Mind Games

“And still, they bring joy, they bring love. Through our grief we feel that joy, that love because they send it to us. To all of us, friends, neighbors from near and far. They send it to our family.

“To you, Mama, to you, Waylon, and especially to you, Thea and Rem. Their loss cuts so deep, it’s hard to get through and believe that. But we do, and we will. The light they brought into the world, it’s never going out. It shines on in their children.”

When Caleb sat again, the man in the black suit invited anyone who wanted to say a few words to come up.

Plenty did, to say kind things or tell a funny or sweet story.

But as Thea sat, her heart stopped pounding. Waylon’s song, Caleb’s words seemed to flow right into her. And somehow they dulled the sharp, cutting edge of pain she’d fought against since she put on the black dress.

The cemetery lay outside the town proper, with its stones and monuments on rolling hills.

The man in the black suit spoke again, then both Caleb and Waylon got up.

“What are they going to do, Grammie?”

“I don’t know, Rem.”

They stood together on the sun-washed hill with the flower-draped coffins behind them.

“We’re here to say goodbye to Cora and John. Mama and Daddy raised us with music, so Caleb and I, we decided we’d sing them off. Not with a sad song, but a song about life, and the love in it.”

They sang, a cappella, “In My Life.”

At the first line, Lucy choked back a sob. She swallowed the tears, let out a long, long sigh.

She kissed Rem’s hand, then Thea’s. The three of them sat, joined, while her sons’ voices carried over the rolling hills.

After, people came up to offer condolences, embraces, but eventually they stood alone together, brothers, mother, children.

“I want to say how proud I am of you, my boys. For the song in the service, Waylon, for your words, Caleb. How they’re going to stay with me for the rest of my days. And for what you did here. None of that was easy for you to do, but you did it for them, and for me, and these children.

“Let’s go on home now. People will already be there, and we’re grateful to the friends who stayed back from the gravesite to greet them. Let’s go on home, and we’ll come back when the stone’s set. We’ll bring flowers.”

* * *

People filled the house, spilled onto the porches, wandered on the grass, front and back. They ate ham, collard greens, cornbread, casseroles, and cake. They drank sweet tea and lemonade and beer and wine.

Younger kids ran around outside with the dogs. With Lucy’s permission, Rem changed out of his suit, but Thea kept her dress on. Since it would be the last time she wore it, she decided she’d keep it on until people left.

But she did take some of the quiet time in her room. Better for it, she came down. Even with the window opened only a crack, she could tell the grief didn’t weigh as heavy. People wanted to tell stories about her mom and dad, especially her mom, that made that weight a little lighter.

She met a man who’d gone to college with her parents, who’d been best man at their wedding.

“You won’t remember me,” he said. “I haven’t seen you since you were about five or six, not in person. I moved to Chicago, so I didn’t get to see your mom and dad much after that. This is my wife, Melissa.”

“They went to your wedding. We were here with Grammie, so they went to your wedding in Chicago. Not last summer, but maybe the one before that.”

“That’s exactly right. He was my best man, like I was his.”

“You came all the way from Chicago?”

“I loved him,” he said simply. “Your mom, too.”

She’d thought it would hurt, all the people, all the feelings, but it helped, at least a little.

Somebody convinced Waylon to get his guitar, and somebody else got another, and somebody else a banjo. So music started on the front porch while little kids and dogs raced around back.

And that helped somehow, too.