Funny. Being independently wealthy didn’t feel any different.
“I want to sell my shares, too,” Patti said on impulse. “I’m going to art school,” she announced to the lawyer.
“Congratulations,” he told her. “This is a big day, all round.”
“Come on, everybody,” Charles said. “Now that I’m a man of means, lunch is on me. We’ll drink a toast to Gamma.”
“That we will,” Elizabeth said, knowing that Gamma was rolling in her grave.
Wednesday evening, Patti and Elizabeth dressed in black, with only pearls for adornment (Augusta’s instructions), and joined Howe and Charles in their best dark suits to sit visitation with Pearl and Thomas beside the cloying blanket of roses and orchids Augusta had ordered for her closed mahogany casket with silver fittings.
And it was there, at last, that Augusta’s chickens came home to roost.
Everybody she had slighted, insulted, or terrorized stayed away, leaving just her three closest friends, plus the people who came for Elizabeth’s and the children’s sake, or Rotary, to trickle in and sign the guest book. Only a few arrangements and sprays had been delivered, from Garden Club or Altar Guild or the Women’s Club. The largest and most impressive was a spray from Pearl and Thomas, but the parlor Augusta had reserved seemed big and empty by evening’s end. Just before they left, the judge
arrived to pay his respects to Howe, but Elizabeth counted only twenty signatures in the book, including his.
The next night was even more sparsely attended, but Augusta’s three best friends stayed for longer, complaining bitterly the whole time about who wasn’t there.
By the third and final session on Friday night before the funeral, the family sat alone beside the casket.
The children took it in stride, but Howe didn’t. They’d only been there for ten minutes, without a single visitor, when he told Elizabeth he had some phone calls to make, and asked Thomas to take him home.
“What’s up with Daddy?” Patti asked, concerned, after he’d gone.
“I guess he’s upset that people aren’t respecting Gamma the way he thinks they should,” Elizabeth answered.
“Gamma was good to Dad and Patti and me,” Charles said frankly, “but she stepped on a lot of toes in this town. There’s no getting around that.”
“Hyere, now, Mister Charles,” Pearl chided. “Yore grammaw was good to me and Thomas, too. Don’t you go speakin’ ill of the dead. It tempts the Lord’s vengeance. Miz Augusta, she had her own hurts aplenty in this life, and she done the best she could. Ain’t no cause fer people to stay away from her funeral.”
“Pearl, she made a lot of people mad,” Charles insisted.
Patti sighed. “You’re right. Still, it’s sad.”
Elizabeth knew she was talking about more than visitation. “Yes, honey, it is.”
Only Augusta’s best friends and Father Jim showed up. The
minister thanked the family for the new pipe organ, which had been ordered according to Augusta’s instructions. Then he prayed a sweet prayer of thanksgiving for Augusta’s devotion to the church and generosity, and made his farewell.
When they got home, Howe was holed up in his study and didn’t come to bed till late.
Elizabeth rolled over in the darkened room when he got into bed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just . . .” He let out a forced sigh.
“What?” she prodded gently. He’d come a long way since he’d woken up blurting out everything that came to mind, but she almost preferred that to brooding. “Howe, please don’t keep things from me. We’ve had too much of that, already.”
He leaned over and gave her a peck. “Just this one more thing,” he said. “I need for everyone to come to the funeral. Not for Mama—she’s gone—but for me.”
“Why is it so important to you?” she asked. Augusta was the one who’d alienated everybody. Howe had been making amends for his own bad behavior ever since he’d woken up.
He turned his back and pulled the covers up over his shoulder. “You’ll see tomorrow.”
And with that, he went to sleep.
The next morning, he was no more forthcoming. Antsy, he bolted his breakfast, then retreated into his study till it was time to dress.
He’d hardly said ten words before the four of them got into the long black limo Augusta had ordered for the trip to the church.
