Page 16

The nightmare I had hoped would replace reality was just beginning.

3

Crossing Over

.

The darkness that fell over our home that night

never lifted for months and months. Even in the morning when the sun came out, the darkness lingered. I felt like it stuck to everything around me. It was in every corner, over every window, like a thin film of dark gray. Mostly it was in our eyes, especially Mommy's and mine.

Many people had come to the church for Daddy's funeral service and even to the cemetery. Mommy didn't really know most of them. They were people with whom Daddy had done business: bankers, attorneys, real estate people. Mr. Calhoun was as attentive as he could be, but his wife looked afraid of Mommy and held him back. They didn't come to the cemetery with us, in fact, but one of Daddy's close friends. Taylor Kotes, a man about Daddy's age, was beside us constantly. I knew from the previous times I had seen him with Daddy or heard Mommy and Daddy talk about him that he was now the owner of the biggest lumberyard in the community and he had lost his wife, who had developed some vicious form of muscular dystrophy and died two years ago. On this dark gray day, both he and Mommy seemed to wear the same mask of sorrow, his own cemetery memories returning.

Mommy had decided against having any sort of gathering at the house afterward. I heard her mumbling how many of these mourners had come out of curiosity. They wanted to see her and especially us, the mysterious twins. I could feel dozens of eves on me in church and especially at the cemetery. Noble was distracted by everything as usual and for a while was more interested in a crow on a nearby tree then the minister's words and the sight of the coffin held on poles above the empty grave. Because Mommy didn't cry. I didn't.

Noble was still having trouble understanding and accepting Daddy's dying. For a long time afterward, he would stop and stare down the long driveway and over the road, expecting to see Daddy's truck approaching. Even after the funeral, he waited with anticipation, sometimes kicking a rock about the driveway for nearly an hour, periodically sitting on the side and scratching pictures in the earth. I watched him from a window. I didn't have to ask him what he was doing.

Mommy didn't permit us to see Daddy in his coffin, so we didn't see him dead. She believed the body had nothing more to do with Daddy. His spirit had left it. Therefore, there was no reason to gaze upon him just to confirm he was gone.

To demonstrate her belief, she filled a paper cup with water and told us the water was the spirit.

"When you die, your spirit leaves your body," she said and poured the. water out. This empty cup is your empty body. It's not you anymore. It is

worthless," she said bitterly and crushed the cup in her hand. "I could burn it: I could bury it I could seal it up in a tomb. It doesn't matter. No one will ever look upon it again."

Noble's eyes grew small and angry. I could see how he thought Mommy was all wrong. She couldn't possibly be right. There was no way Daddy wasn't coming home, not our daddy. He shook his head at her and stamped his foot. "No! Daddy's not a cup! Daddy's not a cup!" he screamed and ran off to hide in his room and sulk, his footsteps pounding the floor and echoing in my heart.

When Mommy had called Noble stubborn, she had no idea how deep that well of stubbornness was. She looked at me and shook her head.

"We've got to make him understand. Celeste, s important," she said.

Why didn't she even wonder if I had

understood? Was it just because I wasn't shouting and crying like Noble? I didn't want to understand and accept Daddy's death any more than he did. Why wasn't she throwing her arms around me and soothing me as much? Why was she sending me after him?

Eventually. I mistook Noble's stubbornness for his being able to reach Daddy's spirit, and I was terribly jealous. He held onto his obstinacy so long I thought, what else could it be? Time wasn't working its magic on him as it was on Mommy and me. There was no concession in him, no willingness to go on without Daddy, even if we performed the smallest and most insignificant of chores about the house.

"Daddy doesn't want us to do this," he would say. Or. "Daddy wants me to help him tonight." He even said. "Daddy was here and he said we should listen to Mommy and never be bad and give her a headache."

"When?" I asked. "Where did you see him? When did you hear him speak? What did he look like? That was he wearing? Did he ask about me?"

Questions about details confused him and sent him running off. Was he hiding something from me? I had to wonder. Did the spirits tell him not to reveal anything? Finally. I asked Mommy.

She looked at me sadly and said. "I wish that were the case. Celeste. but I'm sure everything Noble is telling you comes from his imagination."

"But how do you know. Mommy? Maybe he does speak to Daddy's spirit."

"I would know.'' she said. She said it with such confidence that I had no doubt she would, "It's not time for that vet. Your brother just won't face our loss. He's a very sensitive child. He has my heart," she said. and I felt as if a bee had stung me.

He had her heart?

What did I have of hers?

"Go find him. I don't like him beinc, so sad all the -time, Celeste, Occupy his mind. You must watch over him more," she told me. However, she didn't say it in a way that would make me feel proud and grownup. She said it with anger. It was a criticism like I wasn't doing my job. She made me feel I was born with him simply to watch over him, to keep him from harm and sadness, a tagalong without a life of her own,

"You came out first,' Daddy used to tell me with a smile. "So you're really older. Celeste. You're the older sister."

When I said that in front of Mommy and Noble, Noble started to cry.