Proper Goodbye

by Connie Chappell

  From Hanna’s Market, with groceries in the front seat, she headed north, out of town.

  Graveside Reunion

  Beebe crossed the bridge over Kettle Creek and automatically reduced her speed. In the distance, she saw the countryside open up off to her right. There was the cemetery and the two-story caretaker’s house at its northern edge. Larkspur Cemetery had the capacity to bury the town’s dead for 250 years. A good seventy-five years were still ahead. She wondered about the person who would take the last grave. Who would it be? The first person was a child, seven years old. Billy Rightmeyer died of typhoid. It always seemed such an unfavorable start to Beebe. Had the first caretaker, Joseph Jenkins, felt the same way? Had it saddened him to first bury a child?

  Beebe turned into the driveway. She shifted into park and sat there a minute with the engine running as if a quick getaway might become necessary. The red brick house itself looked the same with its wide mahogany front door and black iron accents. Cliff’s middle name was upkeep. Although he repainted on a fixed schedule, he hadn’t varied the color scheme of white window frames and spruce green shutters. She shut down the engine and got out. Her gaze climbed the maple tree in the side yard. Its expansive girth blocked the winter wind and shaded her bedroom windows.

  She bypassed the front door and followed a narrow walkway around to the side entrance into the kitchen. Her unhurried pace allowed her a moment to relive the past. There was no order to her memories. She was a minister, schoolgirl, college student, stepping off a yellow bus, nearly running over a lilac bush at the foot of the driveway the day she obtained her learner’s permit. She raced around the house, chasing butterflies, and shoveled snow from the kitchen steps. The corner chip off the bottom step was still there. Of course, it was. Some things upkeep couldn’t repair.

  She searched her father’s keys. They jingled when, by trial and error, she tried a few until one turned the lock. She stepped inside, through the mud porch, and up to the kitchen. The house greeted her with the wave of pink gingham curtains at the open window over the sink. Nothing of substance had changed. She could have left an hour ago, gone shopping, and returned. Why, though, didn’t it feel like home? She set the three bags of groceries on the countertop just inside the door. The feelings that stirred weren’t unfamiliar. She knew them since her teenage days. The empty house didn’t feel like home because her mother wasn’t there. She looked behind her, through the screen door. Her gaze ran the length of the cemetery.

  Beebe shivered with the oddest sensation. She didn’t know where her mother was. She hadn’t known at sixteen, not during the thirty years when Abigail Walker lived another life, and not now. Her mother was buried in the cemetery, but where? Beebe knew how to find out. She rushed to put the groceries needing refrigeration away, then grabbed her father’s keys. She trundled down the porch steps, hung a left, and speed-walked to the block building.

  She remembered seeing the drafted plans for the cemetery’s layout once. There, the block building was officially labeled the Monument Office. The name never stuck. It was differentiated from the other outbuildings by its composition. Its cement blocks were dressed up with a coat of beige paint and a surround of bushes with red berries. They appeared recently trimmed.

  Beebe unlocked the door, passed through, and left it to stand open. She was surprised to see a computer screen occupying the desk on the office side of the building. She could not imagine her father sitting in front of any type of new-fangled contraption. If the cemetery’s records had been entered digitally, she was sunk. She doubted she could defeat any password protection, let alone negotiate an unfamiliar software program. Hoping against hope, she went to a card-file unit on top of shoulder-high filing cabinets. The unit’s five drawers were sized for index cards. Scanning the clips of paper slipped into metal holders, she found the one where Terri Miller’s burial data should be filed. Using her fingernails, she picked through. The last Miller filed contained the first name, Terri. She verified the grave coordinates with the cemetery map on the wall, closed the card drawer, grabbed the keys off the desk, and retraced her steps to the door where a cone of afternoon light blazed through.

  She reached for the doorknob and suddenly, Yates Strand appeared. He came around the door with a panting Barleycorn beside him.

  “Lord, Yates, you scared me.” Beebe’s heart raced with his surprise appearance. She gripped the keys so tightly, their rough edges hurt her palm.

  “Sorry.” His soulful eyes pleaded his case. “I knocked at the house first, then I saw the door open. Figured it was you.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Same reason as you, I bet. I want to see the grave.”

  “You haven’t been yet?”

  “Just couldn’t make myself. Like standing next to it would make it more real.” He shook his head.” I don’t know why, or where that comes from.”

  “No, no, I get that. And yes, I just looked up the location. I didn’t know how I could just ignore the fact and begin breading chicken for supper. You know, it didn’t seem respectful.”

  “Can I go with you? You wouldn’t mind?”

  “I count myself fortunate for the company.”

  They headed off, down an asphalt lane that curved back toward the house, then south toward town.

  “How’d it go with your father?”

  “Fine, really. It was a little not like us, if you know what I mean.”

  “I suppose.”

  “We were out in public,” she explained.

  “How long has it been, if I’m not being too nosy?”

  “You mean since I came home for a visit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nearly fifteen years. Vincent met, married, and lost his wife, and I never knew her.”

  “And the trouble was Terri? Or Abigail.” He quickly corrected the name.

