Anne Korkeakivi - Shining Sea

A few feet away, Jeanne and Molly stand on the lawn. Molly is holding the flowers Jeanne bought at the airport with one hand, her mother’s arm with the other. Jeanne’s doing a bad job of not crying. It’s her sister-in-law’s first time back to the cemetery since Michael was buried.

The rest of them — they come every Sunday after church. Sometimes she stops by during the week also, just to make sure everything is being taken care of properly. Sissy knows this place as well as the school’s playground.

“I can’t believe Ronnie let Mike drive his big fancy car,” Patty Ann says, maneuvering through the lot, looking for a free space. “He hasn’t had a real license for even a year yet.”

“It’s not half what Mike could be driving someday.”

“Damn, Mom! How can you let him?”

“Do what? Serve his country? He’ll still start at Claremont McKenna in the autumn. The ROTC will even put him through medical school.”

“He’ll get sent over.”

“He’ll get sent over anyhow.”

“Not if he’s in school and not ROTC. He could get a deferment.”

“How do you know they aren’t going to change that rule tomorrow? They’ve changed the rules on graduates. And on married men, for that matter.”

Patty Ann angles her clunker into the last open space. “I don’t know. The SOBs. But if he goes ROTC, Mike will be trapped for certain.”

“Not trapped, Patricia Ann. Committed . Now, don’t you dare say one more word to me about it.”

She pulls up on the door handle. Not on this day, of all days, and not from Patty Ann, of all people. What was the point of Michael’s death if service isn’t worthy? She checked his chart after they met: malaria, beriberi, starvation. There were so many things listed she can’t even remember them all. And the pills they had him take! Maybe it took fifteen years to happen, but Michael died for his country. The war ruined his heart. That’s the long and short of it. His service has to mean something.

“Where is Francis?” she says to Mike, handing him the bouquet of daisies. The roses are alone now in the backseat of Patty Ann’s car.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I couldn’t find him.”

She sighs. “Why is there always one or another of you missing?”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re right.” Mike is reliable. So, in their own ways, are Luke and Sissy, stubborn but predictable. Even Patty Ann — except for that one time. It’s Francis. Always Francis. “I’m sorry.”

Sissy looks up from moving pebbles strategically around in the dirt, some game whose rules no one else knows. “Francis is scared to come to Daddy’s grave.”

It kills her how Sissy calls Michael “Daddy” despite never having met him. She’d like to pick her five-year-old daughter up and give her a squeeze, but she’s still got Kenny on her hip.

“What’s there to be scared of? There’s no such thing as ghosts. And even if there were, your father would be the nicest ghost who ever existed.”

Sissy hops another pebble. “Not of ghosts. He’s scared of Daddy being dead.”

Desiree — the name was Michael’s idea: In case the baby turns out to be a girl.

“Look at you, Desiree,” she says, handing Kenny to Patty Ann and lifting Sissy onto her feet. She starts to brush the dust off Sissy’s smocked pinafore, but at the sound of her hated real first name, Sissy balls her hands into fists and steps away.

“You haven’t told him, have you?” she says over Sissy’s head to Patty Ann.

Patty Ann sighs and shakes her head. “No.”

“Told who what?” Sissy asks.

She taps Sissy’s upturned nose. “Aren’t you the one with the buzzing ears?” She gives Patty Ann a warning look. Sissy is the kind who hears everything and, even if beyond her comprehension, remembers it.

The white stone of the cemetery shoots sun at her. She slides her sunglasses down over her eyes. “Luke! Do you think I don’t see you?”

Luke drags his lanky bell-bottomed legs out of the car.

She turns toward the cemetery path. She’s a marshal now. A small female marshal, leading the troops. Such a short time ago she was a twinkly-eyed virgin in a crisp yellow dress, starstruck at the sight of the haggard but gallant veteran just back from the Pacific islands.

How do people get from point A to point B in their lives? When did this happen?

“We’re our own Memorial Day parade,” she says to Mike, taking his arm. She doesn’t need to; she knows how to make this walk on her own. But Mike likes her to lean on him. When Mike is done with his army service, he’ll be a doctor, just like his father before him and his father’s father before that. And he’ll have done it without paying a penny. The army will take good care of Mike. Patty Ann will see. She was overjoyed when Mike told her he wanted to enlist in the ROTC. Overjoyed.

“Are we gonna see the real parade after?” Sissy says.

“You hear me talking about parades with your brother? How’d you hear me say that?” She takes Sissy’s hand in her other hand. The ears on that girl. “Not this year we won’t go, remember? This afternoon we’re going to have a special party. For Mommy and Ronnie. And then afterward, we’ll all be a big family together.”

Jeanne and Molly walk slowly back toward them. A little boy, three or four, dressed in a mini sailor suit, races in front of them, chased by a tense-looking mother. The woman glances toward her and breaks into a small surprised smile. Canary yellow isn’t the norm to wear to the cemetery on Memorial Day, but she’s allowed her one little private exchange still with Michael. She can have that much. She smiles back at the woman.

“A lot of people here today,” Jeanne says, stopping in front of them.

Even before she agreed to marry Ronnie, Jeanne wanted to come out to Los Angeles this Memorial Day weekend in honor of the fifth anniversary of Michael’s death. So, of course, she had to work out how to package the two events together. It’s a long way from Poughkeepsie.

“More than last year,” Mike says somberly, nodding.

“Vietnam,” Luke mutters.

“That’s right,” Patty Ann says, shifting Kenny to her other hip, the better to glare at her. “And I’d rather be married to a draft evader than to a body in a box.”

“Shut up, Patty Ann,” Mike says.

All around them families are laying flowers, planting American flags. Some of the mounds look fresh, too fresh; mothers about her age stand beside them, tears rolling freely down their faces.

And so it continues.

Every day alive is a precious day. And she has to live this life for both of them, herself and Michael.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go find your father.”

* * *

No one says much on the way back from the cemetery. She rides with Mike and Jeanne and Sissy in Ronnie’s car, Kenny in her lap again. Luke and Molly go in the Dodge with Patty Ann, promising to pick up the wedding cake after they’ve picked up Lee. The wedding dinner will be at Trader Vic’s in Beverly Hills. We’re a small group, Ronnie said when she protested about the cost. Only your kids and your son-in-law, and your sister-in-law and her kid, and Patrick and Johnny, and Father O’Malley. And us, of course.

Patrick and Johnny are friends of Ronnie. He didn’t invite any of his family. Not close is all he’s said about them. She didn’t pry; Ronnie’s a grown man and entitled to his privacy. Her own mother is too poorly to leave the house, much less travel this far outside San Francisco for the first time since Michael’s funeral and the second time ever, and her father won’t come down without her mother. Fifteen people total. Well, Ronnie is paying the bill. It’s his decision to make.