Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (18 page)

"Yes, ma'am, I surely would," Lizzie said, and then put her hand to her mouth, startled. Turner wheeled about on the organ stool.

"She does talk!" said Mrs. Cobb.

Lizzie stared at her.

"All these days, and never a word."

"I guess I never did have one to say," said Lizzie.

And Mrs. Cobb, cranky Mrs. Cobb, leaned forward and laid her hands against Lizzie's cheeks and held them there, slightly trembling. "Oh my land," she said quietly, "I had too many, but never the right ones for you. Oh, oh," and suddenly, quickly, she lay back against the chair.

Turner stood, and Lizzie pulled the afghan up around Mrs. Cobb's knees. She looked at Turner, then at Lizzie. She took a deep and rattling breath. Her eyes opened, closed, opened again, pale and opaque.

"Get your father," said Lizzie. "Hurry."

"Turner," Mrs. Cobb said.

"We're here, Mrs. Cobb."

Another deep and rattling breath.'"Safely to the mountains lead me. Safely to my heavenly home. Safely to Your mansions guide me. Never, oh never, to walk alone.'" Then she leaned back and closed her eyes.

"Mrs. Cobb?"

Her eyes stayed shut.

"Mrs. Cobb?"

She breathed twice more, gave a little cough, breathed once again.

"Mrs. Cobb?"

"She's gone," said Lizzie.

"No, she's not. She's still breathing."

Lizzie looked at her. "She's not breathing."

Turner put his ear to her mouth. "Yes, she is. She's still breathing."

Lizzie put her ear to her mouth. "I guess so," she said.

Together they watched Mrs. Cobb head to the mountains, and Turner took Lizzie's hand in his without even knowing it. They held their breaths, waiting for Mrs. Cobb's last. They hardly dared blink.

"You need to write the words down," whispered Lizzie.

Turner took the paper from the organ. He dipped the pen and wrote quickly.

"You got them?"

"I got them."

"Let me read it." She took the paper. "It was
walk
alone, not
be
alone."

"It was
be
alone."

"It was
walk
alone."

"Can't you even get that right? It was
walk
alone," said Mrs. Cobb. Her eyes were open and she was staring at them. "
WALK
alone." She sat up straight and let the horsehair gallop up beneath her. "It doesn't matter now anyway. I'll have to come up with a whole new set of last words. Something easier to catch, I guess." She glared at Turner.

"Mrs. Cobb, we thought you were..."

"I did, too, or I wouldn't have said my last words. And they were such nice last words."

"They were," said Lizzie.

"Oh hell," said Mrs. Cobb, "it's warm here. Get me a ginger ale."

Turner and Lizzie went to the icebox to get a ginger ale. "I told you she wasn't dead," said Turner.

"Well, let's just get you a black bag and call you doctor."

"She was breathing."

"Yes, doctor."

Lizzie grabbed a ginger ale and pried the cap off, and together they went back into the parlor.

"She was breathing the whole time. You just couldn't tell," whispered Turner.

"Here, Mrs. Cobb," said Lizzie, and held out the bottle.

Mrs. Cobb did not take it.

"Mrs. Cobb," said Lizzie again.

Mrs. Cobb did not open her eyes.

"I don't think she's breathing," said Turner.

Lizzie glared at him, then turned back. "Mrs. Cobb?"

But there were no more words to speak.

Turner had never seen death before. He had been to funerals, but never to anyone's he knew more than by name. But there the bodies were closed up, and it was almost hard to believe that a person lay inside the box, covered with linen and flowers and candlesticks.

But here was death with its dart, having spurted into the house as bold as you please and snapped its chilly fingers. Mrs. Cobb was no longer clenching the arms of her chair, and she was no longer fussing at the organ music, and she was no longer humming to the refrain. She was just no longer.

Lizzie took Mrs. Cobb's hands, laid them in her lap, and covered them with the afghan. She straightened her dress and brushed the hair off her forehead. Then she bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm not sure you're supposed to kiss a dead person," said Turner.

"You going to write down her last words?"

'"Oh hell, it's warm here. Get me a ginger ale'?"

"You going to write them down?"

"I'm not going to write down 'Oh, hell, it's warm here. Get me a ginger ale.'"

