Patti grabbed Charles’s arm so hard, he pried it off with a grimace of rebuke.
Meanwhile, Howe finally registered what a disaster the service had become. Lips curled inward, his rigid posture wavered as his eyes widened and nostrils flared.
Lord. If he started laughing, she’d be done for.
Elizabeth’s mouth pruned up, and she gripped her fists so tight her nails bit into her palms, hoping the pain would offset the deadly urge to laugh.
For the moment, it worked. Just thirty more minutes. If she could get through that, it would all be behind them.
When Father Jim and the acolytes came to the front of the aisle and offered the Lord’s Supper, Elizabeth took a healthy swig of the strong communion wine, hoping it would calm her down, but all it did was soak straight into her empty stomach lining, leaving her with a brief buzz.
She offered up a sincere prayer for composure, and managed to settle down for the remainder of the ritual.
Then it was time for the eulogy, and Father Jim looked down from the pulpit to say, “First, I’d like to thank you all for showing your love and support for Miss Augusta’s family by coming here today to commemorate her life. What a glorious comfort it is to know that despite all our human failings, we Christians have the assurance of God’s mercy through Christ. Miss Augusta was a devoted member of this church, and we have all benefited from her service and generosity. In her final will and testament, she donated the remainder of the funds needed to provide a new pipe organ for our sanctuary. And in a separate provision she made just before her death, she endowed the salary for an organist and minister of music.”
The need for which was glaringly evident in the day’s proceedings.
“So we owe her a great debt of gratitude,” Father Jim continued, “and were blessed by her presence, despite the human frailties we all share. Thanks be to God.” He nodded to Howe. “And now, her son Howe has asked to share a few words about his mother.”
Howe slipped into the aisle before Elizabeth could reach over to give him a reassuring touch. He passed between the coffins, then met Father Jim on his way to the pulpit and shook his hand. “Thank you, Father.”
Then he mounted the shallow stone stairs to the pulpit and looked across the congregation. “Thank you all for coming,” he began. “I know I had to bend a few elbows to get you all here, but there’s something important I need to say, and I wanted you all to hear it.” Howe glanced at the coffins. “I know you’re all wondering why there are three coffins here.”
And who was in them!
He faced the congregation with calm and assurance. “The one in the middle holds my mother’s mortal remains.” He paused, looking down on it with regret.
Then he shifted his focus to the one beside it. “The one on the left holds the woman she might have been if life had been different, and she had made different choices. My mother tried so hard to be the perfect wife, a paragon of virtue. But she only ended up making a prison of her own skin, the smallest prison in the world.” His mouth crumpled briefly. “This coffin holds all the joy she never knew. All the love she hid away inside her. All the laughter we never heard. All the kindness she never got to give.”
Patti gripped Charles’s hand and groped for Elizabeth’s till she found it.
You could hear a pin drop as Howe went on. “But, like many women of her generation, my mother felt she had to keep up appearances, no matter what happened. She bore the indignities of her life by hiding behind a wall that isolated her from those of us who loved her, as well as those she feared. A wall that isolated her from her better self and all the simple pleasures of this life, except for her beloved grandchildren.”
He faced Elizabeth. “She did it to protect herself and her marriage, and it was contagious. After my father died and I came back to Whittington, I found myself doing the same thing. What I felt, I suppressed. What I feared, I controlled. What I wanted, I took. For that, I owe a lot of you a humble apology.”
A murmur rippled through the congregation in response.
A wry smile eased Howe’s expression. “It took a stroke and a brain tumor to wake me up, and I thank God for both, because they brought me to God, and to the truth. While I was crying and hugging and cussing and being jerked around by my emotions and my appetites like a two-year-old, I saw how wrong I’d been.”
Elizabeth was so proud of him, she felt her chest would explode.
“God gave me another chance,” Howe said, “and I mean to make the best of it.”
He pointed to the last coffin. “That third coffin is for the man I was. The selfish, greedy, soulless, heartless man I let myself become every time I cut corners in business, or turned my back on those in need around me, or betrayed the family who loved me.” He struggled to maintain control. “Thank God, that man is gone. I’m burying him beside my mother, and I pray he stays buried forever.”
Gripping the edge of the pulpit, Howe scanned the congregation. “It’s never too late to make things right. If I can do it, anybody can. Don’t waste the chances you still have.”
Elizabeth heard sniffs behind her.
Howe looked to his mother’s coffin, head bowed. “Don’t let there be an empty coffin beside yours for the person you might have been.” In the resounding silence that followed, he left the pulpit.
Patti clung to Elizabeth and her brother, then all three of them reached out to Howe as he took his place in the pew while Father Jim concluded the service.
Nobody noticed the pitiful choir or its accompaniment at the recessional. They were too moved by Howe’s message, and the minute Father Jim pronounced the benediction from the back of the church, the whole congregation erupted in a surge of support.
Elizabeth’s friends enveloped her with hugs and praise for Howe’s turnaround, and most of the men present came up and shook Howe’s hand in wordless approval till the funeral director shepherded the family to the front of the aisle, where Howe and Charles joined the pallbearers in taking not just Augusta’s, but the other two coffins to the three waiting hearses outside.
Elizabeth caught up with Howe after the last casket was shut into the hearse. “You’re not really going to bury those, are you?”
“Only Mama’s.” He put his arm around her shoulder and leaned in close so no one would overhear what he said next. “Just between you and me, I’m donating the other two to needy veterans, along with a dozen more.”
Elizabeth smiled, slipping her arm around his waist. “I like that. It’s a nice memorial for Augusta.”
He drew her toward the waiting limousine. “Come on. Let’s go bury the past.”
“Sounds like a plan.” And they did.
Once their sins were laid to rest with Augusta, the life they shared was fun and maddening and glorious and true and frustrating and unpredictable. And that suited Elizabeth just fine. So fine, in fact, that she sometimes invited Howe up to Blue Ridge. But only sometimes.
Waking Up in Dixie Page 31
