by Deanna Roy
“Challenge accepted,” Tina said, but her face was still tight. “I get the impression Stella was a wild child, so she’ll be on board. As for Mother, well, traumatizing her is apparently something I do well.”
We got on an expressway and continued in silence. I tried to imagine what it would be like to dig up a grave. This certainly wasn’t what I’d expected to happen within the first few hours of arriving.
“I should tell Gavin I made it,” I said, pulling out my phone.
“Don’t let on what we’re doing just yet,” Tina said. “I’ll tell Darion in my own time. The guys might talk.”
“Of course.” I couldn’t imagine Gavin calling up Darion to gossip, but I would keep this to myself. I texted a quick note to say Tina had met me at the airport and not to worry. Then I sat back to look out at the city.
Houston was industrial and gray. We drove up high on the expressway. Below were endless buildings and strip malls. I could see downtown in the distance, the skyscrapers stark and cold against the white sky.
Tina had not liked it here, this I knew. We drove and drove, only the signs changing. The view was remarkably similar no matter how much time passed. It reminded me of LA. Perhaps all big cities seemed the same from above. Only when you got down at the people level could you see the beauty and uniqueness of it.
We exited finally and took a huge four-lane street across town. There were trees at least, and some green here and there. Then I spotted a cemetery and figured this was it. Sure enough, Tina turned into the gate and we parked in front of a large building.
A woman in a black dress got out of her car when we opened our doors. She came up to Tina and gave her a huge hug. I assumed this was her mother.
“My lamb,” she said. “Are you ready for this?”
Tina pulled away. “As ready as I can be.” She turned to me. “This is my friend Corabelle. She flew in from San Diego. Corabelle, this is Stella.”
I hid my surprise. “Nice to meet you. You run the loss group, right?”
Stella nodded. “I do.” She reached for my hand and clasped it. “You’re the one whose baby lived a few days, yes?”
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. So, Tina had mentioned me. “Yes, Finn lived for seven days.”
“Sweet little love. What a beautiful baby he must have been,” Stella said. I could see why people turned to her. She said only the comforting things. No platitudes or I’m sorry. Just affection and concern.
“He was,” I said.
Another car door closed, and we turned to another woman, gray-haired and clearly Tina’s mother. They carried themselves the same. She also wore all black, including a funny little pillbox hat that made her seem from another era.
“This is my mother, Marcella,” Tina said. “Mom, this is Corabelle, from San Diego. A friend of mine.”
“So good of you to come,” Marcella said. “It’s important for Tina to have friends here on a day like today.”
Tina turned toward the door of the funeral home. “I guess this is it,” she said. “We’re a little late due to my side trip to the airport, but it’ll be all right.”
I felt another twinge of guilt.
“Close enough,” Stella said.
We headed into the building, four serious women set on a very hard task. I wished I wasn’t in jeans. Sometimes in life you had to meet a situation as you were. And I was glad I could be here for Tina.
Chapter 21: Tina
The caretaker led us out to the baby graves. Another woman in a black suit followed our little group out.
I was tempted to ask the man about the beach-ball shrub, but recognized that this was just my mind trying to avoid the hard stuff in front of me. So, I didn’t.
The air was completely still, as if the world itself was holding its breath. A couple men in overalls were out among the headstones, waiting. As we grew closer, I could see they had covered the surrounding graves with green Astroturf carpets. A little mound of dirt protected by a tarp sat nearby.
The videos I’d watched didn’t really apply to this situation, as far as I could tell. There were always huge cranes that had to lift the casket out. But Peanut’s was so tiny. As we got closer, I could see the depth of the hole. Babies weren’t buried six feet down like adults, at least not here. As we approached the perfectly cut rectangle of dirt, I remembered now that my father and a friend of his had lowered the casket down.
My footsteps slowed, and even though I was behind him, the caretaker also dropped his pace. Sixth sense, I guessed. My mother clutched my hand. Stella and Corabelle walked next to us.
Despite my reluctance, we still arrived. We were quite close to the open grave before I could see the top of the bluish metal casket. It was slightly discolored, but the men had cleaned the top, so it gleamed in the sun.
I could picture myself, the last time I saw it, my arms screaming from the stitches in my wrists because I refused to take any pain medicine. I had wanted to feel it all, each line up my arm. My greatest fear then was to be numb to everything.
There was this huge black void then, and it loomed all around me. I was petrified of falling in.
Albert had taught me I was supposed to dance around the edges, laugh in its face. I still was afraid. I’ll try harder, I promised.
The caretaker motioned to the men. They both kneeled down and grasped the handles on either side of the casket.
Bits of mud dropped off the bottom as they lifted it and laid it on the green carpet next to the grave. The headstone had also been removed, resting on another carpet a few feet away.
As we had previously agreed, the men picked up the small headstone and laid it in the empty grave. It would be filled in and left. I hadn’t told my mother this, so she let out a little cry as she realized they meant to leave it there. But she did not protest. I couldn’t imagine what else to do with it.
