We went back to Walker’s Woods for the funeral and I drove through the old neighborhood with my brother the morning before the service. Vicky stayed with her family in the house she’d grown up in and even Alex was in town. It was like a reunion for the kids of my era. At least those who had survived. It was also like grinding salt into a fresh wound.
Danny and I visited Robin’s grave, and Sean’s as well. I hadn’t been there since I moved out of the house. Thought I might catch a glimpse of them spooking around—hoped to on some level—but they weren’t there. I never did see the point of standing over the burial site of a dead loved one. I just figured I could talk to them anywhere I was, keep them in my heart and if there was any truth out there, my dead people would hear me. They’d hear me and if they wanted to talk back, they would find a way. People didn’t haunt their graves. They’re just holes. Ghosts haunted the things they loved and missed. That’s what I would do.
Afterwards, we went back by our old house on US 49 and parked on the shoulder. I pulled the switch for the hazard lights and my blinkers went to work, ticking like a metronome. We walked along the fence line to the place where we had all climbed under that night. Where Matt and I used to climb under and sneak cigarettes—where Danny, Matt and I snuck cigarettes once we figured he was old enough. Danny was never as close to Matt as I was, but he was close enough.
Not much had changed about the tree line or the old fence. The crush of dried leaves and the soft give of the dirt beneath our shoes were familiar, even if we had traded our old jean shorts, t-shirts and sneakers for suits and leather dress shoes. The smell of the earth and the exhaust from the highway was familiar. The cornfield, however, was different. It had been surveyed and prepped for what looked like a new subdivision and the place where the Russian House once stood like an old forgotten skeleton was vacant.
Danny pulled a crumpled pack of smokes out of the pocket of his expensive suit jacket and shook a couple out. I took one and he took the other and we lit them with a ninety-nine cent lighter from a convenience store. It was black with a Harley-Davidson logo and flame decals on it—just like Sean’s and just like the one Matt had after Sean died. One of the three of us always had a lighter like that, always black and always with flames. It was our talisman. Neither of us spoke, but we smoked in grave silence. When we were done, we left the pack there, on the dirt for our fallen brother, and placed the lighter next to it. I stared at the flames on that decal before we walked away.