"You going to lie about her last words?"

"Yes."

"You can't lie about somebody's last words, Turner."

"I better go get my father," he said, and sprinted from Mrs. Cobb's house to the parsonage, from the parsonage to the Hurd house, and from the Hurd house to get Dr. Pelham, who came walking about as fast as he could with the black leather case he would not need to open. Lizzie was gone when Turner came into the parlor with the doctor, but Reverend Buckminster was there, and Deacon Hurd, and no end of folks came in while he examined her—though, Turner thought, anyone with half an eye could tell she had before them gone.

Turner was pushed farther and farther back, wondering why they didn't see that Mrs. Cobb would have hated all the fuss, that they were shoving furniture from where it was supposed to be, that they had bunched up the throw rugs in the front hall. Maybe this was what death was—when no one cared about one dang thing you had cared about.

And then Mr. Stonecrop was there, his large self parting the crowd like Moses holding out his staff over the Red Sea. Murmurs stilled and silence settled. Even Dr. Pelham stood. Mr. Stonecrop leaned over the body and put his ear to Mrs. Cobb's mouth. He stayed there a long time, and when he straightened up, he had taken possession of the situation. "She has gone to the heavenly reward she so richly deserved," he pronounced. "Before Reverend Buckminster leads us in prayer, we must know: Mrs. Cobb was waiting all her life, it seems, to say her last words. Was anyone here to hear them? Was anyone here to tell us what they were?"

"Turner?" asked his father.

Every eye came upon him. "Yes, sir."

"You were here."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you hear her last words?"

Turner nodded.

"Can you tell us what they were?"

"No, no, Reverend," said Mr. Stonecrop."Not here. Not like this. Let young Buckminster write down her last words. Then let them be read aloud when we come to pay our final respects."

Murmurs of approval.

"Just as you say, Mr. Stonecrop," agreed Deacon Hurd.

"I'm not sure...,"Turner began.

"Perhaps you might lead us in prayer now, Reverend," suggested Mr. Stonecrop.

While they all closed their eyes and bowed their heads, Turner went out to the porch. The first snow of the year was just beginning, the flakes so light that they hardly fell. They crystallized in the bright air and hovered, twirled a bit to catch the light on their angles, and then waited for a breeze to waft them away. As people came and went, he sat there looking across the street at Mrs. Hurd's house—the shutters and door painted green again—thinking how soon it had been after he had met them that Mrs. Hurd and Mrs. Cobb had both lighted out for their own Territories.

He thought through Mrs. Cobb's last words again. He closed his jacket, hunched his hands into his pockets, and set off to the spot on the shore where he hadn't jumped on that very day he had met Mrs. Cobb.

And when he got there, he found Lizzie sitting on the edge of the leap, holding a curl of yellow birch bark.

"You know this place?"

"I've lived here all my life. You've lived here a few months. You think there's a whole lot of places you know about that I don't?"

He sat down beside her. "Lizzie, I never saw anyone die before."

"I did. My mother."

"Is it always like that? One second she was here, and the next second she was gone. I mean, really gone."

"That's what it's like."

Together they watched as the green sea lolled about, the waves hardly peaked enough to break against the rocks. The snowflakes were bigger now, and they fell more heavily past Lizzie and Turner, their sharp angles slicing into the bulky sea. They disappeared in less than a moment, and the sea hardly noticed them at all.

"You tell anyone what her last words were?"

"Not yet."

"You going to?"

"I suppose you're right and I have to."

"When?"

"Mr. Stonecrop wants my father to read them at her funeral."

"Well," said Lizzie, "it'll be something folks talk about."

They watched the waves come in, so bulbous and full, as though they had all the time in the world—and more.

"They never stop," said Turner.

"My granddaddy is going to die," said Lizzie.

Turner watched the snowflakes fall even faster. Then he reached over and took her cold hand in his.

***

The funeral for Mrs. Cobb was three days later. Turner wrote out Mrs. Cobb's last words and gave them to his father, who put them in his front coat pocket, still folded. The whole congregation watched the paper in his pocket during the prayer for peace. They watched it while Lillian Woodward droned the hymns. They watched it while Reverend Buckminster delivered the eulogy. And they watched it when he removed it from his pocket and held it out to them.

