Grave Images

by Jenny Goebel

  I held my breath as his mother dropped the tools in a plastic bag, but Michael kept my secret from plunging from his lips.

  “I’m still not sure what is going on here,” Sheriff Romano said, measuring her words as she pulled Mr. Stein to his feet. “But I suppose whatever it is warrants at least an explanation and possibly a stint in jail.”

  Mr. Stein turned his head sharply, away from Michael’s mother.

  “Looks like defamation of personal property to me, and …” Here Sheriff Romano glanced quickly at Michael and then back to Mr. Stein. “It sounds like I’ll need some answers regarding a burglary and a fire in Silverton, as well.”

  Mrs. Romano turned back to Michael with a face that was both sternly hard and full of love. “What were you thinking?” she said. “You two are way too young to be playing detectives.” She flashed her light at the portrait on my headstone, clucked her tongue, and then directed her gaze at me. “But I guess we’re just lucky. This could’ve all ended a whole lot worse.”

  Michael and I both looked at our feet. Then, as Sheriff Romano began reading Mr. Stein his rights, Michael shifted his gaze to Mama, who was standing behind me and wavering like a strand of seaweed in an ocean’s undercurrent. “What’s she doing here?” he whispered.

  “What’s your mom doing here, and aren’t you supposed to be hiding in the open space reserve?” I whispered back.

  “Never made it there. As soon as I realized he wasn’t after me, I ran straight to get Mom. And it’s a good thing I did,” Michael said defensively. “Mr. Stein obviously didn’t stay knocked out for long. What would you have done if he came to before we arrived? How’d he get that way, anyhow?”

  I eyed Mr. Stein, standing, waiting with his hands cuffed behind him. He seemed shorter by a few inches, or maybe his hair was just flatter. He also looked shaken and pitiful, and his eyes were dull and gray.

  I shrugged. In a way, I kind of felt sorry for him.

  “Michael, I need to get Mr. Stein processed, so let’s get moving,” his mom said. “I’m sure I’ll have questions for you and Bernie both later, but that can wait.”

  Mrs. Romano fully took in the sight of my mother dressed in her nightgown, pink toes curled like rose petals in the grass. She hesitated. “Mrs. Morrison, will you and Bernie be all right? I can send a cruiser for you when we get back to the station,” she said.

  My mother looked more frail and childlike than I’d ever seen her. I took her hand in mine and shook my head. “It’s not far. We’ll walk home.”

  Mrs. Romano nodded and then pushed Abbot Stein in front of her. Michael slowly turned to follow her lead. “You’re gonna tell me everything later, right?” he whispered.

  “Everything,” I said, hit with the realization that he’d probably be the only one I could tell.

  After they were gone, I turned back to Mama. I was afraid she might be angry with me or disgusted by what she’d seen. I could only imagine how I’d looked to her — eyes glazed over and thirsty for Mr. Stein’s blood.

  “Let’s sit for a while,” I said, and pointed to the concrete bench.

  Even as shocked and weary as she must’ve been, my mama was every bit as beautiful as Isabella. I felt a pang of jealousy knowing she hadn’t come for me. It was my brother that had brought her here. Tonight was the anniversary of Thomas’s death, and I was sure she’d come to visit his grave.

  I dropped my head in shame and disappointment, but she lifted my chin with her bony fingers. “Bernie,” she said. “Tell me what happened.” Her cheeks reddened in the cool night breeze, and she shivered in her thin nightgown.

  I stared down at her feet. My own heels were scaly and dry, the skin around my toenails cracked from a summer of wearing flip-flops all over town. The skin on my mama’s feet was nearly translucent and perfectly smooth. They were the feet of someone who walked on clouds, or not at all, except for the dirt and grass that had soiled them tonight.

  She shouldn’t have to know what the night had nearly cost me. Cost us both. I couldn’t protect her from the hardships she’d already faced, but I could protect her from that.

  So I told her Mr. Stein was a bad man. He was a thief and an arsonist and a low-down, no-good creep. And Michael and I had tried to stop him — tried to steal the tools from him so we’d have proof of his wrongdoings. Really, it wasn’t all a lie, just a shortened, watered-down version of the truth. It was the same story I’d tell Sheriff Romano later.

