Vincent remembered how from the minute the two women met, Carolyn and Rosemary hummed with rapport. Rosemary knew how much Vincent suffered after Carolyn’s death. And yet this wasn’t the first time Rosemary talked as if the most natural thing in the world was for Vincent to date and with vigor and regularity. How could she, of all people, not know he wouldn’t ever be ready?
“No,” he said, sloughing off her mental slip, “I was just chatting with Rev. Razzell. Then I asked Cliff, but he had a delivery coming in. He’s usually game for lunch.”
“No. That figures. I can tell you. He’s not happy with me. We had a disagreement after we left Omar’s.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Things seemed okay at lunch. I hope you patch it up,” Vincent said seriously. He never knew Cliff and Rosemary to utter a cross word to the other. Naturally, he wondered about the subject of their disagreement. Rosemary clarified that.
“Pig-headedness. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be blessed with insight when others are blessed with pig-headedness.”
Vincent moved Rosemary toward the positive portion of her declaration. “Say, I’d like to test out your insight.” He described the near miss on Town Street and Rev. Mosie Razzell’s confusion. “What’s your take?”
“Clearly, Vincent,” she said, “you’ve been Razzelled.”
“What?” Then he laughed at her manufactured term. It felt good. “You’re more than insightful, you’re clever.”
“You’ve got to admit, Mosie has always been a character. The crazy ties. The Sunday night he wore clown shoes to preaching and the boutonniere that squirted water.”
Vincent enjoyed Rosemary’s glittering eyes. His recent memory of the buttoned-down man was replaced with the minister preaching on the Sunday evening Rosemary spoke of. It was six years ago. Razzell was near the tail-end of his career. His sermon was titled, Case in point: Taking ourselves more seriously than God.
“For me, this isn’t something that came with his old age—which I suspect you’d agree is the general category of his problem,” Rosemary said, “but a wandering delirium, too.”
“That’s apt, based on today’s antics. Sometimes he’s in there, sometimes he’s not. Trick is, how to get him in front of a doctor?”
Vincent’s mind snapped out another idea for Crossroads’ members. In addition to the accountant Vincent lined up to assist seniors at tax time, and the local caterer who invited groups to her kitchen for Cooking For One lessons, he thought he’d organize a Health Fair day for seniors. Vincent could certainly issue Rev. Razzell a personalized invitation to attend, but that might trigger Razzell’s suspicious nature. Vincent definitely wanted to waylay that. Instead, he’d give the good reverend some part to play, like on bingo night, when he called the numbers.
“A doctor. That’s the trick, all right. Um, Vincent,” Rosemary stammered. Vincent raised his eyebrows. “I’m just wondering how you’re doing. Is everything okay?”
“Me? Why?
“Well, Sunday, it took a little prodding to get you to join Cliff and me at Omar’s. You worried about something?”
“Nah. That was just me trying to manage my time. You know, what with needing to get to the auction house.” It took every ounce of fortitude he could muster to keep his gaze trained on this caring and intuitive soul, given the fact he told her a boldfaced lie. In the future, he must try harder to mask his feelings regarding his position at the center point of the Walker family triangle.
A few seconds later, she was back with his Swiss steak luncheon special. He ate with a little less fervor than he expected he would when he sat down.
Rosemary walked him out the door after he paid the bill. Like Cliff, she cast a gloomy look down to the hardware store. He hated that something came between the two friends, since he knew exactly how that weighed on one’s spirit. Carolyn always said Rosemary and Cliff felt like family. On the Father’s Day before she died, Carolyn gave a card to Cliff, saying just that. Cliff grieved her loss as solemnly as Vincent.
Rosemary showed her love for Carolyn early into the chemo treatments. She placed some phone calls and learned how her cut hair could be fashioned into a wig for Carolyn. Carolyn admired Rosemary’s beautiful hair so. What could be a greater gift?
Vincent was there when Carolyn heard Rosemary’s plans. She cried and pulled Rosemary into a tight embrace on the living room sofa, but she wouldn’t permit the sacrifice. She flat-out said no.
A few months later, when the dismal test results came back, she raised a hand to her chest. She spoke more to herself than to Vincent. “I’m so glad I didn’t let Rosemary cut her hair.” Carolyn and Vincent held each other in the dining room of their home. Their days were running out. Their moments together were precious ones.
The next week, Vincent let Rosemary into the house and led her down the hall to Carolyn’s bedside. His wife reached out. Her vision was as smoky as the restaurant owner’s eyes by then. Her hand found Rosemary’s thick hemp of hair, braided to one side, so it draped easily over her left breast.
“It soothes my heart to know that Vincent can lean on your strength,” Carolyn said.
Twenty-four hours later, she lapsed into unconsciousness. Four days after that, she was gone.
