The piper has left the rise and is walking through the woods that border the graveyard. Now he is playing a dirge, now he is playing an ending, not a beginning, gathering their tears and their sorrow into song.
Alice wants to stay until they fill in the grave, but there is not a shovel in sight. Angie is preoccupied with some family friends who can’t come back to the house and are saying their good-byes now. Alice scans the graveyard looking for the actual tools of the trade or even a pair of gravediggers. Instead, she finally spots a small backhoe tucked discreetly out of sight behind some trees and an older man in overalls patiently smoking a cigarette, waiting for them to leave so he can finish his job.
That’s when she sees him: a young man in uniform standing too far away to have heard the service, but focused intently on her father’s grave. He somehow manages to look ramrod straight and broken at the same time. Before she even has time to think, to formulate words, she is running toward him.
He backs away from her, holding his hands out in front of him to keep her from coming closer.
“Are you Travis Boyd?”
He looks at Alice for a long, uncomfortable moment. Alice is taking in the circles under his eyes, the way his dress uniform hangs too loosely on his frame, the tremor in his hands as he tries to figure out what to do with them.
“You are, aren’t you?”
He looks at the ground.
“You knew my dad, didn’t you? You were in his unit.”
He nods, not lifting his head.
“You were with him when—”
He begins to back away from her, still looking down.
“Wait. Don’t go.”
He turns and begins to limp up the slope toward the drive where his rental car is parked. Alice runs to catch up with him. He keeps her at bay with a sharp gesture. She stops as he continues toward the car.
“Please. You were the last person to—”
He stops. She can hear that he is struggling for breath from this quick walk and realizes that he is probably in pain.
“We’ve been trying to reach you. My mother wanted to write to you. Or call you or—”
He straightens his shoulders and turns to face her. He is not crying. Nothing as simple as that. His eyes are hollow and his face is contracted in a grimace of suffering so intense Alice stumbles as she takes a quick step away from him.
“He was a good soldier. He looked after his men.”
He pauses. It is not clear he will continue. Alice waits.
“He was like a big brother. . .. That was the worst day for me. . . . Not being able to get Matt out . . . That was the worst day . . .”
“Was he—?” Alice begins.
The car door opens and another soldier emerges to hold open the rear passenger door for Travis Boyd.
“I have to go.”
“Would you like to come back to the house? We have so much food. My mother would like to meet you.”
“I just wanted to pay my respects.”
“I could show you my dad’s workshop.”
He tilts his head so he can look at her out of the corner of his eye.
“He talked about you.”
“And I could show you his garden.”
“I saw pictures of you. And your little sister.”
The soldier at the car calls out to him. And suddenly Alice realizes that he is a nurse or an orderly.
“Sergeant Boyd.”
He turns toward the voice and the car and his escape. And then, with a great effort, he turns to her again, pulls himself upright, stills his hands by pressing them against his thighs.
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
Alice waits while Travis Boyd is helped into the backseat of the car. He takes his hat off and leans his head back and closes his eyes. He turns his head to look at her as the car starts up and moves away. She holds his gaze for as long as she can and then watches the car disappear down the grassy drive headed for the main road.
She can’t begin to take this in, to process what kind of horror and trauma can destroy a young man like Travis Boyd. She suddenly knows, like a kick to the gut, that what happened to her father is even worse than she has imagined, worse than it is possible to imagine.
She turns back when she hears a new motor sound and heads down the hill in time to see the backhoe emerge from the copse of trees and approach her father’s grave. The fake grass has been rolled up, the winch taken away. Now there is a hole in the ground and a coffin and dirt.
She waves at the man driving the backhoe. He stops and cuts the engine.
“Do you have a couple of shovels?”
“That’s not how we do it anymore, miss. A lot of people, they have the wrong idea.”
“I’d just like to be the one to bury my father. If you don’t mind.”
“You’re not exactly dressed for the job.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with the rest of them?” He indicates the cars pulling out of the cemetery.
“They’ll keep.”
He reaches behind him and pulls out a pair of shovels, climbs out of the backhoe and hands one to Alice. He turns back to grab a work shirt and a pair of rubber boots.
“That dress is too pretty to mess up.”
“Thank you.”
Alice buttons the shirt over her dress and steps into the rubber boots.
“My name is Caleb,” he offers.
“Alice Bliss,” she replies.
The sound of the clods of dirt hitting the wood of the coffin may be the most upsetting sound she has ever heard. But as they continue the sounds become muffled, dirt on dirt, and she can concentrate on the bend, lift, swing of her body and the shovel; the simplicity and rhythm and relief of real work.
She looks up to see Henry and his father walking toward them, carrying the folding snow shovels they keep in the trunk in case of an emergency. They have left their suit jackets in the car. They take a moment to roll up their sleeves and then, without a word, set to work alongside them.
“This is Caleb,” she tells them. “And this is my friend Henry and his father, Mr. Grover.”
The men nod to each other without breaking stride. Alice breathes in. It smells like the garden, but it’s not.
“It doesn’t take long,” Caleb offers.
“No.”
“You appreciate the machine on the other end of this job, I can tell you that.”
“I bet.”