  My mama and I huddled in silence after I finished weaving together the parts I felt like sharing. Then, like it was no more significant than an afterthought, I added, “Mr. Stein must’ve etched my portrait up there just to frighten me off.”

  Mama looked at my portrait and narrowed her eyes at it. I was quite certain she wasn’t buying it. I hadn’t exactly explained why after stealing Mr. Stein’s tools, I’d felt the need to bring them to the cemetery. I hadn’t explained why I’d stood over Mr. Stein with the tools in my hands and why my eyes had clouded over (she had to have seen that, hadn’t she?). I hadn’t explained why I’d trailed behind her to the bench, first pausing to lift something from the grass, nor the clink she must’ve heard, followed by a second. I hadn’t explained the toolbox cradled in my lap.

  And my mama was no dummy.

  But tonight, she didn’t have the strength to question me. The strength necessary to doubt the story I’d gently fed her. Not when the headstone she came to see had been defiled with my portrait. And not with the heaviness of the memories she was already bearing.

  I could see in her eyes that someday she’d ask me again about this night … and, hopefully, then I could tell her the truth. Hopefully, then she’d be able to hear it.

  Mr. Stein had said my heart was hardier than most — my wanting, hurting heart, had brought me here. It had kept me going, even with my portrait so close to completion. So I had hope that Mama’s heart, for all its pain and suffering, would heal someday, too. And be stronger for it.

  “Do you want some time alone now, with … Thomas?” It was hard, so hard, to speak his name to my mama. I’d spent the past year pretending I’d forgotten it, forgotten him, every time I was around her. For her, or for me, I didn’t know. But with all the truth I’d been running away from, I had to at least acknowledge why my mother was here.

  Again, my mama tilted my chin with her thin fingers so that I had nowhere to look but the icy oceans of her eyes. “Thomas,” she said, and then stopped herself. I had to wonder when she’d last spoken his name out loud. “Thomas … isn’t here, nor is your grandfather. Those are their graves. That is all. I didn’t come here tonight for either of them. If I had, I would’ve at least had the decency to get dressed first.” My mama smiled softly — a REAL smile — and a butterfly flitted in the corner of my heart.

  “After you shut the window tonight, I couldn’t breathe. The air was too heavy and thick, and I was sticking to the sheets with sweat … and tears. I had to open it again. When I did, I saw you. And what you did with the soup. The boy and that wretched man ran off, and then by the time I found my voice to call your name through the window, you’d disappeared, as well. Mimi and your father were gone. I had no choice but to follow you.”

  My mama had come for me? The butterfly in my heart grew to the size of a meadowlark. “Thank you,” I said, and I threw myself into her arms.

  She swayed a little on the bench and then recovered, holding me tight. She was stronger than I thought. “Let’s go home, Bernie.”

  We stood from the cold cement bench, still wrapped in each other’s arms. “Soon, Mama,” I said, pulling away from her. “Wait here for me. I won’t be long. Promise.”

  What could be. What could be. All the way to Mrs. Evans’s grave the words repeated in my head like the Gregorian chant Father John sometimes said at mass. I easily climbed under the ropes sectioning off the grave site, all hollowed out for Friday’s ceremony. I stood with my toes at the edge of that deep, dark hole. What could be. What could be.

  As if
they knew I was still wavering, and in an attempt to sway my decision, the lock box heated in my hands. Warm like a loaf of bread straight from the oven. Hard to let go of.

  There were so many possibilities. The word anything floated into my brain as if answering the chant. What could be? What could be? Anything.

  But how well had “anything” worked out for Mr. Stein, for Isabella, or even Isabella’s father? (I got the impression he wasn’t all that well liked in Silverton.) Perhaps “anything” brought along its own special flavor of heartache.

  And then, my mama’s voice rang through the cemetery yet again. “Bernie!”

