Cancel the Wedding (41 page)

Emory seemed to consider that for a second. Probably trying to decide what the consequences would be of admitting to it. “There were some notations on there about the tax deed that would have led you to me. I just didn't want you coming to me asking a lot of questions about her.”

Elliott asked, “What about the missing journals from the Fells?”

He seemed genuinely confused. “I don't know anything about any journals. But, I will tell you this”—he looked back at the box on the coffee table—“when we found Janie in the lake that night, the night of the fire, she had that box in the boat with her.”

All eyes turned to the box as Emory left. Georgia wouldn't let us open it yet; we had to leave for the cemetery. She promised, as soon as we got back we could see what was inside.

As I took the winding country road that led to Huntley Memorial Gardens I glanced in my rearview mirror at the urn containing my mother's ashes. Logan had buckled it into the seatbelt next to her. I really missed her. I wondered what she would think about the fact that I had canceled my wedding to Leo. I knew she had liked him. But she had canceled a wedding to the wrong person, hadn't she? Granted, in spectacularly more dramatic fashion than me. I figured she would understand. And I think I had finally come to understand what she meant about needing someone in order to breathe.

The memorial service we had had in Maryland for our mother when she passed away had been so difficult. It was sad and hard and busy. It was full of everyone else's expectations and needs for dealing with their grief, their desire to say good-bye. None of it felt as if it had, in any way, helped me deal with her death.

But this send-off, this good-bye, felt like a complete catharsis. We three girls, Janie's girls, were going together to say our farewell and remember the woman she had been and the life she had lived. The whole life she had lived. The life she had lived with George and with Oliver. The life she had lived with our father, Adam, and with Georgia and me. The life she had gotten to live with her grandchildren.

We carried the urn across the cemetery toward the tent set up in section 30. Underneath the tent was the small casket that we had wrestled from the ground. It was covered with a white satin cloth and behind it stood an enormous wreath of white lilies.

Mary Frances was waiting for us, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her pudgy white hand. I said, “Everything looks lovely, Mary Frances. Thank you.”

“You're welcome, dear. You know Betty Chatham insisted on doing the flower arrangements for you. So fortunate.” She set her gaze on the flowers as if they were made of bacon. “Betty's the head of the Altar Guild you know.” I could tell that we were to be as impressed about that as we were supposed to have been about her presidency of the Tillman Garden Club.

Georgia looked at Logan and me. “What's an Altar Guild?”

Logan answered under her breath. “They do church flowers and stuff. Betty Chatham is like some kind of competitive florist.”

Mary Frances asked, “Would you like us to say a few words, or would you like a moment alone to say your good-byes?”

Somehow I had been designated as the spokesperson for our crew. “Could we lower Oliver into the grave, and then take a few minutes?”

“Oh, of course.” Mary Frances gave a signal to a groundskeeper and Oliver's little casket was slowly lowered into the ground. Then they stepped back a few yards and pretended that they couldn't hear anything we were saying.

Georgia, Logan, and I stood over the edge of the grave, peering down into the hole that held Oliver's little casket. It was right next to George's grave. They were finally together again.

The air was still and quiet with just a faint buzz of insects in the tree line. I glanced at Logan, then to Georgia. I said, “I'm glad they're all going to be together.”

Logan took something out of her bag and let it fall into the grave. It was a small stuffed bear. She shrugged. “I remember when Will and Adam were two years old.” Georgia put her arm around her and pulled her in for a hug. And as some kind of miracle, Logan hugged her back.

Georgia took the lid off of the urn and the two of us looked at each other. Our mother was finally, forever, going to be laid to rest.

We held the urn together and sprinkled half of the ashes into Oliver's grave. Then we sprinkled the rest over George's.

“Love you. We miss you,” said Georgia.

I said, “Bye Mom. I hope you're happy. Wherever you are.”

Logan linked an arm in each of ours. We stood there each silent, each with our own thoughts. I think we were all three crying.

There was a slight sniffle and we all glanced over to see Mary Frances standing as still as was possible considering she was currently dissolving into a puddle.

Logan took a deep breath and said, “Bless her heart.”

Georgia cracked first, but as soon as she was going we all started laughing. We laughed through our tears as we made our way out of Huntley Memorial Gardens.

We headed back to Tillman feeling nostalgic about our mom and telling Logan stories from our childhood. I had felt like we'd lost some of that when we found out about George and Oliver, but we hadn't. Not really. It was all still there for us to remember anytime we needed it. There was just more background to the story than we realized before.

Our little rental lake house had been transformed while we had been gone. Betty Chatham had brought in yet more flowers and tidied up the living room. Someone had catered a lunch so the dining room table was overflowing with food. There were platters of tiny biscuits with honey ham tucked inside and bowls filled with pasta salad and fruit salad and some kind of corn salad. There were elevated plate stands stacked with brownies and cookies and tiny pies. I was trying to figure out where it had all come from when I spotted a note tied to a pitcher of iced tea.

It read:

Before the reception was in full swing we had one last errand. Logan, Georgia, Elliott, and I hurried to the screen porch to open the black metal box before any more reception guests arrived.

Elliott cut the bolt and Logan pried the rusty box open. Inside was a bundle wrapped in stiff, dirty molded canvas and tied with twine. Georgia unwrapped it and laid the bits of treasure out on the table.

