Once Upon Another Time (13 page)

I sat down on the
couch and picked up the book.  Next to the last paragraph on one of the pages,
was a highlighted mark.  I didn’t know how Matt was doing this, but I knew it
had to be him. 

In the story, the
architect had been thinking about the woman he had loved and lost…and then the
woman he had caught a glimpse of the night before.  Familiar with the story, I
knew that the woman he loved and lost was his wife, but the woman he’d caught a
glimpse of one night was the beautiful spirit who he could only dream of. 

I didn’t have a
clue what Matt was trying to tell me.  Obviously, he was the one I’d loved and
lost, but who would I have had caught a glimpse of in the recent days, that
person being someone I could only dream of.  The only person I dreamed of was
Matt.

Nicholas had his
nose in a book reading up on prehistoric animals and fossils, as we drove to
the cemetery to put flowers on Matt’s grave.  It was early morning on July
fifteenth, and as I thought about Matt being taken from this earth seven years
ago to the day, I couldn’t help but wonder why there had been no sign of him
since Wednesday, when I last glimpsed him in Laura’s office.  And why did he
always ask me to find him? 

“Mom,” said
Nicholas as he brushed away a mop of sandy hair that fell over his forehead. 
“What are am...amphib...”

“Amphibians?”

“Yeah, what are
they?”

 “They’re
creatures that spend part of their lives in the water and part on land like
frogs and toads.  But they looked a lot different back in prehistoric times.” 

“How?”

“Amphibians
started out as fish that used their strong fins as legs to come out of the
water, but they could only be out for a short time.  Scientists don’t know for
sure, but they think that after thousands of years had passed the fins became
legs.”

“Wow that’s cool! 
That’s why I want to be like Ross when I grow up.”

I drew a complete
blank as to who Ross was.  “Honey, we don’t know anyone named Ross.”

Nicholas rolled
his eyes.  “He’s Rachel’s friend...you know on the reruns.  That TV program
Friends
?”

“Ohhhh, you want
to be a paleontologist.”

“Yeah, a
pal-eon...whatever, that would be my dream.  Maybe I could become famous like
Ross only even more famous by finding scientific proof that fish’s fins did
turn into legs.”

At Nicholas’s age,
I wasn’t dreaming of anything as serious as a career.  I only dreamed about
living in the
Brady Bunch
household and having lots of brothers and
sisters to eat grilled hamburgers and greasy fries with, as opposed to being an
only child and eating veggie burgers.

“Mom, can I pick
out the roses?”  Nicholas strained to look over the dashboard as I pulled up to
the florist shop. 

“Of course,” I
said, and unfastened my seat belt.

Every anniversary
on our way to the cemetery, we’d stop at the florist and choose five yellow
roses to place at Matt’s grave.  One for each year, we were married. 

After Nicholas
carefully inspected and chose each rose, we took them to the checkout. 
Nicholas handed them to the thin figured, silver-haired man on the other side
of the counter.

“Will this be
all?” asked the elderly man, when in my head I heard him say, “Why couldn’t God
have taken me instead of Marion?”  Sadness gripped me when I looked into his
brown watery eyes.  

“Yes,” I answered. 
As he walked away to wrap the roses, Nicholas playfully hopped his dearly
departed chameleon, Greenleaf, across the register counter and like a
superhero, the chameleon was airborne and landed on a package of crocus bulbs.

When the man returned
with the green tissue wrapped roses, I wanted to squeeze his thick-veined hand
and tell him it would all right.  Instead, I pulled a twenty-dollar bill from
my wallet.  As he rang up the sale, he stared curiously at Greenleaf, while
Nicholas untangled the chameleon’s stiffly bent tail from the plastic mesh
packaging. 

“Well, I can’t say
that I’ve ever seen a toy that looks quite like that one,” the man said with a
smile while handing me my change.

“He’s not really a
toy,” Nicholas said, “he’s just dead.”

“Oh!” said the
elderly man, as he placed a palm on the counter and leaned over to get a better
look. 

Suddenly, my hand
found his.  “Sometimes it doesn’t make sense who God takes or leaves on this
earth, but just give it time and you’ll be all right.”

The man looked
startled as I hurried Nicholas out of the shop, not wanting to explain my odd
behavior.  As we drove away from the florist shop, I thought about how my life
flashed before my eyes the day Matt died.  It was like I was five-years-old
again and at the beach with my parents.  The colorful shells surrounding my
feet disappearing in the rushing water rising to my knees, pulling me down, the
ocean trying to swallow me up. 

“Mom?”

I glanced at
Nicholas.  “Yes?”

