Page 54 of Ghost

Fred and Martin Royale arrived with a convoy.

After they all had exited their respective vehicles, Lizzie Royale led the way up the steps of Hobonny, with the help of Roy Royale.

Following her were her great-grandsons, Fred and Martin, their grandmother, mother and numerous cousins.

They were all dressed in black and each held a single white or red rose.

“Good morning, Lizzie,” Ellen greeted the woman warmly. “Thank you so much for coming.” Ellen looked at the others who were standing along the steps up to the house. “Thank you all.”

There were murmurs of greetings.

“Where’s mah Frankie?” Lizzie asked.

Francis walked through the front door as if on cue. “Good morning, Lizzie. I am very happy to see you.”

Ellen could see that only a few of the cousins had the gift and the others must become accustomed to their relatives speaking into thin air.

“This is a happy day but also a sad day,” Lizzie spoke, turning to the others.

“A great man who was robbed of his life by his own momma is finally going to be put to rest and have some peace.” She turned back to Francis, then glanced at Mason.

“There is a lot of pain to be shared here today, but also a reason to rejoice. You see, there is a lot of love here, too. If there is one thing that I have learned in my long life is that with love, there will always be some pain, but we must hold onto the love, which makes it only that much sweeter.”

Lizzie took Mason’s hand. “It’s that love that will carry you through.

” She glanced at Ellen. “All y’all. It’s the love that will carry us all forward into this life and the next.

It won’t do no one no good to try and hold on to what is the past.” She looked at Francis.

“Mah white chil’, you are the past and have no more business here.

It is time for you to go into the light and find eternal peace and rejoice with your kin that’s done gone from this veil of tears we call life.

Ain’t no good to try and hold onto it. You hearing me? ”

“Yes, ma’am,” Francis muttered. He swallowed hard. “May I have a moment alone with Mason?”

Lizzie nodded, and patted Mason’s shoulder as he crossed the threshold of the antebellum home.

“In here,” Francis said as he entered the parlor where his casket was. “It truly is a beautiful sight.” He looked at the wooden coffin and the floral arrangements. “I doubt that there are many who can attend their own funeral.”

Mason couldn’t help but laugh. “I’d say you’re probably right on that count. By the way... what’s with the new suit? You look so handsome.”

Francis looked down at himself. “I am sure I do not know. I was walking through the rose garden and... it was quite odd. It was as if I had just bathed and when I looked down I had on this, my favorite suit.” He looked into Mason’s eyes. “You like?”

“Yes. I like very much.” Mason felt as if he were very slowly being strangled. His throat feeling more and more constricted.

“My love,” Francis turned to face Mason.

“There are so many things I would like to say to you, but the time is drawing every nearer for me to depart. We both knew that we would have to say goodbye, and that moment is now upon us. I can feel a pull from the light. I have never felt a force as strong as this before.” Francis looked around the room once more, his gaze focused on a spot near the corner of the room.

“I love you, Francis.” Mason swallowed hard. “I thought I knew what love was, but you showed me what it’s really all about. I will never forget you.”

“Nor I you.” Francis stepped closer. “I want to say our goodbyes in this room.” He looked around. “I always enjoyed this room in the mornings. So, it is here and now that I would like us to be together for the last time.”

Mason couldn’t hold them back any longer. The tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Hush now, please do not weep for me. I only want you to have a happy and long life. Enjoy all the things that this great world has to offer.” Francis leaned down and lightly brushed his lips against Mason’s, causing Mason to tremble.

“Francis—" Mason croaked, his voice tight. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe.

“Goodbye Mason Montgomery, my true love. My only true love. You gave me more joy after my death than I had in my life in a very short period of time and for that, I will be forever grateful. I love you so very much.”

Francis slowly faded away, and unlike any other time, there was a faint wisp of what looked like smoke, but it was more like seeing your own breath on a cold morning, only it was brighter, almost too bright.

Deep down in Mason’s chest, he could feel that Francis was well and truly gone and would never come back.

Mason let out a hard sob, his hands clenched into fists, tight against his chest. It felt as if there was a ton of weight sitting on his heart. It was Sharon who would embrace him, wrapping her arms around him, enveloping him, while Mason sobbed against her shoulder.

He had no idea how long they stood there. Sharon held him until he got the hiccups, at which point they both had a bit of a laugh.

Lizzie, with the help of Ellen entered the room, coming to stand in front of Mason.

“Young man,” Lizzie reached out and took Mason’s hand. “I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am. You gave mah Frankie something that he never had in this life. A true love which he will carry in his soul for all eternity.”

Ellen wiped away a tear from Mason’s face with her handkerchief. She then laid her hand upon the hands of both Lizzie and Mason. “I second that sentiment.”

“You not only gave Frankie the best gift a human being can give, but you will also save his legacy. As shor as I’m a living and breathing, and you can’t see it yet, but you will be a very great man in your own right.

You have a powerful light inside of you that you can’t see.

May never see but others will. You are a kind and gentle man who has great love inside you. Don’t you ever doubt that.”

Sharon, who had her arm around Mason’s waist said, “She is right, Mason. You have the brightest and most glorious aura around you that I have ever seen.”

After that, people started filing into the room. It wasn’t long till the room was full of people and some still standing in the hallway and some out on the veranda looking in through the open windows.