We all picked up something as the items spilled out from the wrapping. I held up three small books. “The missing journals from the Fells.”

Elliott asked, “Why are they in here?”

I flipped through one of the volumes and stopped on a page. It had the same ink notes scrawled across it that I had seen in all of the other journals that had belonged to our grandfather. Notes about cases he was working on. But on top of the notes, on most of the pages, someone had scribbled with crayons. I said, “Oliver used them as coloring books.”

Logan pulled out a small velvet box and snapped it open. Nestled inside was a platinum wedding ring. The band was richly engraved with scrollwork and the oval-shaped diamond sat on a delicate filigree crown. We all recognized it from the wedding photos of Janie and George. It had been her mother's ring. Janie had worn it when she married George.

I pulled the ring from the box and stared at it, turning it over and over, committing it to memory. Then I took Logan's right hand out and put it on her finger.

Georgia said, “Are you sure you want Logan to have it? You don't mind?”

I wiped the tears away. “Of course I want her to have it. And so would Mom.”

There were other things in the box, documents and letters. Random things. There was a copy of George's will and of Oliver's birth certificate. There were a few pictures, but they had been damaged over time with water and mold and were difficult to see. There was a baseball, which must have meant something special to George. There was a military medal of some kind and I held it up to see if Elliott recognized it.

He said, “I think that's the Navy Cross. For valor.”

I turned the medal over in my hand. Its ribbon that had once been blue and white was now a uniform gray. “Valor in Vietnam and then he kills himself as soon as he gets home. So sad.”

At the bottom of the bundle was a very tarnished silver baby spoon.

Georgia had been opening each piece of paper and glancing at it before moving on to examine the next one. She handed one to me. It was the missing page from the coroner's report of Oliver's suicide. The eyewitness interviewed hadn't been Emory; it had been George. Just as Emory had said, George had been the last one to see Oliver alive. He had called the sheriff when Oliver didn't come home one night. I didn't read the rest of the statement; I knew how that story ended.

There was a stack of letters bound together with a frayed ribbon. We just put it aside, knowing somehow that they were love letters from George. None of us wanted to intrude into those memories any more than we already had. At least not today.

There was one loose letter among the bundled pieces and yellowed envelopes. Georgia said, “This one has Mom's handwriting.”

I nodded to her. “Read it.”

Logan, Elliott, and I held our breath as she read the small handwritten note.

Our eyes moved around the group, each meeting one another's. Finally I said, “That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.”

Logan was shaking her head, “I can't believe she burned the house down on purpose.”

Georgia said, “No wonder she had to go to a mental hospital.”

Logan held her hand out and was staring at the ring. I wondered for a second if she thought it was cursed. Then she said, “At least she got to spend her whole life with him. You know? Before he died, I mean. They had like twenty-five years together, right? And she was happy with Grandpa Adam, wasn't she? She made it. She pulled through.”

Elliott said, “She must have had this box with her that night to keep a few things safe from the fire.”

The fire. I started to wonder if that was why she had wanted to be cremated and I stared at the now-empty urn.

My attention was pulled toward the inside of the house where more reception guests had started to arrive. “Lo, Graham just got here. Will you two hold down the fort for a minute?”

“Sure. What are you doing?”

I picked up the urn and looked at Georgia. “Want to go give this a burial at sea?”

“Yes!” As Georgia and I made our way down to the lake she called over her shoulder, “Elliott, come with us. We need a good throwing arm.”

We stood looking out at the waters of the lake. The entire town of Huntley was under that water. The old streets and stores and houses. I wanted some tiny part of my mother to be put into the lake too, even if the only thing we had left of her was the last vessel of her remains.

I handed the urn to Elliott; he asked if we were sure. I had no idea what else one would do with a used cremation urn. He wound up and launched it out into the water. It sailed in an arc and landed in the cove. I imagined it sinking slowly down to the bottom of the lake. Perhaps settling on some lane where she and George used to walk as children, or on the old site of some long-forgotten patch of grass that afforded the best view of the river. Maybe near a tree that Janie, George, and Oliver used to climb as children.

Logan called down from the house, “Mom, come up here and meet everyone.”

Georgia looked at me with a most shocked expression. I said, “I can't believe she wants you to meet people.”

“I know. Usually she's trying to find ways to lock me in the basement.”

Elliott and I were left alone on the muddy bank of Lake Huntley. He put his arm around me as we watched the circle of ripples in the water that had been made by my mother's urn.

Elliott turned to face me and said, “Olivia . . .”

“Yes?”

He ran his hand through his hair. He knew I considered that one of his tells, and he smiled at me as if I'd caught him thinking. “I'm not sure where to start.”

“Start what?” I felt my stomach drop. Where was he going with this?

“I just feel so bad saying this. I know it's not really fair.”

“Just say it then.”

“Liv, you haven't been here long. What? A month?” It had been five weeks and two days, but I didn't say that out loud. He said, “I know you're done here. You've finished what you came to do.” There was a palpable panic settling into the pit of my stomach as he kept talking. “It's not fair of me to ask this. You have a life in Maryland and your job and your family. But Liv . . . Look, I
do
know how to live here without you.” He was echoing my mother's letter. “I've done it for a long time. But I don't want to anymore.”