Oceans (17 page)
“What are you going to do today?” I asked.
She looked out the window. “I thought I’d teach my great-granddaughter about roses.”
I remembered her leading me through the same garden decades earlier, explaining the difference between a hybrid tea rose and a polyantha. The thought of Isabella getting the same loving lecture brought me unspeakable joy. “Thanks.”
She laid her hand on mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. “My pleasure, kiddo. What about you?”
“I’m going to visit Mom.”
She took her hand back and cradled her cup. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news . . .”
“Very funny,” I said. “Will you be okay with Bella for a while?”
“Sure, but do you think she might like to go and see her grandmother’s grave?”
My chill returned. “I’m not ready to talk to her about death.”
“Jenny, you’re going to need to soon.”
I pushed up from my chair. “I will, just not today.”
Arlington Cemetery was located at the end of a wide road lined with magnolia trees. My car tires crunched over their giant seedpods as I slowed to a stop and parked to the right of the colossal iron gate.
I’d told Mama Peg that I was here to visit my mother’s grave. That was the truth, but not the whole truth. The main purpose was really to visit my own. I didn’t know if it was normal to want to see where my body would ultimately rest, but normal or not, I was curious to lay eyes on the plot I’d purchased for myself.
Even if the visit was a bit morbid, it did force me to get outside, which I figured wasn’t a bad thing. Fresh air might lift my spirits and give me a shot of the energy I desperately needed. Plus, I reasoned, sunshine was supposed to be a natural antidepressant. Even if it didn’t make me feel any happier, it would leave some healthy color on my cheeks, which might at least lift my family’s spirits.
I shut the car door and turned around. It seemed I was spending more time these days trying to appear well than actually feeling that way. I had anticipated eventually having to mask the severity of my illness for Isabella’s sake, but never did I dream I’d be faking it this early on for my grandmother’s and father’s benefit. I wondered how often my mother had done the same.
I set out down the snaking asphalt road. As I wound about various graves, I squinted against the glare of sunlight, trying to make out the dates on the tombstones, some as old as the town itself. It occurred to me for the first time that I would soon be in the presence of Christians who had lived throughout the ages. My gaze fell on a row of old, white headstones lined up like dominoes. Within months, I could be sipping tea with Queen Esther and Mary Magdalene while one of these Confederate soldiers recounted his life story to us.
I smiled before remembering what my mother had to endure before reaching heaven. Like her, I would first have to suffer physical death. Heaviness settled over me as notions of how it would feel to have my soul ripped from my body whirled through my imagination like a tornado, making my heart beat faster and my head swim.
Closing my eyes, I succeeded in shutting out the death surrounding me. After a moment, I was able to divert my thoughts back to why I had come. I gazed across grassy knolls in the direction of my mother’s grave. The trek there would give me a chance to clear my head and consider the many possibilities of stone markers, urns, and inscriptions I had to choose from.
I wanted my epitaph to say something profound, different—but not too different. Something that would make people who read it know that I had loved and had been loved. Something to indicate I had been a real person with hopes and dreams. Most importantly, something to point to the God in whose hands my soul would ultimately rest.
I wanted beautiful, poetic words, but a writer I was not. Mama Peg could come up with something exceptional if I set her to the task. I hadn’t told her yet that I had bought myself a spot as close to Mom’s as possible, but still not as close as I would have liked.
As I trudged along, I came upon something I’d never noticed before—a family plot guarded by a miniature replica of the larger fence surrounding the perimeter of the cemetery. It was an odd sight, this graveyard within a graveyard, and I stopped to consider it.
Countless winters had taken their toll on the black metal fence, but the peeling, weathered surface only added to its mystery and charm. Within these iron slats lay four tiny graves, each marked by a stone angel.
Elizabeth Munroe, 1876–1877
Jonathan Munroe, 1878–1880
Julia Munroe, 1884–1884
Caroline Munroe, 1881–1885
With a heavy heart I read the dates again and again, trying to absorb the magnitude of this family’s loss.
