All Things Lost (58 page)

     
Bryan
grinned. “Don't worry, everyone seems to underestimate me; some because of the title and others because of my age. I'm used to it. It's actually fun to prove people wrong now and then. So this ghost,
Amalie
, showed you where the baby was? How did the baby die?”

     “She didn't exactly show us,” Steve said slowly.

     “We saw it in bits and pieces of vision seen by Killian and myself,” Judy explained.

     That caused the young pastor's eyebrows to take a leap. “Killian, you're psychic, too?”

     I snorted.
“Hardly!
Judy says I'm a sensitive, that's all.”

     “That's all, he says,” Steve grumbled.
Bryan
looked impressed.

     “Together we got a picture of
Amalie
falling down the stairs to the cupola and accidentally killing the baby,” Judy went on. “Then we saw her digging a hole in the earth floor of the basement. We concluded that she had buried the baby there so I went back and did some sensing down there and pinpointed the spot where I thought the baby was.”

     “Hey!” I said, suddenly remembering my other vision. “How does the guy in the boat fit into this?”

     Everyone turned to look at me blankly.

     
“The guy in my first vision?
Or was that just a weird dream that had nothing to do with anything?”

     “Good question,” Judy said thoughtfully. “I really have no idea.”

     “Maybe it was
Amalie's
husband,”
Bryan
said.

     “He was a sea captain,” Steve said, “He was lost at sea around the time we think this was happening.”

     “Maybe it was the baby's father,” Judy suggested slowly.

     “Huh?” I asked intelligently. I thought we had just established that he was lost at sea.

     “The baby's father wasn't necessarily the Captain,” Judy clarified. “She was home alone much of the time. She was young and beautiful; it wasn't that uncommon, even in that day, for a woman in her position to have a lover.”

     “Do you have any proof?” Adam asked.

     
“None at all.”

     “This is like trying to put a puzzle together without knowing what the picture is,” Adam complained.

     “And without even having all the pieces,” I added.

     “We're not going to figure it out tonight,” Judy said pragmatically, “It may remain a mystery forever.”

     “Cheery thought. I like to have nice neat endings,” Steve said in a slightly whiny voice.

     “Real life doesn't always have nice neat endings,”
Bryan
observed. “So what was my involvement tonight, anyway? Why did you want me there?”

     “I don't know really,” Steve said honestly. “I think it was just a feeling that someone from the church should be present at the disinterment of a body.”

     “Are you going to rebury it somewhere?”

     “We'd like to, assuming Dr. Niemeyer releases the remains to us.”

     “So clinical, calling the baby `the remains',” Judy said with distaste.

     “It would help if we knew what gender the baby was.” Steve tried again, “We'd like to bury the baby by its mother in the small private graveyard out behind the house.
Amalie
is buried there and there's a beautiful angel statue that I think
Amalie
had put up in memory of her husband. Would you be willing to
officiate
a small, informal service?”

     “I'd be honored,”
Bryan
answered solemnly.

     “We'll let you know as soon as the baby is released back to us.”

     The conversation turned to other, more general topics, but I couldn't get my mind off the idea that
Amalie's
haunting days may not be over with the discovery and reburial of her child.

* * *

     A week later a small group stood in a semi circle around the small grave that had been dug next to
Amalie's
plot. The sky was appropriately overcast, but for once the forecast wasn't calling for any rain. The somber group included Adam, Steve, Kane, Micah, Judy, Bryan, Will, and I. Will had had come along after hearing the whole story from Bryan, who he was apparently getting closer to all the time. I wondered if he had taken my advice and was making an attempt to move on with
Bryan
.

     The baby's remains had been turned over to Steve first thing Monday morning. As Dr. Niemeyer had suspected, the bones were clearly not Native American and were from the mid-nineteenth century. He said the baby, which was a male, had only been about a couple months old.

     A tiny casket was already in the grave. A small headstone was going to be installed in a few weeks. There would be no name on it since we didn't even know his name. All it would say was “Here lies the son of
Amalie
Marnien
- Aged 1 month”.