It wasn’t easy, but Elizabeth didn’t prod Howe. Whatever was on his mind, she’d find out soon enough. But nothing prepared her for what they confronted when they walked into the sanctuary at St. Andrew’s.
Two identical mahogany coffins flanked Augusta’s flower-laden one.
“Daddy,” Patti accused in a tight whisper, “what is this? Who’s in those other coffins?” She pointed to them in anger. “Gamma didn’t say anything about this. She wanted her own funeral, just for herself.”
“Patti, honey,” Howe said gently but firmly, “funerals are for the living, not the dead. Gamma’s not here, but we are. I want you to trust me about this. If you’re still mad at me after it’s over, then I guess you’ll be mad at me. But Gamma was my mother. I’m the one who has to make the decisions about her service.”
“It’s not right,” Patti protested, drawing attention from the people who had begun to file into the church.
“Patti, keep your voice down,” Elizabeth cautioned. “You know the last thing your grandmother would have wanted is for you to make a scene.” She shot a reassuring glance to Howe. “We need to trust your father’s judgment.”
Howe responded with a look of gratitude.
“Come on,” Charles whispered, taking his sister by the arm and steering her into the front pew where Pearl and Thomas were waiting. “Just settle down. Dad knows what he’s doing.”
“Since when?” Patti hissed, then clamped her mouth shut in consternation as her brother pressed her into the pew.
“Since he woke up,” Charles whispered back, then knelt on the prayer rest.
Patti flounced to her knees beside him, but kept silent.
Elizabeth sure hoped Howe knew what he was doing. And she was dying to know who was in those extra coffins.
Elizabeth’s Sewing Circle arrived en masse and sat in the pew behind her, offering gentle touches and words of consolation, with no questions asked, but they didn’t have to say anything about the three coffins. Elizabeth could sense their unspoken shock and curiosity.
Slowly, the church began to fill, and with every arrival, a new set of whispers emerged. The organ began to play, but the organist clearly wasn’t the virtuoso Augusta had contracted for. The hymns came out in odd phrases, with more than a few missed notes.
Appalled, Patti slipped out the side aisle and headed for the hidden organ to see what had gone wrong. After a whispered conference that resulted in a slew of missed notes, she returned to tell Elizabeth that the other organist had called in sick at the last minute. Unable to get anyone else to fill in, the funeral director had been forced to press his teenaged cousin into service.
Elizabeth winced with every wrong note along with the rest of the congregation. It would have been funny, if it wasn’t so awful.
But fate wasn’t through getting even with Augusta yet. Only three altos and one bass from the choir processed down the aisle at the start of the communion service, providing a very lopsided version of “How Great Thou Art.”
Elizabeth dared not look back for fear she’d see someone laugh and join them. So she bit her lips and did her best to remain dignified.
Unfazed, Father Tim began the rite of communion first, instead of the funeral service, a departure from the usual order of service, but the familiar litany—and the absence of music—settled things down. Till the soloist from the Atlanta Chorale was supposed to sing the Lord’s Prayer, and instead of her trained voice, Miss Emily Mason’s thready, geriatric soprano struggled through the PA system with as pitiful a rendition as ever was attempted.
Patti grabbed Charles’s arm so hard, he pried it off with a grimace of rebuke.
Meanwhile, Howe finally registered what a disaster the service had become. Lips curled inward, his rigid posture wavered as his eyes widened and nostrils flared.
Lord. If he started laughing, she’d be done for.
Elizabeth’s mouth pruned up, and she gripped her fists so tight her nails bit into her palms, hoping the pain would offset the deadly urge to laugh.
For the moment, it worked. Just thirty more minutes. If she could get through that, it would all be behind them.
When Father Jim and the acolytes came to the front of the aisle and offered the Lord’s Supper, Elizabeth took a healthy swig of the strong communion wine, hoping it would calm her
down, but all it did was soak straight into her empty stomach lining, leaving her with a brief buzz.