As I pushed open the small gate, remnants of spiderwebs tickled my fingertips. The hinges screeched in protest at their thrust from hibernation, while flecks of rust sprinkled the ground. Part of me wanted to leave this morbid parcel and erase the misery contained here from my memory, but something drew me forward.
I traced the grooves of each child’s engraved name, grieving as if I’d known them. I wondered what could have caused such catastrophic loss within one family. A genetic disease for which we’d since found the cure? Surely it wasn’t related to financial hardship. Their parents obviously had money to afford such elaborate markers.
The cherub statues watching over each small grave were more than mere tributes. They were masterpieces of art. One blew an intricate horn, announcing the child’s arrival to heaven. Another raised his chubby arms as though releasing his charge’s soul. The third held a dove above his curly head, encouraging it to take flight, and the last angel simply clasped his hands together in mournful prayer.
In the center of the four plots lay a carved angel collapsed upon the ground. Her stone arms lay draped over a headstone, her face scrunched and sobbing in utter defeat. Though the artwork was amazing, the sight itself was wretched. I moved in closer to read the words engraved upon the grave of Betsy Anne Munroe, 1858–1902.
Here lies the mother of four deceased children. No woman has known as much misery. Her existence was filled with nothing but heartache. Her husband died in a foreign land. Four of her six children were taken from her before their time. Death was the only mercy God ever showed her.
I stood dumbfounded. I’d never read such a dark epitaph. Surely there had to have been some joy in this woman’s life. God was not so cruel. What of her two remaining children? Besides their love, she must have experienced the beauty of autumn, the splendor of a sunset, or the sweetness of a kiss. I felt the clutch of her depression clawing for me and I fled. When the latch of the gate clicked shut, relief filled me.
A cloud slid in to dull the sun while fatigue crept back into my bones. If I hadn’t been so close to my intended destination, I might have abandoned my mission and returned home to bed . . . but just ahead I spotted my mother’s grave.
I knelt on the grass, ignoring the lumpy ground pressing into my bare knees. Though some found it sacrilegious to set foot on a grave, let alone sit atop it, to me it was as close to my mother’s lap as I’d get on this side of heaven.
Half a dozen white roses, no more than a few days old, rested in a cement urn set against her headstone. My father, who’d seldom given her flowers when she was alive, made sure she had a steady supply in death. It was surreal to think he might do the same for me.
I fingered a blade of grass and peeked around to make sure I was alone. “Hey, Mom.” I felt silly speaking to her when I knew she wasn’t there. Bones did not hear. I turned my face toward the sky. “I’m going to be with you soon.” A smile crept across my lips as I really digested that these were more than mere words. Soon I would hold her hand. Feel her kisses. Did spirits hold hands? Of course they did. What kind of heaven would it be without affection?
I could hardly wait to tell her about Isabella and all the stuff I’d sworn she was wrong about growing up but found to be right once I became a mother myself. I don’t know how long I knelt there, daydreaming about our reunion, but after a while my neck began to ache. I looked back down to her headstone.
Here lie the remains of Audra Ann Lucas, beloved wife, mother, daughter, friend. Do not mourn her, for she lives.
As if I hadn’t seen these words a thousand times, I stared, amazed at the profoundness of them. I closed my eyes, letting sun rays soak into my anemic flesh. They felt as nourishing to my soul as Isabella’s kisses or Mama Peg’s touch. The simple joy of breathing fresh air, feeling the sun, and being among the green God created filled me with amazement. I scanned the trees with their heavy limbs, the grass cushion under me, and the wisps of white sailing on a sea of blue above. The simple grandeur of it all took my breath away.
Placing a hand over my heart, I marveled at such beauty—so familiar and yet it felt new. I’d had all this at my disposal my entire life, but I’d never really appreciated it. I realized then that it was only the tip of the iceberg of what I’d been taking for granted.
The thought saddened me, but I figured I could spend my time either regretting the past or enjoying the present, but not both. I opted for the here and now. Though there were times that fear of the unknown crushed me with panic, at that very moment, surrounded by sunshine and warm thoughts, I found myself actually welcoming death.