All those memories flashed through Vincent’s mind the instant he bid Rosemary goodbye, his palm lay on her back, his fingertips touching the braid.
* * *
Beebe Walker sank low into one of the easy chairs in the meeting room that occupied the largest portion of the carriage house behind Swanson Funeral Home. The converted carriage house accommodated the grief counseling classes Swanson provided.
In reality, she suffered grief right along with the fourteen people who attended the Tuesday afternoon session she led. She knew this, but she sought out no one to tell her troubles to. Like the foolish lawyer who was also the client or the doctor diagnosing his own symptoms, she was a counselor confiding only in herself. She didn’t grieve the loss of faith, but rather the full days she remembered her faith filling.
Beebe would never be immune to another’s sorrow. But a grief counselor for years? She couldn’t picture that. While she held the job, and the hearts of those in need of healing rested in her hands, she would work tirelessly. She gave attention to all phases, every detail, right down to the fifteen easy chairs positioned in a circle for her classes.
These chairs were an enhancement over the folding chairs provided by the funeral home. Soon after Beebe took the reins, she put out a call for the gently-used upholstered chairs family and friends of group members might be replacing. She thought it would take time to assemble a comfortable array, but word spread. Chairs arrived from all points. In a few short weeks, an eclectic selection pushed the cold metal chairs into a storage closet in the corner.
With every chair for her afternoon session filled, Beebe looked to the man on her left. She asked him to get the conversation started. The exchange that played out was as easy and sweet as the summer day outside.
“I never thought I’d be sitting here talking about the rest of my life without Pat,” a widower said.
“People are just snatched to heaven,” a woman observed.
“I want to back up and live those years again,” a wife said of her married life.
“What would you change?” another asked.
“Would anything need to be changed?”
“If everyone thinks about it, there’s always something they would change.”
“No love, no relationship is perfect.”
“Everyone has regrets.”
“Two roads, or three?” The question was sent across the circle.
“If we could back up a little earlier.”
> “That’s a nice thought.”
“Yes, if we could just go back and rewrite our mistakes.”
“Maybe just tiny changes.”
“Maybe just a few.”
“Before people are snatched to heaven.”
Beebe said not a word. For someone who sought no one to tell her troubles to, this perceptive group found and counseled her with a better-than-average gift on this sweet summer day.
The phrase that got her humming was, “go back and rewrite our mistakes.”
Hadn’t she fearlessly admitted her mistake? Beebe Walker, a minister preaching in the Lutheran church, veered disastrously off-target. She ended up at odds with the church and with God. The parting was not amicable. She felt remorse and grief. Today, this afternoon class tamed much of that. They touched her heart and with such poignancy. With her next breath, she knew she would rewrite her mistake.
That mistake was set in motion in her hometown, after her mother left, before high school graduation, when railways were laid to the future because it arrived fast, on hot steel, and was obscured by swirling smoke.
Fortuitously, she was handed an opportunity, and before it was gone—snatched, if you will—she would right the wrong.
* * *
“I sort of pictured you calling before now.” Vincent Bostick’s voice came through the cell phone pressed to Beebe’s ear.
She placed the call two seconds after the door closed on the last group member to exit the carriage house. She headed toward her office, guilt going with her. “I answered all your earlier calls in my head. I said a few things. I heard your replies.”
“I’m that easy to read?”
“I think so. Sometimes,” she said, taking a seat behind her desk.
“So why the extra effort now? There must be a reason. Something that benefits you.”
“Ouch! That hurts.” She paused, waiting for Vincent to come back with a softening touch. He didn’t. Maybe she didn’t know this older version of Vincent Bostick as well as she imagined. “I guess that hurts because it’s true. Today, I sat through a particularly insightful counseling session. I offered nothing of value, but I received a jewel. One that got me thinking.”
She looked up to the bulletin board on the wall by the door. This was one of Beebe’s enhancements to Swanson’s grief counseling program. The board was slowly filling with pictures. She encouraged her counselees to bring two photographs. A collage formed with the faces of loved ones that could no longer be touched, and the faces of those who missed that touch dearly.
“My mistake was in choosing the church. Back when we were just starting to date, I had a conversation with Rev. Razzell.”
“Geez,” she heard Vincent say.
“What?”
“I just saw him.”
“He must be getting up there in years.”
“He retired, what, six years ago. Now he calls the numbers on bingo night at Crossroads.”
That was nice, Beebe thought, but she needed Vincent back on track. “I’ve made a decision,” she said firmly. “I’ve got to go back to where my mistake occurred and begin again. That’s home, Vincent. I’m coming home.”
A beat passed. “It sounds like you mean for good.”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Then sometime soon, we’re going to have a conversation with your father about your mother.”
Beebe’s relief, in hearing Vincent still factored himself into that equation, produced an intake of air to such a degree that it raised her shoulders in the process.
