gravesight

Grave Sight

Business brought him back to the upstate area and, thanks to a short side-trip, the little town of his birth. He had left thirty years ago. What had then, in the flush of youth, seemed like an irreconcilable dispute with well-intentioned but inflexible parents had sent him packing. He had never looked back, not even for their funerals.

The cemetery behind St. Anne's Roman Catholic Church was on a picturesque hillside overlooking a small glacier-carved lake. He had been searching unsuccessfully for his parents' graves.

“Can I help you?” an elderly woman asked from the leaf-strewn footpath nearby.

“I'm not sure. Are you familiar with the layout here?”

“Certainly,” she answered. “I'm the administrator. I know these grounds like the back of my hand.”

He smiled and shuffled his feet. The cool, damp November wind made him shiver. He hadn't seen or heard the old lady approach.

“I'm looking for my parents … their graves I mean, Tom and Mary Collins?”

“Goodness,” the friendly woman sighed. “ You must be Jack. I thought I recognized you. I'm sure you don't remember me. I'm Ms. Crane, Judy Crane. I used to work in the library. You read all of our detective fiction, the Hardy Boys Perry Mason and Ellery Queen. You'd come by after school and stay until your father picked you up on his way home from work.”

Jack attempted to hide his shocked expression. The Judy Crane who stood in front of him looked nothing whatsoever like the forty or fifty-year-old woman he vaguely recalled from his early adolescence. He hoped she attributed his slight blush – the result of the fact that she had been the object of more than a few post-pubescent fantasies – to the chill wind. And she was right. Not wanting to endure the teasing and taunting on the school bus ride home, he had sought refuge every afternoon in the library.

“Oh well,” Ms. Crane continued. “You didn't come home to listen to the wistful reminiscences of an old lady. Your parents are right over here. It's a great spot, beneath a beautiful oak tree and with a wonderful view of the lake.”

They walked for a few moments in silence. Not spending much time in cemeteries, Jack was struck by how well so many of the headstones had withstood the ravages of time and the seasons. “They're doing better than me,” he reflected wordlessly.

“Here we are,” Mrs. Crane said quietly when they stopped in front of a large marker standing four or five feet high with a beautifully carved Celtic cross where its two arms met in the center.

Jack looked down. A shudder ran through his body when he recognized the names of his parents etched deeply into the stone. “If only things had been different,” he thought. “If any one of us had been less stubborn, less proud. This is a hell of a way to make peace with one's folks. But what other way is there now?”

As if reading his thoughts, Judy Crane placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. “I'll leave you alone with your parents. I'm sure they're glad you're here.”

Before he had a chance to thank her, the elderly administrator was gone. Jack spent fifteen or twenty minutes at his parents' gravesite … and a bit more time wandering around the peaceful hillside reading the tombstones. He felt better than he had in long, long time; as though he had finally taken care of some old, unresolved business.

“Maybe I'll give Sean and Kathryn a call before I head back home. See if I can patch things up with them” he whispered to the wind. His siblings had never forgiven him for how he had turned his back on his family. “We all have a case of Irish Alzheimer's … we forget everything but the grudges.”

* * *

Two days later, Jack sat in the departure lounge of the airport. As usual, his flight was delayed for some unknown, or at least unspecified, reason. He had used the time to read. He had even called Kathryn. She had been aloof but, by the time they had hung up, he was pretty sure she had been glad to hear from him. He'd stay in touch. He wasn't up to dealing with Sean, not for a while anyhow, but soon.

On a whim, he found the bulletin from St. Anne's which he had taken from the church when he stopped in briefly before leaving the cemetery the other day. He used his cell and punched in the number of the parish office.

“Hello. This is Fr. Healy, how may I help you?”

“Father, my name is Jack Collins. I was visiting your cemetery the other day, looking for my parents' gravesite.”

“Sure, Jack. I didn't know your parents, they died before I took over here, but I certainly recognize the name. If you need help finding the graves, come on over. We can look it up easily in the records.”

“Thanks, Father, but that's not why I called. I found the graves. While I was there, I ran into the administrator or caretaker or whatever you call her. She knew right where my parents were. I wanted to thank her for helping me. She left so quickly, I never got the chance.”

“I'm sorry, son,” Fr. Healy said after a pause, “I don't understand. We don't have anyone administering the cemetery anymore. Cutbacks, you understand. I pretty much handle all of that, not that's there too much, myself now.”

“Judy Crane?” Jack said with just a hint of frustration. The old guy must be losing it. “She used to be the librarian in town.”

“I'm not sure who you ran into, Mr. Collins,” responded Fr. Healy, “but I can assure you that it wasn't Judy Crane.” The priest was beginning to think that someone was pulling his leg. “Ms. Crane was indeed our administrator, but she died of cancer three or four years ago. God rest her soul.”

___________________

James C. Clar's work has been published in print as well as on the Internet. Most recently his short fiction has found a home in the Taj Mahal Review, Shine: A Journal of Flash, Bewildering Stories, Apollo's Lyre, Flashshot, Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers, Everyday Fiction, Golden Visions Magazine, The Magazine of Crime and Suspense, Antipodean Sci-Fi, 365 Tomorrows and The New Flesh Magazine. His story "Starbuck" was voted story-of-the-year by the editors of Long Story, Short for 2008.