Forever Family (Forever #5)

by Deanna Roy

  The trees shivered, dropping the few fragile leaves still clinging to their branches. I was back in Texas, where winter was really a perpetual fall. Houston, my home, my nemesis. I had never hated a place more.

  And this cemetery was about the worst of all.

  Surrounded by huge walls to keep out road noise.

  Attached to some seedy pathetic little funeral home that overcharged for their shoddy services.

  Poorly kept up. Depressing and dead.

  I couldn’t remember where they kept the babies. I knew Peanut was in some special area. My parents were too young to have a family plot already. We didn’t have a lot of money, and insurance on the kid of a kid isn’t a lot. We had something like two grand to work with.

  Regardless, my mother wouldn’t hear of her grandbaby getting cremated. I hadn’t had much say in any of it because I was back in the hospital getting my wrists stitched back together. Due to that, Mom had arranged everything herself, putting together some sappy dirge-filled funeral-home grief show that I didn’t want to be at myself.

  Pretty much no one came. Nobody at my school for pregnant girls knew what happened. I think maybe an administrator popped in for a couple minutes. My grandparents were dead. The baby’s father was already poking some other hole. Well, probably not yet. But he was on the lookout. His vacating our garage apartment was what sent me over the edge.

  Nothing was good here. Nothing. I had been right to leave.

  But here I was.

  Leaves crunched beneath my chunky boots. I felt adrift, wandering lost among the dead.

  Then I stopped. Everything aligned, like a camera lens coming into focus.

  This was it.

  All the graves spread out in front of me were low. Toward the back was a large angel statue.

  There were more graves than I remembered, but of course, it had been five years, six, really. Many more babies to bury.

  I paused, hair in my face, wishing I’d thought to bring my hat. My eyes watered in the cold wind as I stepped between the rows, peering at names. So many of the little stones bore only a single date. Babies who left on the day they arrived.

  Like mine had.

  Where was he?

  I spotted a bush that seemed familiar. It was cut into the shape of a ball, sitting by a bench, like an oversized beach toy nobody would ever play with. Horrible idea, but they’d kept it up all these years. If I was right, Peanut’s grave was angled off from it.

  I stepped carefully through the dead smashed grass, avoiding the headstones, wincing at the thought of the tiny skeletons in their small boxes below my feet. I hated that part of walking in cemeteries. You couldn’t help but tromp over people’s bones.

  My heart beat faster as I recognized some of the names on the carved stones set into the ground. I’d read them before on walks like this years ago. The consonants and syllables had left impressions, a signature burned directly onto my memory.

  I had arrived.

  The stone was small and gray and printed with simple text.

  Peanut Schwartz.

  February 3, 2009.

  Uncut grass had encroached on the corners and then died, brown and wispy, fluttering with each gust of wind. I pushed it all aside so the edges of the grave were clear. No one had been here in a long time.

  “Sorry, Peanut,” I said. “I just couldn’t come home for a while.”

  I should never have let them bury him. I could still picture the tiny powder-blue coffin. I was probably sitting on it right now.

  And inside it would be the baby, threadbare bits of his sleeper spread over whatever was left of him.

  I couldn’t bear it.

  If I had a shovel, I’d take it to the ground right now. Slam the point into this cold hard earth and get my baby out. Take him to be cremated. Keep him with me.

  I never should have left him.

  During a pit stop yesterday in Arizona, I called the caretaker to ask how to have the grave exhumed. I was forced to leave a voice mail, and I hadn’t heard back.

  But I had money now. I would make this happen.

  Another sharp gust of wind sent leaves dancing. This one didn’t bring me down, though. A wave of exhilaration surged through me. I felt powerful and in control. I would right this wrong.

  I held on to my necklace, the shell with Albert’s ashes. I would mix some together. Carry them always. No one would tell me I couldn’t. My life was my own. I would bear my grief however I chose.

  Something crunched behind me, and I jumped to my feet, my heart thumping.

  I almost fell backward in my haste to turn around. My heel caught on the grave, and I stumbled, horrified that I was stepping on Peanut’s grave. I lunged away, finally finding my balance again.

  That’s when I saw her.

  My stomach turned. I hadn’t looked at that face in five years.

  My mother.

  She held out her hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I took a step back, carefully avoiding the grave.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  She retracted her arm and tugged her worn sweater more tightly around her middle. She looked older than I remembered, her thick hair almost completely gray. She must have stopped dyeing it.

  “The man who runs the place called with a quote to get the grave exhumed,” she said. She looked uncertain now. “He had my number on file. I hadn’t contacted him, so I figured it must have been you.”

  “Have you been waiting here?”

  She stared out at the sky, tucking a loose bit of hair behind her ear. The rest was tied up in a messy knot. At last she said, “I asked him to call me if anyone showed up near the baby graves.” Her eyes dropped to the stones, seeming to count all the loss that surrounded us. “I knew you would come back one day.”

  “I called you,” I said, feeling my defenses rise up. “I let you know I was getting married.”

  Her gaze moved back to my face then, searching my features, looking for an answer in my expression. “It was wonderful to hear that news.” She glanced down at my ring. “It’s lovely.”

