Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

I let Seamus out, watched him do his business, and called him back. I did the same chair trick with the back door, and the door to the garage. The sliding glass doors on the side of the house had Charlie bars that we rarely used, but I engaged them, dropping the bars from their vertical position to horizontal.

Then I went upstairs and pulled off my dress and fell into bed without bothering to brush my teeth. The next thing I knew, the heat of the morning sun was warming my cheek. I cracked an eye open and groaned when I saw the alarm clock.

It was ten in the morning.

Saturday. Nicky’s funeral, his second funeral in three years.

My mouth was dry and tasted of garlic and tomato. I pushed myself up and staggered into the shower and let the hot water shake me from the grogginess that seemed to permeate my brain.

Out of the shower, naked and dripping wet, I stood in front of my closet and cursed. The day would be hot but the church would be cool. Wool was out, as were my printed summer dresses, my dark slacks, and my uniform. Jeans were inappropriate, as was my black cocktail dress, my navy long-sleeved pants suit, and every other damn thing.

I finally settled on a knee-length black skirt, a cream-colored silk blouse, and a printed yellow scarf. I looked like a banker but the clothes fit around my belly and breasts and I wouldn’t be too hot or too cool.

Mac Neal picked me up in his Goblin. The Goblin was a Ford F-150, with a lacquer cherry finish as sleek as freshly painted nails, and cattle horns on the front, and a Right to Life sticker on the back. He helped me up into the cab of the truck and we drove to Wellshire Presbyterian, humming along with Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney.

Mac dropped me in front, where Sam Birdshead and Finn Nowlin and Chief Chavez were gathered, all solemn in dark suits and sunglasses.

“Thanks, Mac, I owe you a million,” I said, and gave him my keys.

He nodded, his long salt-and-pepper beard shaking with the motion, his thick mustache obscuring his mouth. “I’ll leave the car at the police station, all right, kiddo? Keys under the back tire well?”

“Great. Leave me the bill-like I said, I owe you big time.”

He drove off, leaving a small puff of black smoke in his wake like a calling card.

“Nice ride, Gemma. Brody know you’re tooling around with that old fart?” Finn asked.

I ignored him and instead greeted Sam and Chief Chavez. We headed inside, one by one, into a church that was already full. Most of the crowd seemed to be Cedar Valley’s elite, the families who owned the ski resorts and the city council members. I recognized a few other politicians, like Senator Morrow, and Congresswoman Peters.

A couple of children played in the aisle, dodging out of their mother’s grasping hands, ignoring her whispered threats to get back to their seats.

“Don’t you think that’s weird, bringing kids to a funeral?” Finn said in my ear.

I shrugged. How the hell did I know what was weird these days? I’d spent the last few hours fantasizing about a basketball coach with a Louisiana accent who wanted to get me in bed, in spite of my belly and my not-so-single status.

“I think it’s smart. They’ve got to get used to all of life’s curveballs, the good and the bad,” Sam Birdshead said. He edged into one of the pews and Finn and I scooted in next to him.

“On the reservation, death is celebrated the same as weddings and births,” Sam continued. “I saw my first dead body when I was four years old. There isn’t anything to fear. The mother’s wise to bring them here.”

I realized I didn’t know much about Sam’s upbringing. “Did you grow up on the reservation?”

Sam said, “Nah, not after my parents divorced. Mom took me back to Denver with her, to live with her parents, my grandparents. But every summer, she let me go spend a few months with my dad in Wyoming. Those were the best times of my life, those summers. By then my grandfather was out of prison. He’s nothing like what you’ve heard.”

He started to say more but the big organ, high above us in an alcove, started up and the opening notes of Amazing Grace floated down upon us like snowflakes.

A man in black stood at the pulpit and looked out at us, and he must have seen what I can only imagine was a sea of faces, somber suits and dresses, and a few bold hats. In front of the man, on a low stand, lay a coffin. Its deep mahogany finish shone in the white light that streamed through the high windows of the church. A single bucket of white roses with baby’s breath graced the ground before it, an offering that spoke of innocence and purity and sweetness.

I hadn’t seen the Bellingtons; I could only assume they were seated somewhere up front, in the first pew. Across the aisle, I caught sight of Joe Fatone, and behind him, Tessa O’Leary. She gave me a little wave and I waved back. And a few rows behind her, I saw Lisey. She sat with the same blond girl I’d seen at Tessa’s trapeze show, and the two looked friendly.

In fact, from this angle, it appeared Lisey and Blondie were holding hands.

The man at the altar cleared his throat and began to speak. He was black, and I assumed he must be the Reverend Wyland that Ellen had spoken of. His voice was low and it filled the church like hot fudge poured over ice cream, melting into every nook and cranny of the place. He opened the service with Psalm 23 and I thought once again that if a more reassuring ten sentences existed, I’d never heard them.

He spoke for only a few minutes. What is there to say, really, about someone who was buried three years ago? There was no mention of Nicky’s secret life as Reed Tolliver, or of the circus. It was as though the last three years hadn’t existed, and I wondered if that was a conscious choice on the part of the Bellingtons, or a suggestion from Reverend Wyland.

Fifteen minutes after we’d sat down, John Lennon’s “Imagine” started up and we all stood, followed the coffin as it was carried out on the shoulders of six men, and filed out of the church and made our way to the gravesite.

The cemetery was a sprawling mass of rolling hills and low-hanging trees, offering plenty of shady places to sit and contemplate life in the land of the dead. I found a deserted bench and sat, resting as I watched the mourners make their way to the grave. The Bellingtons hadn’t procured a second site after all; they’d simply dug up Nicky’s original grave and removed the empty coffin, to make room for the full one.

I inhaled deeply. The smell of grass recently cut hung in the air, heavy as a blanket, and in the distance, in some unseen part of the cemetery, a lawn mower roared to life. Above me, the sky was clear save for one cloud, elongated like a stretched-out athletic sock, gray on the bottom, white on the top. On the ground, by my shoe, a small snail slid across the dirt, leaving a trail of slime in its wake. Its shell was the size of a quarter and I watched as its tiny antennae quivered in the air. The snail was a specimen millions of years in the making, its sole protection a thin casing no thicker than my fingernail.

A miracle, in and of itself, and I watched it make its way slowly toward the shade of the bench, each millimeter a triumph of perseverance.

“Want some company?” a voice chirped behind me. I turned around and nodded at the young woman.

“Sure.”

Tessa sat next to me, rearranging her long crimson skirt so it hung straight. She wore a short-sleeved cardigan open over a black top, and a thick gold chain that hung down and came to rest just past her breasts.

Out of the corner of my eye, I studied her. I saw no traces of the angry woman who’d been at the police station, or of the hyper-friendly woman who’d visited me at home, or even of the active acrobat I’d watched yesterday.