Mind Games

“Why don’t we go on down, put some food together? We can all talk about it after some lunch. We’ll talk about all of it together.”

Chapter Eight

They ate and talked about Caleb moving to New York, drank lemonade and talked about Waylon’s latest travels.

When they’d cleared the table, Lucy told her sons they’d more than earned a beer.

“We need to talk about the arrangements I’ve made.” With everyone around the table again, Lucy began. “I can change things, if anyone wants something else or different. I want to make sure I’ve made the right choices. First, Cora and John are coming home here tomorrow.”

“Can we see them?”

Lucy shook her head at Rem. “No, darling. I’m sorry.”

“Because of the way he killed them.”

Waylon’s face went to stone, but his eyes flooded with rage. Beside him, Caleb laid a hand on his arm.

“That’s right. We’re going to have pictures of them. Your uncles brought their pictures, and you can both have as many as you want. We’ll pick ones we want to put out for the funeral.”

“Can we do a gallery wall here, Grammie? Not just with their pictures. I mean with everybody’s?”

“Rem, that’s such a good idea.” Lucy beamed at him. “We’ll go through my picture albums sometime soon and start on that.

“The funeral home, they’re going to pick up”—she hesitated, then went on—“the caskets from the airport. Cora had white and pink hydrangeas in her bridal bouquet because she favored them, so we’re having those at the service, and at the gravesite. I thought we’d have just one stone because they’re together and always will be.”

She cleared her throat. “In my first anger and grief, I thought about having it say something like taken from us through cruelty, but that’s not how we should remember them. So I thought, something that honors them. I thought what John put on Cora’s anniversary watch. For All Time.”

“That’s perfect, Mama,” Caleb told her.

“None of us are big churchgoers so I thought having the service right in the funeral home’s the best. Caleb, Waylon, I’m going to ask you both for something hard. Caleb, I’m asking you to do their eulogy, to get up there and speak for all of us, if you think you can.”

He didn’t speak, just nodded.

“Waylon, the hard I’m asking you? That song, ‘Endless Love,’ they had at their wedding for their first dance. I’m asking you to sing that for them, and for us, just like you did for the wedding.”

“Mama.” He closed his eyes, then, like his brother, nodded. “Of course I will.”

“Is all of that all right with you, Thea, and you, Rem?”

“Can one of the pictures be their wedding picture, the one on the gallery wall in Virginia?” Thea asked. “If we’re having the flowers and the song…”

“That’s just perfect.”

“Can Cocoa come? They loved Cocoa.”

“Well, I’ll find out about that, Rem. If she can’t come in the funeral home, she can sure come to the gravesite. We’ll have the funeral day after tomorrow, and after, people will come back here. The eating places in town are sending food. They won’t take money for it. But I’m going to make a ham and an apple stack cake. Cora favored my ham, and John surely loved my apple stack cake. I’ve got a list of what I need at the market, if one of you boys would drive in and get that for us.”

“I’ll take care of that, Mama,” Waylon told her.

“I appreciate that. I’ll give you a check you can fill out when—”

“No, you won’t. Don’t say that to me, Mama. Don’t. Cora was my sister, John was a brother to me.”

When his eyes went teary, Lucy rose and went to him. “You’re right.” From behind his chair, she hugged him, kissed his shaggy hair. “We all have to say goodbye in the best way we can. If I’ve left something out, or you want something else, just say.”

“Will a lot of people come?”

“I expect they will, Rem. And your granny’s coming up tomorrow with Stretch, and my brother, my sisters, your cousins. Your mama and daddy had friends in Virginia, and some of them are coming, too.”