by Robert Price
Chapter Three
From a distance, the long limousine appeared to float over the dormant grass of the cemetery’s grounds. It proceeded down a winding dirt road past the oppressive trunk of an old White Oak and then took a right before continuing along the paved road. Parked cars narrowed the way, slowing the limousine’s pace to a crawl.
The day before, the local newspapers had printed, “In compliance with the military’s request, the family wishes to keep the affair private.” But then the same articles listed the place and time of both the funeral and burial. No one seemed to know how the information got in there. By that morning, word had circulated about town. So almost everyone who had ever met Tom or his family, and even those who hadn’t but were simply curious, showed up at the church and later the gravesite.
Amazed at the size and make up of the crowd, Tom Hubbard’s sister, Elizabeth, glowed like a prom queen. She looked out of the limousine’s tinted windows at a pageant of her and her brother’s contemporaries as they filtered down the cemetery hill to their cars. Overall, the morning had resembled a high school class reunion or a town fair, albeit a sad one. It seemed as though Newbury’s entire populous had turned out to mourn her brother’s death. Elizabeth felt she held up well under the weight of all the attention—superbly well. For her, the events of the morning passed in a splendid haze, similar to her wedding day.
Earlier that morning, at the end of the funeral, the newspaper reporters, freelance photographers, cable news crews with their vans and a crowd of devoted mourners assembled in the raw weather outside the church. The doors to the First Church of Newbury swung open. The assemblage parted as an honor guard wearing military dress uniforms carried out Tom’s flag-draped coffin. Then Elizabeth stepped out from the small white church in her black, stylishly slim raincoat. A breeze caught the light material and slapped the garment open, revealing the sleek black dress underneath. Elizabeth thought she looked perfect. Staying one step ahead of her mother, she held onto the old woman’s right arm. Her husband, Jon, conscientious and efficient, held Mrs. Hubbard’s other arm. A cold, gray drizzle fell. Jon extended an umbrella to protect his mother-in-law’s head. The short procession descended the church steps. News photographers jockeyed for the best position and took their shots as the soldier-pallbearers slid the coffin into the back of the hearse. Elizabeth, her mother and Jon had a clear path to the waiting limousine. The cameras then turned on them. Elizabeth ran her fingers through her straight black hair to show off the near-perfect make-up job on which she had spent hours. She heard the rapid, automatic click of camera shutters go off like machinegun fire. It was the most important she had ever felt in her life.
Now, after the burial, back in the limo, Elizabeth grew excited again. “There’s Neil Bingham, Mother. And, oh, Ted Dorsey. I wonder if Julian Reynolds came? I used to have the biggest crush on him.” Elizabeth cracked a smile and nudged her husband Jon.
“Tom would be so happy they came,” Mrs. Hubbard responded, sounding distant, distracted. “I begged Tony to call Melanie again. I so hope she comes to the house.”
“Mother, Melanie will do what Melanie will do. She always does.”
Though Mrs. Hubbard had successfully controlled the temptation to resort to tears throughout the morning, her eyes were glazed, red and tired. Her attention drifted across the cemetery landscape. “Do you think Tom will get one of those? Those little flags? Do veterans put them there?”
The limousine stopped and started and stopped and started. Cars pulling into the procession from the side of the road afforded the long black vehicle no position of prominence. After a pensive pause, Mrs. Hubbard reflected aloud, “I met the most wonderful little boy up there. He had blonde hair and blue eyes and for a second he reminded me of your brother when he was little. Tom was such a beautiful baby. The boy’s mother, though …” Mrs. Hubbard’s voice trailed off. Medication left her mind foggy and she had trouble finishing thoughts.
“My feet are freezing!” Elizabeth pounded her feet on the carpeted floor of the limousine. “What about the boy’s mother?” she asked out of obligation.
“She seemed hurried … but nice.” Mrs. Hubbard’s thoughts moved aimlessly. “The service was … And Father Hilliard was … Your father would have been so …”
“Freezing!” Elizabeth abruptly kicked off one black pump and reached down to rub her toes. “You’d think these limos would have floor heat.”
“For the life of me, Lizzy, I don’t know why you wore those things anyway,” Jon scolded.
The past few days had worn on Jon, dropping things the way they had to fly across the country to attend to Mrs. Hubbard and the funeral arrangements. First, he had to take care of his caseload at the firm. That was relatively simple; as a senior partner he had confidence in several of the junior partners. If they had questions, they knew to call him. He could be easily reached by cell. Next, while Elizabeth was making flight arrangements and canceling her various appointments and engagements around the Valley, he arranged for his mother to take care of their two children. Thankfully, she was more than happy to spend time with the grandchildren. She would have them for Shabbat and bring them to synagogue.
Then there was the difficulty at the airport. The name “Jon Goldberg” sent up a security flag. It appeared that some “Jon Goldberg” somewhere, at some point in time, had done something to threaten America’s security. So his name had landed on the nation’s No Fly list. Upon check-in, plain-clothes security officials appeared out of nowhere and whisked Jon away from Elizabeth’s side. For over an hour he answered questions about his relationship with his brother-in-law, Tom, whom he had met only once on his and Elizabeth’s wedding day. The dutiful security officers needed to check out his story. After all, he was flying to Boston, the birthplace of 9/11. The officers remained unfazed when Jon tried his lawyerly best to explain that the purpose of his trip to Massachusetts was to bury, not visit, his brother-in-law who was, in fact, a casualty of the war. Finally the officers, satisfied with their security check, let Jon go. And at the last moment, as the flight attendant was closing the aircraft’s door, Jon slipped through and joined Elizabeth in first class. Now, heading back to the farmhouse in the limousine, imagining that the bulk of this long day had already passed, he loosened his tie.