Ellen, as usual, took charge in her quiet ladylike manner.

“As most of you know, I was but a young girl when my cousin, Francis Watson, disappeared.” Ellen reached for Lizzie’s hand.

“His disappearance was felt very deeply by many people. We now know for certain that it was his mother who basically buried him alive. I cannot think of a more horrendous death.”

“Amen,” Lizzie sighed, shaking her head, dabbing at her eyes with her own handkerchief.

“I would very much like to let Lizzie say a few words about Francis.” Ellen stood back, leaving Lizzie standing in front of the casket.

“Mah Frankie.” She held tight to the handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes again.

“I never saw a happier chil’ than Frankie.

He was so kind to everyone he met and even in later life, to those he never met.

He was so, so smart. Sometimes he was too smart for his own good.

As a small chil’, he would get himself into awful trouble being so smart and too small to know any better.

” She chuckled a bit. “But he was like one of my own chil’ren and I loved him as such too.

He grew into a fine gentleman. A true gentleman. ”

Lizzie looked directly at Mason. “It gives me such joy to know that Frankie had a true love, ‘cause, everyone deserves to know that they are truly loved, and I can rest easy knowin’ that Frankie had that.” There was an Amen from those in the cramped and crowded room and from the front veranda.

“Thank you, Lizzie.” Ellen took the woman’s hands into her own. She looked around the room, her eyes resting on Mason. “Is there anyone else who would like to say something?”

Mason immediately shook his head no. He could barely swallow, much less speak. He felt as if his entire body might implode, scattering pieces in every direction.

“Then, if ya’ll would kindly step out onto the veranda,” Fred said, ushering people outside, “We’ll be taking Francis out the front door and down to the family cemetery.”

Sharon ushered Mason down the hallway into the dining room. Once inside, she held up her hand and said, “Stand right there and don’t move.” She left through the swinging door towards the kitchen. She came back with a bottle in a red velvet bag.

“Per Ellen’s instructions. You’re to have two quick shots before we rejoin the others.”

Sharon handed Mason a tall shot glass, uncorked the bottle of bourbon and poured a shot into the glass. She waited until Mason drank it and then quickly refilled it. Mason needed no urging to throw the second shot back.

“Another.” Mason held the glass out for her to refill.

“No, only two, that’s a direct order from Ellen herself. If you want to take that up with her, be my guest, but you won’t get far and you know it.”

Mason shook his head. “How does she do it?”

“I wish I knew.” Sharon put the bottle back into its pretty bag. “She gets people to do things I would never have thought possible.” She left the room to put the liquor away.

When she returned, she patted Mason on the shoulder. “We’re to have a big lunch after the burial and then I’ll give you the bottle if you want.” Mason nodded.

Most of the people were just arriving at the burial site when Mason and Sharon hurriedly caught up with the group. There was a woman, probably in her thirties, and four men standing off to the side who began to sing.

“Going Home, yes, lawd goin’ on home to Beulah Land”

Mason was sure he’d never heard that hymn before, and with a Pentecostal grandmother who had dragged him and his sisters to enough church services, he was sure he’d heard every hymn there was.

She figured if she saved even one of her grandchildren from their heathen mother, she’d have accomplished something.

Fred, Martin and some of their family lowered Francis into the ground.

When they stepped back, Lizzie and Ellen each took a handful of dirt and scattered it upon the coffin.

Then one by one, those who had brought roses dropped them into the gaping hole in the ground.

Mason thought he was either going to pass out or throw up, or both.

It was when Ellen’s steely hand took his forearm that kept him from doing either.

“You’re doing fine, Mason. It won’t be too much longer.”

She was right. As soon as the last rose left a hand, everyone returned to the house, Ellen and Mason the last to leave the gravesite.

There was some small chatter of those who had left as they walked back to the house but not much.

When they rounded the corner of the house, coming from the north side, Mason saw women setting up tables with what looked like lemonade and iced tea.

There were also several men setting up chairs along long folding tables that had been set up to the side of the circular drive.

“This is going to be a feast,” Ellen said quietly. “There is nothing like good ol’ soul food to help begin the healing.”

A little while later, Sharon had shoved a tall glass of lemonade into Mason’s hand. They stood there together, watching the others sitting, eating, talking and laughing. Suddenly, a small girl and boy skipped up to them.

“Hi, my name’s Charlotte and this is my cousin Charlie.” She stuck her hand out to Mason to be shaken.

“Hello there,” Mason shook the young girl’s hands. “My name’s Mason.”

“Oh, we know who you are.” Charlotte flipped her braids towards her back. “You’re the white man who has the gift. My momma says not many men have the gift and even fewer white men. She also said you are the one that Great Momma Lizzie has been waiting for.”

“Does she now?” Mason couldn’t help but smile.

“You are very pretty too.”

“Men aren’t pretty, Charlotte. Men are handsome,” Charlie explained after poking her in the ribs with his elbow.

“You may correct me only after you can spell better than me, which will be never.” Charlotte crossed her arms over her chest with a daring look on her face.

Both Sharon and Mason burst out laughing.

“My, my, what on earth is going on over here?” Ellen asked.

“This young lady was only introducing herself,” Sharon croaked out, still laughing.

Ellen nodded and smiled. “And life goes on.”