I wished I could have bottled that rare feeling of peace so that when I found myself in the throes of depression or gasping for one last breath, I could drink of it. There was nothing to fear, and yet so often I had . . . and knew I would again.
I stood and brushed flecks of dirt from my knees. Looking over my shoulder, I eyed an unmolested hill. My hill. The place where my body would lie. I would be the first to break the seal of that new ground, unless some unfortunate soul beat me to the finish line. I tried to remember the bearings of the plot I’d bought for myself.
Like a pirate searching for treasure, I stood in front of the pine tree landmark and walked ten paces to the right. I stopped on the spot that would be my final resting place. My breath caught as a feeling came over me, so foreign I could no more assign words to it than describe the color of a smell. I was standing on my own grave!
I wasn’t sure why, but I felt a sudden compulsion to lie down. With a brief scan of the area for witnesses, I caught only a blur of color from a distant pedestrian not close enough to worry about. I laid myself down in the direction I assumed my body would be buried, ignoring twigs and uneven earth jutting into my back.
Grass tickled my cheek as I turned my face to the right and considered the smooth stone mausoleum standing there. I looked to my left at the tree, watching a squirrel scurry up it, disappearing into greenery. Then I looked to the sky because I figured that’s how I’d be planted, facing upward, unless they dropped my casket when they lowered it and didn’t bother to fix me. But I didn’t guess that was likely. The bizarre thought made me laugh.
I’m lying on my own grave,
I thought, laughing like a lunatic. This made me laugh even harder.
So there I lay for a while, feeling strangely pleased about my purchase and my view. I wasn’t far from my mother’s grave, and though I had wished it was closer, I was now glad they weren’t side by side like the misfortunate family.
I closed my eyes and covered them with my palms, trying to experience it in utter darkness, though under the direct sun, my eyelids still glowed with red. I heard the soft patter of footsteps and realized that I probably looked more than a little nuts lying there on the ground in a cemetery. Still, I chose not to get up. Impending death has a way of making a person not care quite so much what others think.
A familiar smell passed by and I turned, trying to get a better whiff. Slowly I opened my eyes and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Craig bent over me. “Interesting spot you’ve chosen for a nap. Very gothic.”
I jumped up and brushed grass from my legs. “Don’t scare me like that! What are you doing here?”
The smile left his lips. “Mama Peg asked me to come. Jenny, David called. He’s really doing it. He’s asking for full custody.”
If Craig hadn’t embraced me then, I might have collapsed. His strong arms loaned me the strength I needed to stand. I leaned against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, until he at last pulled back.
“He won’t get it,” he said. “But you know, he probably is going to be awarded custody when you . . .” He looked down, then looked back up with a solemn expression. “This is yours, isn’t it?”
I nodded. The reality of my condition seemed to hit him then because the color drained from his face.
This time it was my arms reaching out to him.
We stood in the wide, marbled vestibule of the largest and busiest law firm in all of Duncan County. David’s attorney had asked us to come to see if we couldn’t work out “this whole mess,” as he called it, rather than leaving it to a judge who didn’t know what was really what in our lives. As angry as I was with David, the thought of taking my chances with Judge Hendrickson didn’t leave me feeling as confident as I would have liked, and so I’d agreed to at least listen to what they had to say.
Well-groomed men and women came and went as we waited to be called into the office. Hushed chatter whirled around us, intermingled with the clicks of heels and an occasional cough. Isabella’s fingers wriggled restlessly in my grasp. My father sat by my side. With his charcoal suit, silver hair, and wire-rimmed glasses, my father still looked every bit the lawyer, but he would not be representing me today. He’d instead hired an up-and-coming hotshot his ex–law partner had recommended. A lawyer who apparently was quite popular, as he kept running into old friends. At that moment, he had left us to walk a pretty redhead to her car.
“Dad, thank—”
“Genevieve, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” He checked his watch for the umpteenth time.
I might have argued that there’d been plenty he hadn’t done for me. Instead I said, “I know you hate being here.”