“Oh, please, Jon. Those boots are no warmer than these shoes.” Elizabeth continued rubbing her toes. “I still can’t get over all the people. Do you think we should call the caterer and let them know we’re on our way? Mother?”
Rain pattered on the tinted windows. “Lizzy, your father would have been so proud. He was proud of both of you, at times. Father Hilliard said it was your father’s pride that killed him. But, well, all this, all these people. Your father went to Korea. I never thought Tom would have to fight, too …”
“Mother,” Elizabeth leaned forward and placed a hand softly on the elderly woman’s knee. She looked intently at the side of her mother’s face and wondered if her own cheeks would sag like that when she got older. Her mother’s hair seemed grayer now than it had that morning. Perhaps it was the grayness of the day or the tinted windows. Elizabeth made the decision right then and there that she would dye her hair long before it turned so colorless. Mrs. Hubbard placed a hand lovingly on top of Elizabeth’s. Elizabeth squinted, examining the red lipstick that formed a crooked ridgeline along her mother’s mouth and followed wrinkles that crept like vines from the edge of the old woman’s lips to the rest of her face. Her mother had had a hard life.
Elizabeth sat back in her seat. “Jon, do you mind calling them? Just give ’um a buzz and let them know we are on our way.”
Jon took out his cell phone. “I think I may still have the number.”
Mrs. Hubbard spoke quietly, as if from far away, “You’ve been so good, Jon. I wish the children could have come as well.” Her gaze followed the fluctuating tree line that bordered the cemetery.
Jon nodded and smiled, acknowledging his mother-in-law’s compliment. Although
he tried to play the role of the dutiful son-in-law, he hardly ever spoke directly to her. Mrs. Hubbard’s emotional instability reminded him too much of his own father’s battle with depression. Jon’s father had lumbered for years between being half asleep and half angry, a depressed Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde personality. His poor father would obsess for hours over seemingly small, inconsequential things. Some days, a broken pencil tip was enough to send the man to tears and little Jon to his bedroom for punishment. Finally, psychotropic medications offered his father, and thus Jon and his mother, short spans of relief from the unpredictability of mental illness. But the man needed to take the medication for it to work. Mrs. Hubbard suffered from this problem as well. Since Jon and Elizabeth’s arrival in Newbury, Elizabeth’s constant questioning of, “Has she taken her medication?” left him feeling as unsafe as he had around his own father. In fact, Jon almost expected an episode, a breakdown, like the one that had happened at their wedding and had landed Mrs. Hubbard in the hospital. This was her only son’s funeral, after all. If Elizabeth thought calling the caterer would help to keep her mother from dissolving, Jon was only too happy to assist.
“Mother,” Elizabeth leaned forward, trying to draw her mother’s gaze away from the window. “I really think you should …” Exasperated with the lack of response, Elizabeth shook her mother’s knee, “Mother! Please listen.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear.” Mrs. Hubbard finally turned from the landscape to her daughter. “I just can’t help but think how he would have enjoyed this.”
“I really think you should try to take it easy today at the reception. If even only a few of these people show up at the house, it’s going to be very crowded.”
“I wished he hadn’t publicly announced it like that,” Jon said, cell phone pressed to an ear. “I mean, really, couldn’t the priest have at least been a bit more discreet about the whole thing? Ahh, hello, is this Arnaldo?” With a free hand, Jon swatted at an invisible communication problem. “This is Jon Goldberg. Yes, all went well. What? How many people? Well, do your best. We are on our way. Thank you.” He snapped the phone shut and let out a breath. “It seems some folks have beaten us to the house. Arnaldo says cars are already parking out front. But nobody has come in yet. He’s all set up—buffet, booze, everything.”
“Many cars?” Elizabeth asked.
“I don’t know. I have trouble understanding him—his accent. I just hope it’s not too many. Still, I wish the priest hadn’t announced it like that.”
“I asked him to.”
“Mother?”
“Yesterday morning, after you arranged things, he called and asked what I thought. I told him to invite everyone. I said, ‘Invite them all, to everything … the funeral, burial and the reception. Tom would love it.’”
“You mean Father Hilliard called you after we left and asked if he could tell the whole world?” Elizabeth realized then that the priest had disregarded her directives and gone behind her back to double-check with her mother. “Bastard.”
Elizabeth and Jon had specifically told the old priest to honor the military’s request that Tom’s funeral and graveside ceremony be kept private. They had also told the priest that the memorial reception at the farmhouse was intended to give extended family, older friends and anyone with a valid connection to Tom an opportunity to pay their respects to the immediate family in an intimate setting. Elizabeth had envisioned the reception as a personal and purposeful gathering; not a wake, but more like a baptism or confirmation.
“So let me get this straight? It was Father Hilliard who told the reporters, the newspapers and the TV stations about the funeral and the burial? Jesus, Mother, they asked us to keep those quiet—just family and friends. Now, after that announcement, the memorial reception, too—” Elizabeth shook her head with distain. “Now everybody is going to be there.”
Outwardly frustrated, Elizabeth gave up and pushed back into the plush seat of the limousine. Secretly, however, she looked forward to remaining the central figure of the day.
