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.”
“You squeezed in a meeting?” That was actually funny to me for some reason but I knew I couldn’t make light of it or laugh at him about it. There was a fragile truce brewing.
He kept talking as if I hadn’t interrupted. “I couldn’t get a flight back to DC and at some point I just decided to drive back home. I was a few hours away from here when William called and told me about this”—Leo motioned toward the grave—“and what you were planning to do. It sounded so crazy. I wondered if I had driven you to do something dangerous or at least ill-advised. I felt sort of responsible.”
“Please don’t, don’t feel responsible for any of this.” The absurdity of the situation was making this conversation difficult. It was too dark to really see Leo’s face so I couldn’t read him at all and I was covered in dirt and sweat. I motioned to the open grave. “You didn’t drive me insane and make me a grave robber or anything. I know this is nuts, but we just had to try.” Taking a small step closer I said, “And everything else, everything with us, that wasn’t your fault at all. It was mine.”
I could tell he was shaking his head but in the dark I couldn’t see more than that. “Livie, it was both of us. Look, I’m sorry for the way I acted, those things I said. I didn’t mean it. And I couldn’t leave things like that with us; we never fight like that. When William called me and told me what you were doing, what you had found—I know this must be hard for you. Hard to deal with this part of Janie’s life. And then he said you were planning to dig it up . . . I don’t know. It was the middle of the night and I was driving home on some highway and something in me just made me turn around. I wanted to come help you with this. Help you finally put your mother to rest. A proper good-bye. For us and for her.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I was fully crying now and there wasn’t a clean spot on any part of me to use to wipe my own eyes. I was crying out of sadness and relief and exhaustion. “I’m so glad you’re here. I know it wasn’t easy for you to come back, but I’m so glad you did. You know I never meant for this to happen to us.”
“I know. I can’t blame it all on you, even though I really want to. Obviously. I shouldn’t have said some of those things.” I didn’t want to revisit that conversation. He continued, “I had hoped to handle this differently. I mean when I decided to come down here and talk to you I had a whole speech prepared.”
Georgia and Logan went back to digging and I led Leo to a marble bench where we sat down. There was an opening in the clouds and the moonlight chased away some of the shadows. I asked, “What were you going to say?”
“It doesn’t matter.
“Of course it does.”
I could see him abbreviating it in his mind, cutting to the chase. “It was just . . . You were right. I’ve been feeling like we weren’t in a good place for a while too. It was poor judgment to think that a wedding might fix everything.”
I nodded in agreement. “A wedding wouldn’t have fixed it. But I didn’t know how to say it to myself let alone to you. I think that’s why I ran.”
“Well, it’s obvious you didn’t know how. That was partially my fault. I would never let you talk.” I started to say something but he put his hand up, stopping me. Sort of making his point about not letting me talk. “I need to say what I really came down here to say. Olivia, we’ve been together a long time. We’ve been through a lot. But I can see now that it’s not enough. We don’t have, what? That fire? I don’t know. I can’t remember how I was going to phrase it, but we don’t have it. I don’t know if we ever did. I was okay with that because we had something different. We complemented
each other. But now, I think maybe it’s not fair for either one of us to settle. Not when we’re talking about marriage.” I kept opening my mouth to interrupt and he kept holding up his hand. “I realize that it may not have worked out for us, but all I really want is for you to be happy. And I want for me to be happy.”
He had come to the same conclusion that I had. I said, “You don’t think we make each other happy?”
He looked at me with no malice and no anger, finally. “I don’t think we make each other unhappy. But that’s not the same thing.”
I put my dirty arms around his neck and pulled him in for a familiar hug. “Thank you.”
He squeezed me back and nodded.
I had gotten dirt all over the front of his shirt, and trying to wipe it away only made it worse. “I still can’t believe you came out here.”
Leo took my hands and smiled down at the mess I had made of his clothing, letting me know I didn’t need to worry about it. “I came because you and I needed to have a better good-bye.”
Logan was eavesdropping and shouted up from the hole. “But you’ll help us dig, right? Since you’re here anyway?”
Leo was always a little too aware of what it would mean to break the law. I didn’t want to ask him to do something he was uncomfortable with. “Do you know what we’re doing here, exactly?” I motioned to the grave.
Leo looked like a thousand pounds of rocks had been lifted from his shoulders by just being able to have a regular conversation again. Well, as regular as it can be when you’re talking about digging up a coffin.
He stood up and pulled me to my feet. We walked to the hole and he jumped in, taking the shovel from Logan. He said, “I know enough to know that I don’t want to know any more. Plausible deniability.”
Cancel the Wedding Page 28