  Her voice — her love, rather — had drawn me from the tools once before, and it reminded me again of all that I had: a mama who’d finally left her room for the sole purpose of finding me in a darkened graveyard, a grandmother who (mad as she’d be when she learned of all this) would undoubtedly continue to rise early in the morning and fix me breakfast, a father who had rushed to my side when I felt weak and afraid … and a friend. A friend who I had pushed away, again and again, and who still came back and knowingly risked his life for me. For the first time in a very long while, my heart didn’t feel all that wanting.

  The box cooled in my hands as I let it slide. “I’m coming, Mama,” I answered.

  Mama was standing beside the family headstone when I returned. “I just have one question, Bernie,” she said.

  Uh-oh, I thought. Here we go.

  “Where did the woman go?”

  Of all the questions she could’ve asked, this was the last one I would’ve expected. “What woman? Sheriff Romano?” I asked.

  “No. When I left the house, I couldn’t see you anywhere. But there was this woman. At first I was afraid. I thought she might be with that horrible Mr. Stein, but then she was beckoning me to follow, and I didn’t know what else to do. I followed her here to the cemetery. Then, once we were inside … It was like she vanished,” my mama said, and then added, “She was almost too beautiful to be real.”

  ISABELLA DID NOT VISIT THAT NIGHT. EVEN THOUGH I SLEPT with her portrait tucked under my pillow like a little girl waiting on the Tooth Fairy, the foot of my bed remained vacant. My dreams, hollow. I wanted to know if she was pleased, if she would’ve done the same with the tools, given the option. Perhaps her silence was the answer. Perhaps she was finally at peace.

  At Mrs. Evans’s burial the next day, Mama stood locked between Mimi and me. Dad stood as hard and unmoving as one of his monuments behind her. I held my breath as the casket was lowered into the ground. I didn’t hear a single word Father John said. I just imagined the tools glowing red with fury as the earth tumbled down on the box that jailed them there. Michael, who was standing on the other side of Mrs. Evans’s grave with both of his parents, caught my eye and gave me a small but encouraging smile.

  Mimi had put up a fuss right before we came. She said it wouldn’t do Mama an ounce of good to watch dirt being shoveled over yet another coffin lid. But Mama had insisted on coming. Just like I’d insisted that Mama join us in the kitchen for breakfast.

  Mama and I had both been in bed by the time he and Mimi had returned from the rosary service. So when Sheriff Romano called first thing in the morning to check on us and wound up filling Dad in on everything, my father let loose a mighty long string of nursery rhymes. As proof that they knew nothing of the previous night’s events, Mimi had been fixing up two trays when the phone rang.

  Just as Dad was saying “Old Mother Hubbard” into the receiver, I slipped quickly and quietly back up the stairs. I crept into Mama’s room and went directly to the woolen curtains. I ripped them open, assaulting the room with light. My mama darted up in bed, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. “Bernie? What’s going on?”

  Mr. Stein had been right about one thing: He and I both knew what it was like to have our hearts broken, to want something we couldn’t have. But what made me different, and the very reason I was able to let go of the iron hammer and chisel when he couldn’t, was that I knew there were people who loved me.

  I’m not saying things are perfect now. And how I ever thought learning to etch portraits was the answer to fixing it all is beyond me. I’m also not saying that the want has forever drained itself from my heart, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Want made me stronger. It made me go after what was really important — which is all you can do when things are broken.

  You can’t wait on someone else to put the pieces back together. Even if you’re afraid, or you don’t feel like the right person for the job, you still have to do what you can to remind the people in your life that they are loved and needed, too. Otherwise, God forbid, all those cracks might scab over in ugly and twisted ways — like the cracks in Mr. Stein’s heart had — instead of healing.

  I wasn’t about to let that happen to my mama. “C’mon,” I said. “Get up. You came when I needed you last night, and I need you even more now.” I laced her fingers in mine and pulled her to her feet. She wore the same white gown she’d worn to the cemetery, and her cheeks had kept some of their pinkness from the night before.

  Mama seemed to drift like a buoy in my wake as she floated down the stairs, and I scrambled in front of her. My face appeared in the kitchen first and was met with angry and condemning glares. The phone was back on the wall and Mimi and Dad looked all revved up to give me what for. Then they saw Mama trailing behind me, and the moment was sweetened and snapped in half like a sugar pea.

