heard him whisper. “If y’would, girl. Kindness to others, in me honor.”
She realized that his service had come to an end, and somehow she was holding a rose. She followed the others’ lead and dropped it down on the coffin. She turned away and noticed that one rose had fallen on the ground. She picked it up and, without thinking, started walking over to the other funeral, which had ended. The priest and the distraught couple were gone. Only the caretakers were there now, getting ready to lower the coffin into the ground.
“Do you know this man?” the caretaker asked as she drew nearer.
“No.”
“Then…?”
She set the rose she was holding on the coffin. “Go with God,” she murmured.
“Christina!” She heard her mother’s voice, calling. She turned away from the sadness of the grave where so few had mourned and hurried back to her family.
Later, thinking that it would make her grandmother feel better, she told Gran that she’d seen her grandfather. Gran stared at her, then said, “Aye, lovie, I sensed him there, that I did.”
But that night, to her surprise, her mother seemed angry. “Christie, please, stop saying that you’re seeing your grandfather. Stop it. It’s hurtful, do you understand?”
She didn’t understand. “I wasn’t hurting anyone,” Christie protested.
“And you wandered off…God, that was dreadful. To think that he was buried at the same time, on the same day, as my father.”
“Mom, what are you talking about?”
Her mother shook her head. “Christina, I’m sorry. I love you so much, and I know you’re hurting, too…but you’re dreaming. Dreaming at night, daydreaming when you’re awake. You cannot see Granda. And you must stop saying that you do!”
Her mother was upset, of course; she had just lost her father. Christie understood that. But, it was almost as if her mother were…
Afraid.
If she really was seeing her grandfather, wasn’t that a good thing?
To be honest, she wished that he would come again, closer, that he would speak to her, that he would explain.
Who had that other freshly dug grave belonged to?
Her mother hadn’t answered her, but she heard other people talking. Everyone said it was terrible. There had been a murderer on the loose, but luckily he was dead. He’d been killed by the police, or he was the police, or something like that. She was irritated by the way people clammed up when she came near. She was nearly a teenager, after all, tall for her age, and she was actually developing a shape. It was insulting to be treated like a child. Then she realized that she had set a flower on a murderer’s grave. That was disturbing. But she had seen Granda just before, and he had spoken about kindness….
“What’s going on?” she asked her friend Ana, who lived down the street and was her own age. Ana had come to the funeral and then back to the house afterward, of course, along with her parents and her cousin Jedidiah, looking handsome in his military uniform. Her grandparents’ next door neighbor was there, too, Tony, who was eighteen already. He and Jed were off talking, so she was able to talk to Ana alone.
“You didn’t know?” Ana asked her. “They got that guy that was killing people. I guess maybe you didn’t hear as much about him down south, but up here, people were paranoid. He was buried today, too.”
And she had put a rose on his coffin.
Later, when she was alone with her grandmother, she was told again to stop talking about seeing her grandfather.
“You loved him, my girl. I know that. But you must stop saying you’ve seen him, though I know you are only trying to ease my heart.”
“Am I hurting you, Gran?” she asked.
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then what?”
Gran looked at her very seriously. “It’s dangerous. Very dangerous. So today you’ve said goodbye. Never, ever think of him as speaking to you…being near you…again.”
“Granda would never hurt me.”
“Not Granda.”
“But—”
Gran was suddenly intense. “To see Granda…you have opened a door. And God alone knows who else might pass through that door.”
Gran’s words chilled her.
“Gran, was Ana telling me the truth? No one thinks twelve is old enough to understand anything, but it is. Tell me, please, was a murderer buried today?”
Her grandmother’s face went white. “Never speak of it, never speak that name in connection with your grandfather!”
“What name?”
“Never you mind. It’s over. An awful time is over. And your grandfather…well, he’s in God’s arms now. Where monsters go, I do not know.”
Gran kissed her then, and held her. “’Tis all right, my girl, ’tis all right. We have love. I have you, and I have your Mom, and my dear son and his lads…. ’Tis all right.”
Christie looked at her. She wanted to scream, because it wasn’t all right. They were always trying to shelter her from the world, but surely it was better to understand the world than hide from it.
But here in her grandparents’—her grandmother’s now—house, everyone was too upset.
Too lost.
She didn’t know why, and it made her afraid. Not afraid of Granda, but just…
Afraid.
Afraid of the dead.
That night, she didn’t sleep. She lay awake, praying silently in her soul that he wouldn’t come.
And he didn’t.
She had probably just been so upset that she was imagining things.
Granda, don’t come again. Don’t ever come again. If you love me at all, please, don’t ever come again.
She told herself that all she felt was the whisper of a breeze, though there was none. A gentle touch, as if…
As if she had been heard and understood.
Her grandfather didn’t appear.
In fact, she never saw him again, not even in dreams.
And as the years passed by, slowly, certainly, she forgot.
It had only been a dream, just as her mother had said.
She was able to believe that for nearly twelve years. And
