Jamie and Daniel- Graven Images

(continued from last entry)

"God…where the fuck is it?"

She stopped in her tracks, which meant we were officially lost and she had no idea where our father was buried.  The sound of the sprinklers thapping across the rows were calming, but it was soon replaced by argument.

"What does it look like," I asked.

"What do you think- a fucking slab."

"There’s different shapes you know," I said on the defensive.  We passed a fucking saxophone!"

"Dad didn’t play jazz you dickhead!"

"Well look for a stone shaped like a rapist."

She punched me in the arm as hard as she could and I almost fell into my own grave, but I hopped backwards over the pit and gestured to my near demise, courtesy Jamie.

"Fucking asshole!" she screamed and I threw a clod of dirt at her.

I let it drop because we’d been through this before.  There was no way she could ever defend him, but it didn’t stop her from wanting to say goodbye.  Now I had tarnished the whole expedition with a truth that was supposed to remain buried along with our father.

We walked aimlessly through neverending stretches of rows and came across a small dog that snarled out a warning when we got too close to its water dish.  I was tempted to kick dirt in its face- I hated stupid animals that were mad for no reason other than being approached.

"Hi doggy," Jamie said in passing.

"Why don’t you pet it," I said and she didn’t answer.

Another twenty minutes passed and we sat on a bench overlooking a pile of dirt, while smoking her last cigarette.

"I thought you were just here," I said.  "It can’t be that hard to find it- what was in the area, do you know a marker we could look for?"

"There was an angel with a broken wing.  It was really big."

"Tell me this is the right cemetery."

"It IS!"

"Well we saw some angels, but this one is bigger?"

"It’s taller than the both of us."

"Ok…that shouldn’t be too hard.  Let me have a drag."

She passed the cigarette and then gave me a "Tss." when I took an extra drag.  She stood up and took a sharp left without thinking about it.

"Jamie’s on the scent," I said with mock excitement, chucking the cigarette butt.  She didn’t say anything.  Her no comment was always like a silent fuck you.  I marched silently behind her and tried to step on the freshly stomped grass a second time, matching her footsteps.  This backfired on me though when I ran into her twice.

"STOP IT!"

"toppit," I mimicked with a baby voice.

We marched another ten paces, until she stopped in her tracks abruptly and I smashed into her, bouncing back.  She laughed. 

Another ten minutes passed and we came to some hedges that marked the end of the property.

"Wait a second…where the hell is the entrance- we came through the side-" 

Jamie gave me a blank look.

"I didn’t take the tracks last time, I haven’t come in this way before."

"Why couldn’t we go around?"

"I didn’t think it would be THIS big!"

"Did you even go to the funeral?"

She was shocked I said this and from the look on her face I immediately knew she had.

"Sorry," I said.  "I just thought by NOW something would be a little familiar."

"It all looks the same to me."

"Well, he can’t be buried over here, all these graves are for babies.  There’s no one over four years old here."

Jamie took a look at a roundish stone and made little sounds in her throat. 

"Cecilia" 

Against the wall hung a picture of a sleeping infant.  There were flowers and a doll resting on the plot.  A letter from the mother:

"We think about you every day."

"Oh my God," she choked and I grabbed her arm.

"Come on, you don’t need to see this-"

She jerked her arm from my grip and I took a step back.  She held herself tightly and examined the letter.

I shook my head and walked away.  I hopped up on a stone bench and scouted out the area.  There was a small pond to the east and to the south there was more of the same- hundreds and hundreds of stones.   My eyes burned from taking them all in- it was mind-boggling.  I imagined an inside-out cemetery where the dead were on the surface and the stones buried six feet deep.

Jamie screamed and someone pushed an icecube into my heart.  I gasped. 

For a second I thought it had come true and little Cecilia had popped out of the Earth to cry out its hellish wail to my sister. 

When I reached her side she was shaking and had something balled up in her fist.  Blood was oozing out from the cracks and I pulled her hands away.  Chunks of glass and flesh plopped to the lawn and my sister screamed hysterically, falling to her knees and butting her head against my chest.

"What did you do?" I yelled and she fell slowly on her side, curling up. 

In the distance I could hear the dog barking.