  I resisted the urge to cover it with my hand. I had vowed not to shut my family out any longer. I had promised it to myself. But I hadn’t done it. A phone call or two, prodded by Darion. Birthday cards, at least one to Mother. I might have forgotten Dad’s.

  “I had hoped you’d come for Christmas,” she said.

  “My friend was dying,” I said. “I couldn’t leave.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “He did die. In January.” My words were a rush. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to justify my absence to — my mother or myself.

  She took a step forward. “I’m so sorry. She must have been special to you.”

  “He,” I said before I could stop myself. “Albert. A painter. I was learning from him.”

  I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I was distracted from my purpose. I turned around and sat cross-legged in front of Peanut’s grave. Maybe she would take the hint and go away.

  But no, she sat next to me, her practical thick-soled shoes sticking out from her paisley skirt. She shivered. “Didn’t predict the cold,” she said.

  You can go home, I thought, but didn’t say it aloud. I was freezing too but wouldn’t admit it.

  “He was such a lovely baby boy,” she said.

  My eyes smarted with tears in the cold. My anger rose up, but I stuffed it down. This is what I was supposed to be doing. Grieving. Processing. Figuring it all out.

  She cared about him. So did I. I had to get control of my reactions.

  “He’d be what — six now?” she said. “Tearing around, getting into things. First grade.”

  I could sense her wistful smile even though I refused to look. I didn’t want to see her version of Peanut. I only wanted my own. He was mine.

  But she went on. “My first grandbaby,” she said. “And when I got the news you were getting married, I couldn’t help but hope there might on
e day be more.”

  “He can’t be replaced,” I said, my voice dark and bitter.

  “Of course not,” she said. “He’ll always be the first.”

  I refused to talk, waiting out the swirling emotion. I felt my anger drain away like a swimming pool emptying out. There was a lot of it to let go, so we sat a long time, enduring the wind and the cold.

  But before I could say anything else, she stood up. “Come home for a while. Let me make you some coffee. We can go over the numbers the caretaker sent me. I’d love to hear your plans for Peanut.”

  She held out her hand. The heat rose in me again, that old familiar resistance to her I’d known my whole life. Where did it come from? It was so persistent. So hard to stuff down.

  I forced myself to take her hand and let her help me stand up.

  If I was going to get better, get past my hang-ups and put my life back together, it might as well be now.

  And it might as well be with my mother.

  ~*´`*~

  The caretaker sat across from me and Mom, grim and serious. He wore a black suit and tie. We were in his office, small but tidy. Even though this cemetery was bare and sparse, the sales office gave the impression that your family would be taken care of.

  He pushed a paper across the table showing the expenses. “We need some permits,” he said. “And a funeral director oversees the process of opening and closing the grave.” He tapped a line. “This is for transport to the crematorium.”

  My mom gasped, but I didn’t blink at the number. I had zero interest in cost. I just wanted my baby out of the ground. “How soon can we do it?” I asked.

  “Depends on the city,” he said. “It’s the permit that delays it.”

  “What sort of permit is it?” Mom asked.

  “Just a hoop or two to jump through to make sure all is in order,” he said evasively.

  But I already knew. “That there isn’t a public health threat,” I said. “And that we aren’t stealing it.”

  The man’s expression didn’t change. Funeral directors should be poker players. They’d never give a thing away.

  “How long to get the permit?” I asked.

  “Could be a few days if the right person is in the right office and actually doing their job. Or, could be a week or more,” he said.

  “And what about your part of it, once we have the permit?” I asked.

  “Just a day to work around any funerals,” he said evenly. “We want quiet for the serenity of this work.”

  And to not upset anyone that I was checking out while they were checking in, I surmised.

  “Will I see him?” I asked. I’d been watching grave exhuming relentlessly on YouTube. I knew the casket could be opened.

  “That isn’t necessary,” he said. “We are lucky that you chose a metal casket at burial, or this might not even be possible. Wooden caskets decay very quickly.”

  I knew this too. One undertaker online said that if you put a wood casket in an unvaulted grave, there might be nothing but discolored soil within five years, particularly since Peanut was so small and premature.

  “But I want to,” I said. After all those videos, I knew I could handle it.

  Mom reached out to cover my hand with hers. “Darling, is that a good idea? Don’t you want to remember him the way he was?”

  I ignored her. I had stayed at her house last night, and while she had mightily tried to create a cozy mother-daughter evening with hot tea and chick flicks, I was distracted and uneasy. Closing a gap like ours wasn’t going to happen without a struggle.

  “I want to be there when the grave is opened,” I said. “I insist on it.”

  The man settled back into his high-backed leather chair. “That is fine. We will let you know when we have the permit and can schedule it. The casket will be intact for transport to the crematorium. They can determine if you should view the remains prior to cremation. They handle everything with the utmost respect.”

  Mom sighed. “I don’t know why you have to do this,” she said.

  The old familiar anger rose up in me. She didn’t understand me. Never had. Never tried. “I want Peanut with ME.”