My father was away on business, and I had asked Mother not to tell him, as he would have disrupted his work to come. Having the four women there made it feel more sacred, the way tombs were once cared for in antiquity. The power of what we were doing felt timeless.
The male and female caretakers moved forward to lift the box. They were supposed to carry it to the hearse waiting on the narrow road that wound through the cemetery. But when they bent to reach for it, Stella said, “I wouldn’t mind taking one of those handles, if it’s okay with Tina.”
I nodded. As she walked over, Corabelle followed her and took the other side. And so, it turned out that the two women who knew best where I had been, my old friend and my new, carried my baby across the lawn to the black car that waited.
My mother and I followed. This was the easy part.
The caretaker held open the back door for me in the town car that would follow the hearse. The crematorium was a few miles away. Mother slid in next to me, and after a moment, Stella sat in the front and Corabelle joined us in the back.
No one spoke. Mother pulled a handkerchief from her purse and handed it to me. I spread it out on my lap. Along one corner, in pale blue letters, she had embroidered the word Peanut. The outline of an angel blowing a horn was below it in gold.
“Thank you,” I said. I had precious few keepsakes for the baby, just the blanket he had been wrapped in and a hospital bracelet. Each thing was something to hold on to. I found that I wanted to remember things now. I wanted to feel them again. My scars were healed over, but the wounds in my heart were open wide.
I longed, stupidly, ridiculously, to see the baby’s father, jerk that he was. At least he was connected to all this, even if only by DNA. At one point, he had been interested in the baby. But now, my life had moved far from here.
Suddenly I was so grateful for my mother. She had been there. She had seen him. She knew what he looked like, how heavy he felt to hold.
A picture. I should have brought a picture.
My stomach heaved and a sob escaped me. It seemed silly now, just riding in the car, to start getting emotional. But it happened a
nyway. Mother took my arm and held it tight. I hadn’t intended to actually use the handkerchief, but now I pressed it to my eyes.
My mother had known.
Corabelle leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder. I was surrounded with love and support. So different from the first time, when I felt utterly alone. I had refused to let anybody in.
We pulled up to another funeral home and stopped beneath the canopy by a side entrance. This place was vast, with wings stretching out on either side.
A funeral director in a somber suit came out and shook hands with the ones from the other home. Two more men in suits rolled out a small velvet-covered trolley and headed out of our view. The woman opened our door.
“This way,” she said.
By the time we all got out of the car, Peanut’s casket was waiting atop the trolley. When we were all assembled, the two men rolled it into the building and the director gestured for us to follow.
They had cleaned the casket during the journey. It caught the lights as it moved down the whisper-quiet halls. We passed two empty viewing rooms, then a set of closed doors. Behind them, I could hear a man speaking.
Our journey continued beyond the offices and to an elevator.
“It will take two trips, or some of you can take the stairs,” the director said.
“I’ll go down the stairs,” Corabelle said.
“You stay with the baby,” Stella said to me. “I’ll go down with Corabelle.”
“You will be well taken care of,” the director said, and shook my hand before heading back down the hall.
Mom and I filed into the elevator next to the trolley, the two men, and the woman from the other cemetery. The doors closed behind us.
We went down a floor. When the elevator opened, we were in another wide hall. A few chairs lined one side. At the end was another outside entrance, nothing fancy, just double doors that could open wide, and two metal doors to a room. Otherwise, it was one unbroken wall. The door to the stairs opened behind us and Stella and Corabelle rejoined us.
The woman’s face remained placid and calm as she turned to us. “We’re going into the crematorium now, where the casket will be opened and the baby prepared for cremation. You may go in, or you may wait out here.” She gestured to the chairs.
Corabelle’s face grew pale, but I could tell she would go in if she was asked.
“You all can just wait here,” I said. “This might be hard.”
Stella dropped into a chair and folded her hands in her lap. “We’ll be right here,” she said.
Corabelle sat beside her.
The men rolled the trolley forward to the metal doors. I followed behind them.
“Tina?” my mother asked.
I turned to her.
“I would like to come.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I could manage if she got hysterical.
She came up beside me. “I’ll be fine,” she said.
I nodded. She linked her arm through mine. The men opened the metal doors and wheeled the casket through.
I braced myself. I could do this.
These rooms were clearly not intended for guests. Several workers in navy coveralls and black gloves manned large metal tables. A storeroom stood open, holding various styles of urns and a stack of plain boxes.
When they saw us, they nodded and moved aside.
The men rolled the trolley to the far side, where a table had been cleared. They lifted the casket onto it. One of them said, “We are very sorry for your loss,” then rolled the trolley out again.
The woman stayed with us. “They will break the seal now,” she told us. “Once they have done their work, they will let us know how to proceed.”
Right. They had to approve our seeing Peanut. I wondered at the things they had seen. If they had managed, over time, to become numb to it.
The woman led us a little way away from the table as two of the workers approached the casket.
My mother gripped my arm like a vise. One of the men unlatched the side locks.
“They will break the seal now,” the woman said.