From the moment Vincent said hello, her focus remained fixed on the bulletin board. Now, it blurred as she stepped back in time.
“They say a human being’s sense of smell can rekindle a host of memories and emotions,” she told Vincent. “When I came home from speaking with Rev. Razzell about studying theology, Daddy was just getting off the cemetery’s lawn tractor. I can still remember the smell of cut grass, the heat of sun on my back when I told him I wanted to become a minister.”
Beebe didn’t share her next thought. It was funny that during that conversation, she and her father never mentioned her mother, but she was there. She was a barbed wire through every phase of their relationship. Now, Beebe wanted to see that change.
“And to answer your earlier question,” Beebe said, “we’ll talk with Daddy as soon as I get home. Early August.”
As soon as Beebe hung up from Vincent, with her courage stoked, she placed another call. It was answered on the fourth ring.
“Daddy?”
“Beebe?”
She wondered about his tone. Had it sounded somewhat gruff? The pattern of analyzing every nuance formed when her mother left her and her father behind. For today, she kicked old habits aside and pushed on. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“It’s been awhile.”
“I know. My fault. Way too long. Mostly, that’s why I’m calling.”
Silence hung on the line.
“Daddy, can we talk for a minute? Have you got time?”
“Sure.”
Beebe fought against the current that always ran between her and her father, and forced a sliver of cheer into her voice. “Good. I’ve had some changes in my life. I’ve talked with some people. Well, listened more than talked.” She thought of the snatched-to-heaven circle of thoughts. “And, Daddy, I want to come home. Would you mind terribly if I stayed at the house?”
Her father’s response to her inviting herself back into his house and his life was a momentary pause that Cliff concluded by clearing his throat. “Well, there’s no problem there. It’s not like I’ve rented your room or anything.” He picked up his less-than-exuberant tone by adding a half-hearted chuckle. To be polite, Beebe added one of her own.
Then, when she thought she would blow by with the news that she left the church, his reaction was instantaneous.
“Left the church? Beebe, why? When?”
She was not prepared for the lengthy conversation this discussion would require, not now, not over phone lines, so she truncated the story. “I turned in my shield back in March.” She infused a manufactured lilt across the words, while silently thanking Trydestone’s deacon, Norm Rogers, for the use of his terminology. “I promise to tell you the rest of the story face to face, okay?”
He did not respond in kind. Into the silence, she forced new topics. She concentrated on the dissatisfaction she foresaw in the long run with the counseling job, and she tried to make light of the fact that her offer to live at home came with no means of income attached. Cliff Walker listened. Said little. His lackluster participation, she felt sure, was tied to her decision to bypass the story of her resignation from the church for another couple of weeks.
Hanging up, Beebe breathed an enormous sigh. The framed bulletin board on the wall before her morphed into gloomy shades of gray.
Elephant in the Room
Cliff Walker flipped the right-turn blinker up. He guided the white truck to a stop in the driveway alongside the caretaker’s house that had been his home for more than forty years. He stepped out of the pickup, wearing the blue uniform that marked him an employee at McKinley Hardware back in Larkspur. His day job.
There were times when the day job and the cemetery caretaker’s job overlapped. About three that afternoon, Pastor Ned McMitchell stopped by the hardware store. Wayne Downing, a man Cliff could vaguely picture, but didn’t know, passed earlier that morning. The pastor and the part-time caretaker discussed the family’s plans for burial.
Cliff was pleased to see Hal Garrett’s truck parked beside the block building that sat a good fifty yards beyon
d the rear of the house. For fifteen years now, Hal acted as the cemetery’s gravedigger and marker specialist, so there was a need to communicate the specifics of the upcoming interment. Hal came and went as needed. He was trusted and kept keys to the block building that served as workshop and office, with its curtained windows all around. As Cliff passed the low shrubbery that ringed the building, he made a mental note to trim back the offshoots.
Hal looked up when Cliff stepped inside. A desk and filing cabinets occupied one side of the space; a workbench and tools, the other.
The two men greeted each other. Hal wore a short-sleeved denim shirt tucked into Levi’s. These were work clothes for the married man and father. The bulk of his week was spent as owner and operator of a heavy equipment company. That more than qualified him for the cemetery duties he undertook back when the heavy equipment company was just toddling about and money was scarce.
“Looks like you got the word.” A plot card lay on the desk. Cliff closed the door. The room was small enough and Cliff’s eyesight good enough that he saw Downing printed in large letters on the card.
“Yeah, I knew Wayne. Got a call from his brother, Pete.”
They confirmed that Hal received the same date and time for services from Pete that Cliff got from Pastor McMitchell. “I can get the day off from the store, unless you want to standby.” Most burials were weekdays. Cliff and Hal always coordinated schedules.
“I think I do. I’d like to be here for Pete. The Downings are good people.”
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