  Mom bit her lip, leaving a mark in her red lipstick. She faked a smile at the caretaker. “Thank you. Let us know when things are ready.”

  I jerked a checkbook from my bag and scribbled out the amount for the entire process. I slid it across the table and stood up. “Thank you,” I said. I didn’t wait for him to write a receipt or escort us out. I got up and left.

  The halls were silent and ghostly, light flickering from fake oil lamps on each wall. The navy and gold wallpaper peeled in the corners and the wood floors were scuffed. The light probably minimized how much of the wear and tear was visible.

  Everything had its false front.

  We passed two entrances to viewing rooms, and I crossed through the foyer to the double doors.

  The sun was blindingly bright although the air was still quite cold. I didn’t wait for my mother but kept striding right for my car. I could hear her rapid footsteps behind me.

  “Tina!” she called out.

  I wasn’t up for acknowledging her. I needed to calm down. Why did she have to keep insisting that I not do this? Why didn’t she get it?

  At the last minute, I decided to turn away from the car and go to the baby section of the cemetery. Maybe I could pull myself together there. The whole point of bringing her along on this excursion was to fix things. I was still being my angry seventeen-year-old goth self.

  I headed down the path toward the angel statue. I didn’t glance back, but the moving shadows let me know she was following.

  I should slow down, stop, let her walk with me.

  But still, my legs kept on pumping.

  Two women were out among the baby graves. I slowed down when I saw them, not sure I wanted an audience.

  My mom caught up, breathing hard. “Tina, are you okay?”

  My steps were uncertain now. Continue on through the cemetery, or head back to the car with my mother?

  I could picture Fuseli’s famous painting of Odysseus, shield upraised, fighting the battle between Scylla and Charybdis as waves pounded below and monsters threatened from above. A rock and a hard place. He had nothing on choosing between my mother and strangers near my baby’s grave.

  I longed to paint this image on canvas. The monster inside me and water crashing against the headstones. The need to get it down tugged at me with urgency, like hunger after a long fast. Maybe I could backtrack, play nicey-nice with Mother, and find an art supply store. Set up somewhere while I waited on the permit.

  I turned to initiate this new plan when something about one of the women ahead made me pause. She seemed familiar.

  “Tina, are you okay?” Mom asked again.

  I ignored her, walking closer to the two women. Could it be? Really?

  One of the women was young and slender, in a bulky sweater and jeans. But the other wore a floral dress. She was ample, maybe more ample than the last time I saw her. But of course, it had been six years.

  “Stella?” I asked tentatively. The wind caught the word, and neither woman turned. I repeated it a little more loudly. “Stella?”

  This time the sound pierced the air and the woman looked behind her. Yes! It WAS Stella, the woman who had run my pregnancy loss group so many years ago. Right here!

  She cocked her head, her brows together. I felt a prickle of apprehension, feeling my mother’s curious stare. Stella had a lot of women come through her doors, and I had been only a teenager then.

  “It’s Tina,” I said. “With the striped stockings.” I lifted my ankle-length skirt to reveal the rainbow over-the-knee socks I had mostly stopped wearing. Today had been an exception, since I would be so close to Peanut again. I had worn them practically every day back when Stella knew me.

  “Tina!” Her face brightened. She reached over to the woman and squeezed her arm. “This is one of my other mothers,” she said to her. “Her
baby is laid to rest here as well.”

  The two women moved among the graves to come closer. Stella took one of my hands between both of hers and clasped it tightly. “It is so good to see you,” she said. “You are all grown up.”

  This made the other woman tilt her head. I realized they had just placed a vase of flowers and a half-dozen balloons at one of the graves. “Is it an anniversary?” I asked the other woman.

  She nodded. “One year. Stella kindly offered to come out here with me since my husband also recently passed away.”

  My stomach turned over. Stella released my hand and draped her arm around the woman. “So many ways for life to be hard,” she said. “So many ways.”

  The woman hugged Stella. “Thank you for meeting me,” she said. “I’m going to go.”

  “Let me know how you are doing,” Stella said. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  The woman headed back toward the parking lot. Stella turned back to me. “Is this your mother? I see an amazing resemblance.”

  My stomach flipped again. I had never seen anything similar about us.

  “I’m Marcella,” Mom said. “Tina’s mom.”

  “I knew it,” Stella said. Her round face beamed beneath a halo of fluffed-up hair. She reached out to shake my mother’s hand. “We never met back in the day.”

  “Back in the day?” Mom’s face was filled with confusion. “When Tina lived here?”

  “Stella ran the pregnancy loss group,” I said.

  “Oh,” Mom said. She smiled at Stella. “That was so helpful to Tina.”

  Like she’d know. I felt resentment rise up again. “At least somebody helped,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Mom flinched as if she’d been struck.

  Stella stepped close and slid her arm inside the crook of my elbow. “Those were hard times,” she said, all matter-of-fact. “Let’s walk to your sweet baby’s grave.”

  Did she know where it was? I tried to recall bringing her here, but I was pretty sure I never had. We walked toward the beach-ball bush, then off toward Peanut. My mother followed at a distance.