"Such has been the beauty of this saintlike life. Such has been the glory of her passing. And at the moment of death, there can be no greater testimony to the Christian life than the final words of the dearly departed."

Turner was sweating enough to wilt even his starched shirt.

Reverend Buckminster unfolded the paper. It was upside down, and he turned it over slowly. Slight laughter from the congregation.

Turner sweated in places he didn't think he could sweat.

Reverend Buckminster was silent and still.

"Read it aloud, Reverend," called Mr. Stonecrop.

Reverend Buckminster cleared his throat. He cleared it again. "It's quite ... it's quite short," he said.

Murmurs in the congregation. Turner felt sweat dripping into in his eyes.

Reverend Buckminster cleared his throat again.'"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want,'" he said.

"Oh," from the congregation, disappointed.

'"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.'"

"Well, who's going to bother remembering that?" Turner heard behind him.

"Let us turn to hymn one hundred eighteen," announced Reverend Buckminster. He looked pointedly down at Turner. "Amazing Grace."

And when the sweet sounds of that hymn were finished, the pallbearers carried Mrs. Cobb's casket down the center aisle, followed by the minister and his wife—Turner a good deal behind them—and then the rest of the congregation. She was buried with her people in the cemetery behind First Congregational, straight in front of the headstone that marked the family plot, not far from her grandfather of the perfect picket fence. It was snowing again, and the air was so sharp and cold that most of the congregation, having already shown proper respect by coming to the funeral service, and having been disappointed by the resolution of the mystery of her last words, went home before the burial. But Turner stood by the graveside, along with his mother and father.

"Perhaps," said Deacon Hurd as he finished the final prayer, "you might say her last words once more, Reverend."

Another clearing of the minister's throat. "I think a holy silence might best become her," he said, and bowed his head.

When the committal was over, Turner told his parents he would stay to help the grave digger.

"No need for that," said his mother.

"I think she might like me to be here," said Turner, looking at his father.

"No need for that," said old Mr. Thayer, who had dug more graves for more years than he cared to count.

"I think she might like me to be here," said Turner, still looking at his father.

He stayed, and when old Mr. Thayer began to fill in the grave, Turner took the shovel from him and filled in most of it himself He was almost done when Lizzie appeared from out of the woods. "I think she might like me to be here," she said, and Turner handed her the shovel.

"That does beat all," said old Mr. Thayer, and he watched Lizzie fill in the grave and pat the cold earth tight over Mrs. Cobb. Turner and Lizzie stood by the grave as he gathered his tools and left, shaking his head. Together they sang "I Have Some Friends Before Me Gone."

"Your daddy read the last words?"

"He read them."

"He say them out loud?"

"No. He said something else."

"You're not supposed to lie about someone's last words."

"She won't mind."

Lizzie reached down and smoothed the bulge of the grave. "Plant some violets here in the spring," she said. "We'll plant them together."

But she shook her head. "Turner, look at things straight on, the way they're going to be." She stood up suddenly, then ran, twisting through the stones, leaving Turner alone beside the grave.

Before he walked home, he went past Mrs. Cobb's house and leaned against her grandfather's fence. He could almost hear his own organ music coming out, and he gripped the pickets so hard that he could feel them real and solid, things that had lasted a good long time and would probably last a good deal longer. Even when he could no longer hear the music, he could feel the pickets in his hand, the wood covered with layer after layer of whitewash, standing guard around the house for who knew how many winters. Past the fence, the house stood straight and ruled as it had for two centuries—maybe more. It seemed as solid as the granite on which it was built, and Turner marveled that it could still be so after Mrs. Cobb had gone.

Turner didn't know if he should be comforted because the house still stood, or afraid because it didn't care. Or both.

Three days later, he had another reason to think of Mrs. Cobb's house.

***

Turner knew that most of the business of any church happened right after the Sunday morning service, when everyone was breathing easy because the week's sermon had been successfully endured, the wheezing organ playing politely excused, and the tithing accepted as one of life's necessary hardships. While the congregation filed past the minister, exchanges were made, bargains agreed upon, transactions completed, and announcements announced.