14
Momma’s hometown was a farm village in the midst of the broad coastal plain. “Nothin’ but soybeans and small talk,” Grandpa would say rocking on his front porch looking out over the endless fields—brown in the winter and early spring, green from late spring through fall. The white clapboard Methodist church anchored one quadrant of the crossroads that marked the center of the village, with a fellowship hall connected to the worship space by a covered breezeway and the fenced cemetery beyond that.
Brooke’s immediate family—Momma and Father, Leah and their older brother Matt taking a break from grad school—were there and waiting when the hearse drove up promptly at one in the afternoon. Her grandparents, aunts and uncles from both sides of the family, and most of the village’s residents were also there, many of the women busy in the fellowship hall’s kitchen preparing for the reception to follow the two o’clock funeral, the men out smoking in small groups in the dirt parking lot or wandering individually around the cemetery in the bright sun. Though Greta had forsaken her hometown decades ago, no one here had forgotten her; and they’d turned out today in force—to welcome her back, set her in her final resting place, and support her parents and each other through this eons-old but always new trial.
Father and Matt and six other designated uncles and cousins carried the coffin from the hearse into the dim parlor off the sanctuary. There, and with only the family present, Grant Errington, owner of the local funeral home, opened the casket for the private viewing. Brooke noticed a slight wince of censure pass over Mr. Errington’s face as he raised the lid and looked in at the contents. Brooke, carefully wedged between Momma and Leah, glanced into the coffin once the lid was all the way raised and Mr. Errington stepped to one side.
Greta’s body was well-situated in the white velvet lining of the coffin, her hands neatly folded at her waist, the beige dress all ironed and buttoned up. Her eyes and mouth were closed, and her short gray-flecked brown hair carefully combed and held in place with a thick glaze of hair spray. But her face retained the grayish cast from those awful last hours, and her cheeks were sunken in. For that matter, her whole body was sunken in, seemed as if there was little more than air beneath the dress’s linen folds. Brooke could hear again the rattle that had emanated from that body. She shuddered involuntarily. Momma gasped then burst into a sob. Leah to Brooke’s right and Father to Momma’s left remained strong and held the other two against collapse. Brooke recovered enough to look beyond the head of the coffin. There sat Grandma in her wheelchair with Grandpa immediately behind, holding onto the chair’s handles. Their faces were unflinching and inscrutable.
Mr. Errington closed and sealed the coffin before nodding to Smithfield to open the parlor doors to allow guests in to greet the family and offer condolences. Brooke stood in the receiving line and shook each person’s hand and quietly thank them for coming. Most just said they were sorry for the loss. A few asked after Jodie and congratulated her on the birth. None mentioned Onion or Shawnituck.
A short while later the family filed into the dim lofty sanctuary behind the coffin on its rolling bier. Somehow Brooke got stuck at the far end of the family’s front pew, with Leah next to her, then Matt, Momma, Father, and Grandma and Grandpa. She briefly wondered if this seat of estrangement was somehow intentional. But this fret quickly passed as Leah’s hand found hers and held it tightly throughout the service even as her sister’s eyes and face stayed pointed forward, in a show of dignity and reserve or in an attempt to keep from dissolving into tears. Either way, Brooke clung to Leah’s hand through the vaguely familiar hymns and the round-faced preacher’s measured eulogy—“Greta was a passionate free spirit who chose to go her own way”—and the prayers and commendation, that hand her anchor not only in the service and today’s storm but also to her family and past.
And still she held that hand in the brittle sun and biting wind beside the yawning hole exposing dark, sandy soil in the fence-bound cemetery behind the church. In past visits here—her grandparents’ 50th anniversary in the church’s fellowship hall, Uncle Blake’s wedding—Brooke had always thought the cemetery’s fence was to keep animals and wayward children out. But today as they lowered the coffin into that black hole, she wondered if the fence wasn’t really intended to keep wandering souls in, or at least imply as much. Wherever Greta strayed in this life, she was here, at home with her kin, for eternity. Somehow the thought both troubled and consoled her, and how mixed up was that?
At the close of the brief graveside service, Reverend Stovall extended a worn shovel toward Grandpa for the casting of the first spade-full of dirt onto the sunk coffin’s top. Grandpa released the handles of Grandma’s wheelchair and took the shovel in his creased and bony hand but only long enough to thrust it, handle first, at Brooke. That wooden handle seemed a long finger of accusation, and she involuntarily recoiled from the attack. What had she done to deserve this? But Leah held her in place and, after a few seconds’ pause, stepped forward with her to take the shovel. When Brooke still refused, Leah released Brooke’s hand and signed to her sister—For us, and for Greta, ending with her hand half-open at her heart, holding them all at her heart. But who was holding whom? It didn’t matter. Leah’s signing, pointed at and understood by only Brooke, gave her the strength to take the shovel, push it deep into the soft dirt beside the hole, and toss the dark sandy soil into the yawning void. It struck the coffin’s lid with a sound that echoed through everyone gathered—everyone, that is, except Leah, who felt only her sister’s sadness echoing through her soul.