Page 148 of Shame the Devil

“You’re right,” his grandmother said. She was crying, but doing it quietly. “Leave her here, where you remember her. We can come visit her. There won’t be anybody to stop us now.”

That was why, on another sunny summer day, on the kind of morning when their mom would have taken them to the river and swung out on the rope swing herself, they were putting her in the ground.

No service, just the little group of them standing around the grave, sharing more memories. The two guys from the funeral home stood under the trees, giving them their privacy, patiently waiting to shovel the mound of dirt that lay under a green blanket that was supposed to look like grass.

They talked until nobody could think what else to say, and then they sang the song their mom had sung them all to sleep with. Alison and Annabelle were crying as they sang, and their grandparents weren’t able to sing at all. Harlan was singing, though, and Vanessa was standing tall and belting the song out, because Vanessa was a warrior.

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word,

Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird.”

He remembered all the words. He could see his mom in the big wicker rocking chair with whatever baby it was, holding a tiny hand. Her face soft, and her voice soft, too.

He held himself together and finished it. He and Vanessa were the only ones singing now.

“If that horse and cart fall down,

You’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.”

The last notes died away, and he looked around at all of them, his heart so full, it was going to burst. Then he stepped forward and dropped the sunflower he carried onto the casket.

Goodbye, Mom,he told her, all the way from his depths.I love you.

The others dropped their own flowers in, his grandmother going last. Holding the flower for a long, long moment over her daughter’s grave, and then letting it go. Saying goodbye.

He didn’t cry. Not yet. He had one more thing he needed to do.

* * *

Jennifer had thoughtshe knew sadness. She’d buried her own mother just months before, and it had broken her heart. Now, she realized that she didn’t know what heartbreak was. She’d started crying the moment they’d started singing, and she couldn’t stop. She was holding Harlan’s hand, feeling his pain, and she’d have given anything in the world to take that pain away.

When they were done, he headed over to the mortuary people, but came back without them, pulled the blanket back from the pile of dirt, picked up a shovel, and said, “She got buried all wrong the first time. I think we need to do this ourselves. She needs to be left here with … with love.”

Vanessa stepped forward and picked up the other shovel. She was wearing a navy dress and heels, but she dug the shovel into the dirt anyway with a heavy scrape, lifted it, and let the dirt fall on the casket. Then she went back for another one.

All Harlan’s sisters took a turn, and so did their grandparents. In the end, though, it was just Harlan. Jennifer was holding his jacket now, and he was in his shirtsleeves, digging and tossing dirt down like an automaton.

Shovelful after shovelful, the loose dirt falling into the black hole like rain. The wood of the casket had long since disappeared under it. Harlan’s white shirt was stuck to his body with sweat, but his rhythm never stopped, and everybody else stood silent and watched.

Finally, all the dirt was gone. A low mound covered the grave, and he stood there a minute, his head bowed, his chest heaving, his blistered hands on the shovel handle. Then he set the shovel carefully down, knelt, touched the temporary plastic sign at the head of the grave, and said, “I’m sorry I doubted you, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I know now.”

His eyes were blue pools in his strained face when he held out his hand to Jennifer and told the others, “I’ll see you all back at the place. I need …” A deep breath. “A couple minutes.” Then he turned and walked, nearly staggering, to the car, still holding her hand.

* * *

Jennifer said, “Keys.”

He blinked. He’d almost forgotten she was there.

Oh. Keys. He pulled them from his pocket and handed them to her, and she gave him back his suit coat, climbed into the car with him, racked the seat forward, and drove.

He stared straight ahead as the familiar sights spooled by. The high school, where his mom had come to every game. The middle school, where he’d first known a winning season, and she’d baked a cake to celebrate. And finally, the parking lot of the hotel.

Out of the car and through the front doors. Knowing that he was sweaty, that he was filthy, that people were staring. That this would be in the news eventually, inevitably, because there was no entertainment like somebody else’s pain. All that knowledge and all the faces scrolled by like the newsfeed at the bottom of the screen giving you the sports scores, and then he and Jennifer were alone, heading up in the elevator. Down another hall. Into their suite.

He was made of glass, brittle and rigid. His movements were jerky as he took off his shoes and socks, and his hands had started to shake.

It was Jennifer who unbuttoned his shirt, Jennifer who unbuckled his belt and finished undressing him. Jennifer who pulled off her own clothes, took his hand, and took him into the shower. Too small for two people, especially when one of them was big and the other one was pregnant, but she got in with him anyway, grabbing a washcloth along the way.