  “Either is fine, Yates.” She touched his arm. “I can’t say the problem didn’t start with Mother. Of course, it did. But I was a kid, and I needed a little more out of Daddy. He just kept swinging back and forth between being a regular father like nothing happened and being a man mad at the world. You know?”

  “I guess.”

  “He made me feel like it was my fault.”

  “How could that be?”

  “I look remarkably like her.”

  “You do. It stopped me in my tracks back at the center.”

  Then Yates should understand, Beebe thought. “In Daddy’s heart, the blame for his wrecked life belonged to a woman who had my face. That’s all he could see.”

  Yates said nothing. He just nodded, seemingly deep in thought.

  “The grave ought to be in this row.”

  Yates led them into the row Beebe pointed out. They traipsed single-file, Barleycorn between them.

  “Here it is,” Yates said.

  They stared, their eyes downcast. The marker was a rough stone etched with her mother’s alias and the only other information known about the woman: her date of death, March 11. Beebe became lost in the realization that she hadn’t cared enough to ask Vincent for the exact date when he brought the news of Abigail’s death to Maryland. Her cuttingly neglectful lack of concern clawed at her heart, now suddenly bereft. Beside her, Yates barely held himself together.

  Their grief was matched by Barleycorn’s. The big dog moaned a heart-wrenching sound, lay down on the grave, and pressed his snout across the grass. She didn’t think dogs cried, but Barleycorn seemed on the verge. Her mother’s spirit appeared to reach out and touch the dog’s. His devotion, so naturally guileless, spoke, Beebe thought, to Abigail’s good heart.

  Until that moment, Beebe never connected her mother and the dog, but clearly, sh
e nurtured a relationship. Yates’s comment confirmed it.

  “How could he possibly know?” Yates grasped Beebe’s hand.

  The three wept. Silently. Briefly.

  “We’d better go back,” Beebe said, sniffling. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” Yates wiped his eyes. He followed Beebe a few steps. “Barleycorn, come,” he said. Beebe looked back when Yates added, “Come on, boy.”

  The dog would not move. Yates went back. He tugged gently at his collar. That prompted Barleycorn to a sitting position. Yates squatted. His arms encircled the dog’s shoulders. Beebe watched the scene through fresh tears.

  “Maybe you should stay for dinner.” The instant she asked, she wished she could pull the invitation back. It was a mistake, given the conversation she and Vincent were determined to have with her father that evening.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  Although she felt relief, she pushed the issue. “Daddy will have to meet you sometime. You’re not opposed to that?”

  “No. Just not tonight. Tonight when he’s hearing the story for the first time, I think he’d somehow perceive me as Terri’s illegitimate child.”

  “But you’re not,” Beebe exclaimed, stunned he cast himself in such a role.

  “I know. But my story is so different from yours. It’s not going to be easy. Honestly, I don’t want to be here. It’s too much.”

  He gave her such a pained expression, Beebe thought Yates would rather be Barleycorn, happier to lay down on the grave with memories not spoiled by the two Walkers.

  Lies at Sunset

  Cliff Walker drove with the wrist of his right hand draped over the top of the steering wheel. His thoughts were mixed. His speed was reserved. Someone waited at home at the end of a workday. He shouldn’t think of his daughter as someone. Beebe waited. But these days, they hardly knew each other. Perhaps that was the reason he didn’t push the speed limit.

  In the five weeks since discussion of Beebe’s return began, he thought he accepted the idea. He admitted he was grateful, though, when she called with the news of a two-week delay for emergency counseling in West Virginia. Cliff didn’t hound or chastise himself for his sigh of relief over the reprieve. It was natural. This was his life. He owned it. The two weeks massaged and softened his resistance to change. Those were points in his favor.

  Only God knew how many points he should receive for managing his first meeting with his daughter, not only a day early and with his coworkers staring, but unprepared as he was for the shock. His mind ratcheted and his heart squeezed when he laid eyes on Beebe. Had father and daughter not been estranged over the past dozen or so years, he would not be dealing with the remnants of that sudden jolt of comprehension.

  There had never been a time in his life when his daughter looked older than his memories of his wife. Beebe was forty-six. Abigail ran away at thirty-six. Until Beebe stopped returning to Larkspur, Cliff couldn’t help but make the comparison year by year. Their features were identical. He knew nothing else.

  Three hours earlier, he forced himself to walk the main aisle while internally, brakes screeched. Train cars piled into one another. The tracks were gone. His future took no form. It contained no content. He still felt dazed as he turned into the driveway and parked behind Beebe’s car.

  He went in the front door and called a greeting to Beebe in the kitchen. She called back. He saw the dining room table laid for supper. The aroma of a home-cooked meal followed him upstairs. While he washed up, he heard Vincent’s voice in the living room. How odd. A conversation in the house that didn’t include him. Voices. Laughter.