     The exquisitely carved angel statue stood over us, adding a touch of dignity and mourning to the situation. Now that the vines had been cleared away I could see that she was indeed quite beautiful, as Steve had said. Her eyes were downcast in a reverential manner, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer.

     
Bryan
cleared his throat and began to speak. “Life is a precious gift that is given to each of us. What we do with that gift is left to each individual, but until we are old enough to make those decisions for ourselves, it is left in the stewardship of our parents.

     “This life that we are here today to honor was cut off far too early. I'm sure the pain that this caused his mother was something only another parent who has lost their child can understand.” Adam sniffed a little at that and I realized that he was crying. “While all of us can not fully appreciate the loss, maybe we can understand the preciousness of a gift that is taken away before we are ready. We can take comfort in the thought that this innocent child went to be with his heavenly parent even as he lost his earthly ones.

     “As I was trying to find something that I thought was appropriate for a moment like this I ran across a poem that was written about the time this child lived and died. It was written by a woman named Helen Hunt Jackson, and standing here now looking at this beautiful angel statue, it occurs to me that this poem is even more fitting than I even first thought. Mrs. Jackson wrote,

“
All lost things are in the angels' keeping, Love;

No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, Love.

At last.

     “This baby may have died too soon, but he is not dead, but in the arms of the angels. May he rest in
peace.
”

     In the silence I heard Judy whisper, “And his mother, too.”

* * *

     We were leaving the grave site, Steve and Adam were filling in the grave, when Will caught my arm and pulled me aside.

     “Can we talk for a second?” he asked.

     “Sure,” I said.

     “I have a favor to ask, but first I want to know if you're ok?”

     “I'm fine,” I told him. “Do you mean from the attack?”

     “Not exactly, I know you're ok from that. I meant, are you ok with Asher leaving?”

     I blinked in surprise. I hadn't expected that. I hadn't talked to anyone about his leaving and wasn't really ready to now. “Yeah, I'm fine. He's going whether I'm ok or not so what difference does it make?” That came out with more bitterness than I had intended.

     “Yeah, ok. None of my business, I guess.”

     “It's not that, Will. You know that. It's just, with everything going on; I haven't even had time to process it yet. I'm seeing Micah now, so I guess it shouldn't bother me at all, but it does.”

     “Just because you are dating someone else doesn't mean you stop caring about people from your past. You helped me see that.”

     “Are you dating
Bryan
now?” I
asked,
eager to change the subject.

     “We're not exactly dating, at least not yet. We're just good friends for now. There's something I need to do before I'm ready to date. That's what I wanted to ask you about.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I need to say goodbye.”

     “To…?”

     “Aidan. I never got the chance, or I guess I had the chance, I just wasn't ready to take it then.”

     “I don't understand,” I said, “I mean, I think it's great that you want to move on, but what does that have to do with me?”

     “I want to say goodbye at his grave.”

     “He's buried in
Pennsylvania
.”

     “I know, in the town where your mom lives.”

     I began to see where he was going with this. “And you want me to drive up there with you,” I finished.

     Will nodded.

     “Yeah, I'll do that.” I told him. It was something I could do at least, and I'd get to see my mom at the same time. “But we'll have to go within the next week if you want to do it soon. I start college the week after that.”

     “That's fine. I can go anytime.”

     “Ok, you just say when.”

     “Let me talk to my mom and make sure she can take care of
Darin
while I'm gone and I'll call you.”

     “Ok.”

     We started walking back towards the house where everyone else was waiting.

     Suddenly
Will
stopped.

     “You know that painting I promised you for your 18
th
birthday?” he asked.

     
“Yeah?”

     “I just decided what I want to paint.”

     “What?”

     
“The angel.”

     I thought about it for a minute and the line
Bryan
had quoted, “All lost things are in the angels keeping.” I'd lost a lot, friends, family, boyfriends; it was comforting to think that everything I had lost was in the angels keeping. I liked it. I nodded and slipped my arm through Will's as we started walking again.

     “No past is dead for us, but only sleeping,” I whispered.
“At last.”