The other man took a metal tool and slid it along the edges of the casket. The two of them struggled for a moment with the lid, then it came free.
But then they closed it again. Fear gripped me. Was it too much even for them?
The woman said, “They’ll remove the hinges so the lid can come all the way off. It’s easier to take him out that way.”
I let out a long gust of air. I couldn’t even cry now, I was so anxious.
One of the men walked to the other side of the casket to remove the hinges. The minutes were agonizing as he worked. I glanced over at Mother. Like me, she was rapt, probably both impatient and afraid of what they would find inside.
After what felt like an eternity, they lifted the lid completely away and set it aside. They looked down, then over at the woman, and nodded.
She stepped forward. “You can come over now,” she said.
My feet had never felt heavier. I hadn’t seen Peanut’s face for seven years. Until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t have imagined that I ever would again. I mentally flashed through all the grave-exhuming videos I had watched so I could prepare myself.
But when I peered inside, I could see only what I remembered. The small nubby nose. The tiny chin. Only his face showed above the blanket wrapped tightly around him. His skin was tight and mottled, but intact. I moved as if to reach in, but the man said, “Let’s slide something beneath him first.”
I pulled back. One of them held a flexible piece of clear plastic. He placed it inside the casket and shifted it beneath Peanut. I held my breath, knowing that they worried he would come apart. My mother stepped back, unable to watch. But when they lifted it, the blanket wrapped around him held.
They moved him to the table, carefully, with more tenderness than I would have expected from two gruff workers in coveralls. One of them tested the blanket and slid their hand beneath his body. He frowned.
But I didn’t care. I opened the handkerchief my mother had given me and moved forward. The caretaker woman acted as if she might stop me, but I didn’t give her that chance. I slid the handkerchief beneath him and folded it back over. He was so small. It was just the right size.
I wrapped the cloth tight so it would hold, and picked him up. He didn’t feel much different from all those years ago. Light as air, but substantial and real. He still existed.
My mother walked up then and touched his forehead. “Sweet little bub,” she said, tears flowing freely down her face. “He’s still perfect.”
I held him against me, wishing I could freeze this moment. I was such a different person now. I had to be. I couldn’t fall apart at every setback life brought me. I had to be strong. I had so much to face. Surely, surely, this was the hardest thing I would ever do.
I pulled him close, my lips close to his ear. “You’re going to be a big brother,” I whispered. “Watch over us.”
The caretaker approached. “You can walk him down,” she said.
I followed her and one of the men to another area of the room. An enormous wall faced us with three steel doors. Leading up to each of them was a mechanized ramp.
A simple brown box sat on one ramp, about two feet long. I knew that was where Peanut would go.
I turned and let Mom see him one more time. She touched his forehead and stepped back again. I laid him in the box. I thought I would let the handkerchief go with him, but then changed my mind and unwrapped it from his body. I held it against my chest as I moved away.
The coveralls man fitted a lid onto the box and walked over to the metal door.
“Step back here,” the caretaker woman said. She led Mom and me several feet from the ramp.
The man pressed a button and the metal door slid open. Inside I could see the orange light of the fire. Then he turned a switch and the ramp moved, taking the box inside.
I watched it go in and saw the flames alight on the box. Just as the fire b
egan to burn brightly, the man closed the door.
Peanut was free.
Chapter 22: Jenny
I was going to pace a hole in the floor. Phoenix was up on my shoulder, sleeping at last. I was afraid to put her down or she might wake up. She’d been fussing for hours. Growth spurt, maybe. Or a tooth coming in? She’d been drooling a lot.
My phone sat silent on the side table. I passed it, stopped, picked it up, saw nothing, and set it down again.
Corabelle was in Houston with Tina. Earlier today, they had taken her baby from his grave. I had no idea how that had gone, what state Tina was in, or when they were coming back. Or if Tina would.
I knew I was the wrong person to be out there. It wasn’t right to have a baby in her face when she was going through all that.
But I felt so helpless.
The door opened and Chance strode in. I held my finger to my lips, and he turned to close it carefully.
I tried not to feel frumpy compared to him, me in my chenille robe and messy bun with hair flopping out. He looked every bit the rock star in faded jeans and a tight black T-shirt. His leather boots were tricked out with silver chains. It was just right. The stylist had changed his hair when they shot his album cover a week ago. Now the dark locks were cut short and spiked up in front.
He was seriously hot.
I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and patted Phoenix’s back. “Have fun at the Fire and Smash release party?”
“I’m not sure I’m sold on their sound, but there were good people there to chat up,” Chance said. He came over and took Phoenix from me, transferring her to his shoulder. She stirred a little, but he resumed the patting and she settled down again.
I arched my back, relieved to have my arms free. “I’ve been watching the Tweets and shares from the party. Some killer shots of you with that Grammy-nominated singer — what was her name?”
His lips twisted. “That Cheri girl. Yeah, I had a hard time losing her tonight.”
I laughed. “I saw. Every image had her fawning on your shoulder and you trying to look away.”
