Here Lies Linc (29 page)

She even noticed a smile flit across my face when I read a letter about company coming to the Crenshaws’ for Sunday dinner and Dad getting into trouble for hiding food in his napkin. “What is it?” she asked eagerly. “What’s funny?”

“Dad hated broccoli just as much as I do,” I told her, feeling strangely satisfied.

A dozen letters later Lottie was exclaiming, “
What?
Lincoln was voted prom king? He never told me that!”

“Yes,” Miss Raintree confirmed with a proud lift of her chin. “Prom King of Verona High School, 1982.”

Lottie and I couldn’t help snickering a little. But the next time I looked over, my mother had started to cry. “What’s
wrong?” I whispered. She didn’t answer. I glanced at the neat cursive script on the piece of stationery in her hand. Then I understood. She was reading the letter I had just finished—one Ellen Crenshaw had sent right after Dad left for college. It described how much she missed him, how any minute she expected to hear him come clomping up the front porch stairs.

“Shall we put the letters away for now?” Miss Raintree suggested in a small voice.

“Oh, no,” Lottie said through her tears. “Not yet.” She blinked at the two of us in astonishment. “I almost forgot what a relief it is to cry.”

L
OTTIE INSISTED ON COMING WITH ME
after school the next day to face Kilgore. She stood silently near the doorway with her arms crossed while I babbled out an apology and offered to serve my time working on the cemetery grounds.

Kilgore never smirked or interrupted once as he sat behind his desk hearing me out. He waited for me to finish, his pointer fingers propped like a church steeple under his sharp chin. Obviously my mother’s presence had startled him into acting professional for a change. He must have known I had told her about the canteen in the vault. His gaze kept darting in her direction as he decided how to respond to my proposal.

“Well, I sure appreciate you and your mother coming by to set things straight,” he said, his voice as slick as oil. Lottie didn’t make a sound behind me. “How many hours are you offering to work?”

I clenched my arms tight to my sides. I had known this was coming. “That’s up to you, I guess,” I said guardedly. “Whatever you think is fair.”

He tapped his fingertips together. “Let’s see,” he considered, plainly beginning to enjoy himself. “I’d say eighty hours would about do it.”

Eighty?
I almost choked. It would take weeks to work off all that time. As if he could read my mind, Kilgore added, “If the snow starts falling early like last year, there might not be as much work for you to do around here. But that’s okay.” He allowed himself a hard little smile. “Whatever time you don’t finish this fall, you can make up in the spring.”

Already I felt weary at the thought of spending all those hours under Kilgore’s thumb—whole seasons of following his orders, waiting for him to snap like a rubber band pulled too tight.

“When do you want to start?” Kilgore asked.

I let out a deep sigh. “Tomorrow?”

“Fine.” Kilgore scrubbed his hand across his mouth as if he were trying to wipe off another smile.

Then I heard the swish of Lottie’s long patchwork skirt, and suddenly she was there beside me. “I’ll make sure that Linc keeps a time sheet of his hours,” she said. “And since we live right next to the graveyard and I work from home quite a bit”—she seemed to be lingering over each syllable, carefully enunciating, until somehow her words of reassurance shifted into a warning—“it will be very easy for me to keep a close watch on
exactly
what he’s up to over here.”

A long second passed. I could almost hear what Kilgore
was thinking as he sat there measuring up my tiny mom with her mop of streaky hair and secondhand-shop clothes.
What a kook
. But something in the way Lottie raised one eyebrow and fixed Kilgore in her steely stare must have made him decide to watch his step.

“Yes, ma’am,” he finally said.

That’s what got me through those cold November afternoons working in the cemetery. Whenever my hands turned numb on the rake and Kilgore zoomed up in his golf cart to point out another tiny pile of oak leaves I had missed in the fading light, I would smile to myself, remembering how scared he had sounded as my mother stared him down. “Yes, ma’am,” he had practically mumbled, like a kid in the principal’s office.

Meanwhile, our Adopt-a-Grave Projects were due in the middle of November. I took two days off Kilgore duty so I could rush to the historical society after school and search for more clues about the Black Angel. It was always dark by the time I finally got around to taking the dogs for a quick run. But Mr. Krasny seemed to understand. One night he even invited me to stay for dinner. He made us something called
lívance
—Czech pancakes—and after dinner I showed him what I had found on my latest trip to the society. We didn’t even realize another hour had passed until Lottie came to rap on Mr. Krasny’s front door and order me home to bed.

I was so tired those afternoons working in the cemetery. Some days I did my own version of Civil War reenacting, pretending I was a downtrodden soldier in the winter campaign of 1863 as I swept out the toolshed or pushed wheelbarrows
full of mulch. When Kilgore showed up to fire out more orders, I pretended he was an evil army captain all the troops hated, and I made up mean nicknames for him under my breath. Killer Kilgore. Hatchet Face. Old Smokey. Captain Killjoy.

But the main thing that kept me content as I whittled away at my eighty hours was the thought that from now on I could wander into the cemetery and visit Dad’s grave whenever I felt like it, without worrying about Kilgore or anything else keeping me out. I had earned the right.

O
N A BRIGHT SATURDAY
, just before our Adopt-a-Grave Projects were due, I organized my very own field trip to Oakland so Delaney and I could practice our reports in front of a handpicked audience. Kilgore happened to be standing outside the workshop when we drove into the parking lot. He watched our weird little flock with narrowed eyes—me, Lottie, Delaney, Mr. Krasny, and Adeline Raintree, bundled in coats and hats, gloves and boots and galoshes, pouring out of my mother’s old car. I was wearing my brand-new running shoes. I was only supposed to use them for training, but I hadn’t been able to resist putting them on that morning. They were bright red and white—Plainview’s colors—and they made me feel like I had springs in my feet.