She offered up a sincere prayer for composure, and managed to settle down for the remainder of the ritual.
Then it was time for the eulogy, and Father Jim looked down from the pulpit to say, “First, I’d like to thank you all for showing your love and support for Miss Augusta’s family by coming here today to commemorate her life. What a glorious comfort it is to know that despite all our human failings, we Christians have the assurance of God’s mercy through Christ. Miss Augusta was a devoted member of this church, and we have all benefited from her service and generosity. In her final will and testament, she donated the remainder of the funds needed to provide a new pipe organ for our sanctuary. And in a separate provision she made just before her death, she endowed the salary for an organist and minister of music.”
The need for which was glaringly evident in the day’s proceedings.
“So we owe her a great debt of gratitude,” Father Jim continued, “and were blessed by her presence, despite the human frailties we all share. Thanks be to God.” He nodded to Howe. “And now, her son Howe has asked to share a few words about his mother.”
Howe slipped into the aisle before Elizabeth could reach over to give him a reassuring touch. He passed between the coffins, then met Father Jim on his way to the pulpit and shook his hand. “Thank you, Father.”
Then he mounted the shallow stone stairs to the pulpit and looked across the congregation. “Thank you all for coming,” he
began. “I know I had to bend a few elbows to get you all here, but there’s something important I need to say, and I wanted you all to hear it.” Howe glanced at the coffins. “I know you’re all wondering why there are three coffins here.”
And who was in them!
He faced the congregation with calm and assurance. “The one in the middle holds my mother’s mortal remains.” He paused, looking down on it with regret.
Then he shifted his focus to the one beside it. “The one on the left holds the woman she might have been if life had been different, and she had made different choices. My mother tried so hard to be the perfect wife, a paragon of virtue. But she only ended up making a prison of her own skin, the smallest prison in the world.” His mouth crumpled briefly. “This coffin holds all the joy she never knew. All the love she hid away inside her. All the laughter we never heard. All the kindness she never got to give.”
Patti gripped Charles’s hand and groped for Elizabeth’s till she found it.
You could hear a pin drop as Howe went on. “But, like many women of her generation, my mother felt she had to keep up appearances, no matter what happened. She bore the indignities of her life by hiding behind a wall that isolated her from those of us who loved her, as well as those she feared. A wall that isolated her from her better self and all the simple pleasures of this life, except for her beloved grandchildren.”
He faced Elizabeth. “She did it to protect herself and her marriage, and it was contagious. After my father died and I came back to Whittington, I found myself doing the same thing. What
I felt, I suppressed. What I feared, I controlled. What I wanted, I took. For that, I owe a lot of you a humble apology.”
A murmur rippled through the congregation in response.
A wry smile eased Howe’s expression. “It took a stroke and a brain tumor to wake me up, and I thank God for both, because they brought me to God, and to the truth. While I was crying and hugging and cussing and being jerked around by my emotions and my appetites like a two-year-old, I saw how wrong I’d been.”
Elizabeth was so proud of him, she felt her chest would explode.
“God gave me another chance,” Howe said, “and I mean to make the best of it.”
He pointed to the last coffin. “That third coffin is for the man I was. The selfish, greedy, soulless, heartless man I let myself become every time I cut corners in business, or turned my back on those in need around me, or betrayed the family who loved me.” He struggled to maintain control. “Thank God, that man is gone. I’m burying him beside my mother, and I pray he stays buried forever.”
Gripping the edge of the pulpit, Howe scanned the congregation. “It’s never too late to make things right. If I can do it, anybody can. Don’t waste the chances you still have.”
Elizabeth heard sniffs behind her.
Howe looked to his mother’s coffin, head bowed. “Don’t let there be an empty coffin beside yours for the person you might have been.” In the resounding silence that followed, he left the pulpit.
Patti clung to Elizabeth and her brother, then all three of them reached out to Howe as he took his place in the pew while Father Jim concluded the service.