  So much change, he thought. Too much. Too quickly. It seemed an intrusion. But then, he reasoned, it was one evening meal. Beebe’s first night home. A celebration of sorts. Soon they would settle into the sedate life of an old man whose matronly daughter lived with him. Beebe did not lead the wild life. As for Cliff, the solace of his cemetery, its never-wavering gift, would carry him and provide respite and familiarity when needed.

  Conversational banter ringed the dining room table while they ate baked chicken and mashed potatoes. Cliff, Beebe, and Vincent talked about Crossroads, Beebe’s new job, and Vincent’s new spur line: senior programming. Cliff listened and agreed the two of them together would address a need in Larkspur.

  Cliff looked from Beebe’s face to Vincent’s. They chatted easily. They picked up the thread of their friendship without a hitch. Cliff was not a betting man, but he’d lay odds these two would not relight their childhood flame. He just couldn’t see it.

  To combat the unease of finding less and less to say to support the discussion, and because dessert would cap the evening, he suggested ice cream.

  “Not right now, Daddy.” Beebe shared a look across the table to their guest. “Come into the living room. Vincent and I have something to tell you.”

  Just that quickly, the tenor of the evening changed. Dread filled the space when his heart jumped a

  beat. Cliff felt something akin to premeditation scurry around the threesome as they passed under the archway and into the other room.

  Beebe and Vincent perched on the edge of the couch. Cliff grasped the arms of the upholstered chair and sat.

  It was late summer. On evenings such as this, a bright sun swept through the window behind the couch, creating long shadows across the room. Cliff’s eyes dragged the length of those shadows back to their source. Vincent’s hands were folded between his knees. Beebe leaned forward, her forearms resting in her lap. Both their faces were solemn.

  She spoke first. “Daddy, you need to prepare yourself. This is going to be a shock.”

  He felt himself stiffen, ready to take the brunt. Not another shock, he thought.

  “Daddy, last March, Mother died.”

  His head swam instantly. How? Where?

  The “how” was a two-part question. How did she die? How did Beebe know?

  Where she died staggered him.

  “Mother died from complications related to AIDS. I found out about her death nearly a month later. Vincent came to me in Maryland.”

  “Vincent?” Cliff knew his mouth formed the name, but he did not hear the spoken word.

  “She died at Crossroads, Cliff.”

  “She was here?” Cliff scratched out the question.

  Vincent nodded.

  “Where is she buried?” He turned his head away slightly, trying to cushion the brunt of the answer coming his way.

  “Daddy, she gave Vincent a fictitious name. Terri Miller.”

  The name struck like a gunshot. It forced him back against the chair. “Oh, my god. She’s buried here. Abigail’s here. In that grave. Why Terri Miller? I don’t understand.”

  “At first, Vincent didn’t know who she was—”

  “Why would you do this to me? Abigail’s here.” Cliff routed his accusation toward the man he counted as a friend. Cliff’s forearms rested on the chair arms. He watched his left hand while he loosened the fist, then he loosened the right. His eyes squeezed tight. The tremor was back.

  “Cliff, I never met Abigail. The woman showed up one evening just as I was closing. She was weak, barely able to stand,” Vincent said, looking Cliff straight in the eye. “I could tell she was quite ill. She told me her name was Terri Miller. I couldn’t know otherwise. The next night, she started talking. That’s when she told me the truth.”

  “Why keep this from me?” Cliff watched a pained look cover Vincent’s face. Cliff imagined the sparse, gloomy room where his wife died.

  “She begged me. She had tears in her eyes. She said she wanted Terri Miller to take her from deathbed to grave to eternity,” Vincent said.
“Those were her words.”

  “She didn’t want to be my wife?” Cliff said, hurt carving through his heart.

  “It’s not that. She thought she lost the privilege. I tried to tell her differently. She just wanted to be nearby and not intrude.”

  Cliff thought about that. Nearby, without intruding. What were his earlier thoughts on intrusion? Beebe and Vincent in his house. Their laughter was a precursor to this revelation. All the while, Abigail lay buried within a two-minute’s walk from the kitchen door. What if years and years passed? What if Vincent successfully kept his promise? For months now, Cliff tended to his wife’s grave like all the rest. He didn’t know. A sickening, surreal feeling grew inside him, one that darkened around the edges the longer he bore down on it.

  “How could you just leave it at that?” Cliff asked.

  “After I promised, she slipped into a coma. I kind of thought I’d have time to turn her around. But that’s how it was left.” Vincent pushed his glasses up with his middle finger. “I got to know her some. I could picture her with you two. A family. I knew how that ended from high school. I knew that side of the story.” Vincent and Beebe dated their senior year. Abigail abandoned her family just before Beebe’s sixteenth birthday. “After hearing her story, it weighed on me for weeks.” Vincent’s confession faltered there.

  Cliff looked at his daughter. “And you knew? How could it go on this long?”

  “Vincent came to me in April. But, Daddy, I was coping with depression, trying to get my life back on stable ground. It was hard. I’d left the church by then.”

  “Just like Abigail left me.”

  “What does that mean? Don’t make it sound like I did the same thing Mother did.”

  “Didn’t you? You gave up your church family. Abigail gave up her family. Weren’t promises made, vows taken for both of you?”