“Or in bad weather.”
“My father worked with his hands.”
“Soldier, I thought.”
“Carpenter. Engineer.”
“Awful young.”
“Yes, he was.”
The earth is dry and fairly light and they make good progress.
“I have to rake it out now and then seed it.”
She hands Caleb her shovel. Mr. Grover takes out his handkerchief and mops his brow.
“You did the right thing, Alice Bliss,” Caleb says.
She tries to smile at him as she returns his shirt.
“Anybody tell you that you need to be extra careful these next few weeks?”
“No.”
“The body gets accident prone.”
“Really?”
“You ask people. Ask people who have lost someone whether they were in a little car crash or a little bike accident or took a fall.”
“You want to come back to the house, Caleb?”
“No, thank you, that wouldn’t be right, I didn’t know your father.”
“All right then. Thanks again.”
Alice heads up the rise to the dirt road leading out of the cemetery with Henry and his father. The digging has tired them all. Alice thinks it’s good to be tired in her body.
The Grovers’ ancient Honda is the only car still parked on the verge. It hadn’t occurred to Alice to be worried about a ride home. Now she realizes that Henry and his father were patiently waiting for her after everyone else had left.
M
r. Grover tosses their shovels into the trunk. Henry and his dad don’t interrogate her like her family would. Henry just opens the door to the front seat for her. But she surprises him and slips into the backseat, where she leans back and rests her head against the upholstery. Just like Travis Boyd, she thinks.
She closes her eyes for a moment before turning in her seat to look back at the road winding behind them, at the green bowl of this section of the graveyard, at the newly turned earth over her father’s grave, at Caleb, raking the ground, preparing it for seed. They keep leaving Matt behind, she thinks, in each of these places; they reenact leaving him, over and over until finally they will realize that he has left them and gone where they cannot follow.
There are cars parked in their driveway and all along the street. The backyard almost looks festive and the workshop, which Uncle Eddie set up as the bar, looks like they’re having a party. At least anyone old enough to drink is having a party.
One table is stacked high with Mrs. Piantowski’s bread and tubs of butter. Other folding tables are nearly groaning under the weight of casseroles and fruit salads, green salads, Jell-O molds, and condiments. Cakes, cookies, pies, and brownies are on the dining room table inside along with two jumbo coffeemakers from church.
Alice walks slowly through the house, taking it all in, the groups of people talking and eating and drinking. Some of them are even laughing. Everyone is here, she thinks, everyone that’s left from their life. Were they all sitting behind her in the church and riding behind their car to the cemetery? Her principal, Mr. Fisher; the school secretary, Mrs. Bradley; B.D., her coach; Mrs. Baker, Ellie’s teacher; Mr. Herlihy, the high school janitor; Sally and Ginny from The Bird Sisters; the Hoyts and the Holschers; and even Stephie and her parents. Mrs. Minty is sitting at a picnic table with John Kimball and his father and his little brother, Joey. And Melissa Johnson. Janna and her mom are sitting with Ellie, and oh my gosh that’s Luke Piacci, the third-grade heartthrob, Ellie must be going out of her mind.
Alice keeps walking, looking for her mom, maybe, or maybe not. She makes one more tour of the house and there, sitting on the stairs, where she did not think to look before, is her mom, a Styrofoam cup of coffee abandoned on the step beside her. She is looking down at her hands and does not notice Alice. She is twisting her wedding ring on her finger, round and around.
“Mom . . . ?” Alice ventures.
Angie looks up, wipes her face with the back of her hand.
“I can’t . . . ,” she begins. “I should be out there, talking to people . . .”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“I just . . . I was on my way upstairs, and . . .”
She looks so lost, Alice thinks.
“That’s when I knew . . .” she says. “That’s when I really knew.”
“I’ll get Lillian,” Alice offers.
“Just stay for a minute,” Angie says, pulling Alice down on the step beside her.
She’s twisting the ring again.
“We couldn’t afford an engagement ring. Did I ever tell you that? And we saved up for months to buy our wedding rings.”
She pulls the ring off her finger.
“Here. Try it on.”
“Mom, no,” Alice says, as she tries to hand it back.
“Go ahead. I could never wear any of Gram’s rings. Her fingers are so tiny.”
Alice slips the ring on. It feels strange. Alice can see where the ring has made a ridge on Angie’s finger. She wonders if that’s permanent.
“I was wondering if I’m still married.”
“Mom!”
Alice tries to give the ring back.
“Keep it for me. Just for a few days. I’ll ask for it when I’m ready.”
Angie stands, smoothes her hair and her skirt, and heads down the stairs.
“Wait!” Alice says, a note of panic in her voice.
“Just for a few days,” Angie says, before turning toward the kitchen and the backdoor.
“Mom! . . . Mom!” Alice follows Angie down the stairs, reaches out to her, the ring in her palm. “Please put your ring back on.”
Angie hesitates. She seems a little dazed.
“Okay, okay, let’s not make a federal case out of it,” Angie says, slipping the ring on her finger. “I just thought . . . Oh, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Alice watches her mother head back out to their friends and neighbors, to the voices and the sympathy and the dozens of reminders that life goes on in its brutal and sometimes beautiful way, whether you want it to or not.