Kilgore took a few steps into the parking lot as I hurried around to open Lottie’s trunk. We had brought along Mr.
Krasny’s wheelchair so he wouldn’t get too tired on our expedition. “What’s going on?” Kilgore called out. “You coming to work today?”

“Not today,” I called back cheerfully. “We’re just here to pay our respects.” I hoisted the wheelchair out and slammed the trunk closed, trying not to laugh as I caught Delaney’s eye. The gravel crunched behind me, and I turned around to find Jeeter rattling up on a rusted bicycle. Looking over Jeeter’s shoulder, I could see Kilgore gawking in disbelief, deliberating whether he should come over to investigate.

“You made it.” I grinned.

“ ’Course I did,” Jeeter huffed as he lodged his front tire in the bike rack nearby. “You think I’d miss a chance to hear the real story of the Black Angel?” He turned to greet the others gathered beside the car. “Ladies,” he said with a gentlemanly nod. “Nice to see you again, sir,” he said to Mr. Krasny. Then he lifted his arm to wave at Kilgore. “Mornin’. How you been?”

Kilgore didn’t answer. He clamped his jaw shut and, with a disgusted shake of his head, retreated into the office. Jeeter let out a satisfied little chuckle. After he had given Lottie a hug, I introduced Jeeter to Adeline Raintree. He cocked his head in surprise when he heard me say “grandmother.” The word still felt foreign on my tongue.

“You’re Linc’s grandmother?” Jeeter repeated in confusion. His gaze raked over her old wool coat with its missing buttons, and he glanced at me for an uncertain second. But something in my expression must have made him know he
didn’t need to ask any more questions. His shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “Well, it’s real good to meet you, Miz Raintree,” he said, reaching out to clasp her hand.

She honored him with one of her rare, delighted smiles. “Addie,” she said, looking around at the rest of us. “Please. I’d like you all to call me Addie. That was Papa’s pet name for me and I’ve always preferred it to Adeline.”

Everyone nodded. I helped Mr. Krasny get settled in his wheelchair with a blanket over his knees. Then we set out under the cold sunshine, slowly making our way in what was probably the most ragtag procession to ever wander through Oakland Cemetery.

As it turned out, we had a lot of stops to make. Mr. Krasny wanted to show us his wife’s grave. I rolled him right across the browning grass so he could kiss his fingertips and rest them on top of the headstone for a minute.

Then Delaney wanted to pay a quick visit to Babyland.

“This won’t take long,” she said, opening the squeaky gate and slipping inside. We all gathered along the wrought-iron fence to watch as she unzipped the top of her large satchel and, like a magician, pulled out a huge store-bought bunch of miniature daisies. Once she had worked the rubber band off the stems, she quickly filed along the rows, leaning down to leave a single daisy on each small grave until the bouquet was almost gone.

“Thank goodness,” Delaney breathed, hurrying back to us with a relieved smile. She tucked the last of her daisies into her satchel. “I was afraid I’d run out.”

“A flower for each one,” Addie marveled, looking over those bright flashes of white scattered across the dry ground.

“I have a new baby sister,” Delaney explained. “I just wanted to do something special in her honor.”

Addie seemed curious to hear more, so Delaney told her every last detail about Ellie on our way to Robert Raintree’s grave—down to how many times she had smiled so far. It was funny. Even though we were making rounds through a graveyard, everyone’s mood couldn’t help but stay light with all that talk about how often babies need to eat and burp and have their diapers changed.

Under the giant oak we gathered around Professor Raintree’s tombstone. Delaney took out her notes and launched into her report, and I had to keep reminding myself,
This is my great-grandfather she’s talking about
. As Delaney described the highlights of Robert Raintree’s law career, I couldn’t resist glancing over at Addie. She was mesmerized, savoring every word.

When Delaney was finished, we gave her a round of applause. “Thanks, y’all,” she said. Then she turned shyly to Addie. “But did I leave anything out?”

Addie clasped her hands together. “It would be impossible to tell everything about Papa in a single report. I’ve often thought someone should write a book about him.” Then it was her turn to dive into details. Jeeter rocked on his heels and exchanged a patient smile with Lottie as Addie described how my great-grandfather had worked his way through college delivering milk from the back of a horse-drawn wagon,
how he had given only two A’s during his entire time teaching at the law school, how he had sung baritone in the university’s faculty choir.… Delaney pulled a pencil from her satchel and took notes.

“And,” Addie concluded as she stepped closer to his headstone, “he adored sunflowers.” She stared at the blank patch of ground where her bouquets usually sat. “If only my garden could bloom all winter long.”

“Here,” Delaney said, reaching into her satchel again. “If you’d like, I have a few daisies left.”

Addie paused. Then she accepted the limp flowers with a grateful nod. “Thank you,” she said as she bent down to arrange them carefully at the base of the headstone. “Come to think of it, Papa would probably appreciate a little variety now and then.”

Lottie crouched next to her to examine the stone. “This carving of a torch,” she said. “It’s quite unusual. Do you remember anything about how your family chose this particular design?” I pressed my lips together to keep from looking smug. I’d been wondering how long Lottie could last without reverting to her professor mode.