  Mama drew in close beside me. “Mmmm,” she said. “Smells like cinnamon. What’s for breakfast?”

  After all that had happened, I didn’t know what to do with Isabella’s portrait, but then I learned that she had an unmarked grave. With no known heirs, arrangements for a headstone had not been made. Luckily, Dad agreed to inset Isabella’s portrait into one of the blank monuments from our backyard, and two Sundays later, he drove Michael and me and the headstone to the Silverton Cemetery.

  As we placed the marker at the head of Isabella Freemont’s grave, Michael said, “The flower turned out nice.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled. Not only had Dad agreed to donate one of our blanks, he’d also used one of my sketches to sandblast a lily into the stone next to Isabella’s portrait. Dad smiled at Michael’s comment, too, and once the monument was leveled above the grave, he started to wander off in his quiet way.

  “Wait, Dad!” I said, and I wrapped my arms around his belly. “Thanks.” He patted my hair with his hand before returning to the truck to wait on us.

  Michael stood by my side staring at the portrait. “Don’t you think it’s a little creepy using Mr. Stein’s handiwork as part of the headstone?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I think the portrait belongs to Isabella now. She’s been right beside me these past few weeks and, well, even though I can’t really explain it, I think the portrait’s why.”

  Michael seemed to accept that. He nodded and then said, “My uncle was able to match Mr. Stein’s fingerprints to ones left on a can of fuel found near the fire. The case is pretty much in the bag.”

  The story Michael had fed his mother had been similar enough to the one I’d told Mama in the cemetery that nobody thought to question the darker, underlying evil and the mysterious deaths that had occurred. Even if we had gone and told everyone the whole truth, what Mr. Stein was really guilty of, it could never be proven in a court of law.

  “Good,” I said, although it didn’t seem like enough. Mr. Stein caused all those deaths, and he would just go to jail for arson. How many years until he got out? Five or six? Maybe a little longer since I couldn’t imagine any jury or judge taking a liking to him. I felt my body quake slightly, and Michael slung his arm over my shoulder.

  “You’re not thinking about trying to kiss me again, are you?” I asked.

  Michael grinned. “Maybe.”

  “Ugh. What is it with you and cemeteries?”

  “What is it with you and cemeteries?”

  “Fine. Let’s go. We ne
ed to get back to Stratwood anyway. We have somewhere to be, right?” It was easy to convince Michael to join the outreach committee. The one Sacred Heart was putting together — even without Mrs. Evans to head it. He was, of course, looking for something else to keep him busy. And me? I’m gonna do all I can to keep the lonely, broken hearts of Stratwood from turning bitter and disfigured. I know all too well what can happen if they do.

  I slipped my fingers between Michael’s much wider ones, and we began walking away from Isabella’s grave. (Hopefully the last one we’ll be visiting for a very long time.) As we did, I lifted up on my tiptoes just high enough to kiss Michael Romano squarely on the cheek. Then, walking hand in hand, we left the graveyard together.

  From story spark to book, so many people have helped me chisel out the words appearing on these pages or have lifted my spirits along the way.

  Michael Stearns, thank you for believing in this story long before there was any reason to. Your early enthusiasm carried me through.

  Anna Webman, thank you for aptly guiding me through numerous revisions, for listening to me ramble endlessly on the phone, and for somehow, through it all, helping me to un-muddle things.

  Ginger Knowlton, thank you for keeping me at Curtis Brown and for treating me keenly. I feel very secure with you at the helm.

  To all the dedicated souls at Scholastic — I am forever grateful. A special thanks to Rachel Griffiths, who opened the door, and to my delightfully eloquent and brilliant editor, Mallory Kass, who made it feel like home.

  Dad, thank you for (perhaps unintentionally) teaching me the art of storytelling.

  Mom — ever my first reader — thank you for gushing over everything I’ve ever written (even the stuff that was not so good).

  My in-laws, especially Jane Goebel, thank you for sharing in and supporting my reading addiction.

  Courtney Waters, what a tremendous show of friendship it was when you dropped all things consuming to give me valuable feedback in an insanely short amount of time. No amount of pumpkin bread could ever be sufficient in repaying you.