Not knowing what else to do, Alice heads outside to the workshop. Uncle Eddie has rolled up her sleeping bag and stood the pallets up against the side wall to make room for the bar. Easily done. One plank on two sawhorses and two coolers full of ice and beer underneath. All the “good stuff” is here; whatever you might want to pour into a glass in honor of Matt Bliss, Eddie’s got.
She wants to keep on going. Or find her sneaks and start running and maybe never stop.
She walks past the workshop and up the little rise to the garden, which is hoed and weeded, just the way her dad likes it. Filled with promise. Everything at the beginning, just getting started.
She continues past the end of the garden and through the new neighbors’ yard. She can’t remember their names. She is not worried about trespassing or upsetting anyone; she doesn’t care if someone comes out and yells at her to stay off the new grass. At Baird Road she decides to go left heading out toward the old Barnes estate where maybe she can get lost for five minutes in what’s left of the old apple orchard, or maybe she’ll find that their old fort inside the lilacs is still there, and she can crawl inside and lie down and disappear for a little while.
The apple trees are in bloom and humming with bees. No one has pruned these trees in a long time, but here they are, still blooming and bearing. She heads past the barn where they used to have two Percheron draft horses and a pair of Chincoteague ponies. Old man Barnes hated tractors and loved horses, even after he got too old to work them. They were a kid magnet for the whole neighborhood and also contributed to the most beautiful roses in all of Belknap.
Alice walks between the curved rose beds to the circle of lilacs. The “entrance” is on the far side. Half a dozen lilacs have grown together, forming a dense wall of foliage, with a circular open space in the center. No one can see you in there. She hesitates and then pushes sideways through two slender trunks and she is inside.
It doesn’t look as though other kids have found this spot. There are no beer bottles or cigarette butts, no mangy blankets or milk crates. It was Alice and Henry’s secret fort through much of grade school. Alice wonders if her parents knew about it. It would be just like her dad to let her go and explore, even if it made her mom kind of crazy.
When did they stop coming here? Was it a decision? Or did they just stop? She thinks she might remember waiting for Henry in here one day, but he never came. Did that happen to Henry, too? Waiting once more and then once more for Alice to come and play.
The branches stir and John Kimball pushes through into the interior. Alice watches him materialize out of thin air and take shape in the dim, green light of the lilac leaves. He crosses to her, it’s not more than a step or two, but when he crashes into her it’s as though he has been running toward her from a great distance, and without warning, he is kissing her. In the green light, he is kissing her. He grabs her in a tight embrace, his mouth on hers. There is no hesitation, no talking, no asking. His hands are startling on her skin, his lips and his teeth and his tongue and his body are pushing her and she is pushing back, she is kissing back, she is holding him, she is pushing into him, she is feeling everything and nothing.
Is it the rough cloth of his jacket, or the uneven ground beneath her feet; or is it the sun, coming out from behind a cloud and pouring through the leaves, or is it the sound of a truck, grinding its gears as it crests the hill behind them—when suddenly the truck she hears in the distance is the truck th
at slows but doesn’t stop as a body, her father’s body, is pushed from behind the wheel well, to fall, to roll, to lie in the sand and gravel at the side of the road. His uniform filthy, stained with dirt and blood, torn, both boots missing, his feet incongruously bare. His face, she can’t see his face; he has landed with one arm flung out, his face turned sideways, turned away, his fingers, his short, strong fingers curled into fists.
She opens her eyes and pulls away. She looks around; she shakes her head, as if she could clear these images from her mind. When her mother told her how they’d found her father she couldn’t take it in and now, here, kissing this boy, what is she doing kissing this boy, here it is, in a rush, in a flood.
“I have to go.”
“Wait . . . Alice—”
“This isn’t right.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m—” And she struggles to find the right words. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Alice?” Henry calls out . . . “Alice? Are you in there?”
She pushes past John Kimball and slips between the lilac trunks.
“Henry, what are you doing here?”
“I saw you leave. You looked upset.”
“Of course I looked upset.”
“I was worried about you. I followed you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
John Kimball materializes once again. He reaches out to take Alice’s hand; she jerks away from him. She can see Henry jumping to conclusions and she wants to stop him. She wants to explain, but doesn’t know how she can explain trying to get away from everything and everyone, coming here, coming to this place, their place, looking for, hoping for . . . she doesn’t know what, the surprise of John Kimball, the kiss, her father, her childhood, the pictures that are haunting her . . .
Suddenly there is that roaring inside Henry’s head that makes it impossible to hear; he can’t hear the birds, or the wind, or even his own thoughts. Instead, he sees the lilac leaves quivering in the aftershock of John pushing through them; he remembers the interior green-glass shimmer of that space and imagines Alice and John and without warning, he steps forward and shoves John so hard he falls backward into the lilacs. It looks at first as though the branches will be supple enough to bend under this burden, but then there is a terrible ancient keening sound as branches and an entire trunk groan and then crack and fall under John’s weight. As John scrambles to his feet, both Henry and Alice register the gaping hole in the circle of trees.