“Remember when you
told me about spirits going to heaven.  Well, if I leave Greenleaf at Dad’s
grave, are you sure Dad’s spirit will find him even though they’re not in the
same part of heaven?” 

I was proud that
Nicholas made his own decision to part with his chameleon and take a leap of
faith that his father would watch over his beloved pet.

“Don’t worry,
they’ll find one another.” 

As I drove my
vehicle past the cemetery gates, the lush green lawn was drenched in sunlight
that stretched through breeze-kissed weeping willows.  The cemetery looked
different that day.  Almost reminiscent of a garden, magnificent marble
mausoleums and gravestones sprouted up along the rolling hillside, while carved
angel statues dotted the cemetery and gleamed like garden ornaments.

I slowed my
vehicle and stopped at the bottom of the hill of the three-tiered cemetery, glancing
up at Matt’s gravesite on the second tier.  Unlike that sunny day, Matt’s
funeral was a sea of black umbrellas traveling through the cemetery in a heavy
downpour.  People hurried along to take shelter under the large canopy set up
over his grave.  Gusting winds flapped the canopy panels, as the priest led
everyone in prayer, and afterward I laid five yellow roses on top of Matt’s
coffin. 

“Mom, can I open
the door now?”

“Yes, but be careful.”

Nicholas bolted up
the hill toward his father’s resting place, as I kept a steady pace behind
him.  Off to my right, around twenty feet away, I saw a woman around my
mother’s age, late fifties.  A small Jack Russell Terrier playfully nipped at
her heels, as she marched up the hill toting a canvas bag and a large bouquet
of yellow and lavender wild flowers wrapped with a wide purple ribbon. 

Nicholas scrambled
to the second tier and looked a little out of breath as he stood in front of
Matt’s headstone with hands gesturing.  I guessed he was introducing Greenleaf
to his father.

The woman beside
me stopped at a black marble monument with a carving of a large Celtic cross.

As I reached
Matt’s grave, Nicholas said, “Mom, do you think I should set Greenleaf right
here on the grass in front of Dad’s headstone?” 

“Looks like a good
place to me.  Honey, do me a favor,” I said while unwrapping the roses and
handing a wad of tissue to Nicholas, “please go put this in that trash bin.”  I
pointed to the next tier up. 

“That’s where the
old gravestones with the pictures are.  Can I stay and look at them?”

 “Okay, but no
wandering off.”  I playfully ruffled the hair on top of his head.  “And no
picking flowers.” 

As Nicholas rolled
his eyes and tottered off, I smiled to myself, recalling Memorial Day when he
swiped a rose wreath from someone’s grave because Matt didn’t have any flowers
on his grave.  Getting angry was impossible when his intentions were so good.

While I arranged
the roses in the gravesite vase, I heard murmuring.  I looked over my
shoulder.  The woman who walked up the hill next to me sat back on her heels
communing with her dearly departed, as her terrier playfully ran laps around
her.  With lips moving and head bobbing, she sprayed the marble headstone with
a bottle of blue liquid, pulled a terrycloth rag from a blue canvas tote, and
began polishing the headstone. 

As I turned to
check on Nicholas, I thought back to Matt’s parents.  They were upset with me
because I wouldn’t let them bury him in the family plot in New Jersey.  My very
first gravesite talk with Matt was a week after he died.  As I stood in front
of his grave cradling my belly, I told him how important it was to have kept
him in Providence.  It was more for his unborn son than for me.  The thought of
Nicholas never meeting his father was unbearable.  At least having Matt buried
in Providence would always be a reminder to Nicholas of his father’s once
existence, a place he could visit, even if it was just a grassy knoll with a headstone. 

Just as I had
finished arranging the roses in the vase, I felt something prickly assaulting
the back of my leg.  I looked down to see the woman’s terrier wrapped around my
right calf, as he began to work himself into a frenzy.  “Hey stop that!”  His
spindly little hips moved faster than the hips of a Salsa dancer.  I tried to
un-stick him, but it was as if he had super-glued himself to my leg.  He stared
up at me with wild, black beady eyes.

“Down boy down!” 
With hips pumping and teeth bared, he growled at me like a jealous Latin
lover.  I finally managed to shake him loose and looked to see if the woman was
paying any attention to her dog.  She was still in heavy conversation with her
beloved.  Just then, the horny little brown beast snatched Greenleaf and ran
off like a bandit.

“Hey, come back
here!” 

The distempered
pooch raced in the opposite direction of his owner, with Greenleaf dangling
from his jaws.  With the chameleon’s little mouth open wide in permanent rigor,
I imagined a high-pitched voice yelling
Help meee!
  It was like a scene
from the old Saturday Night Live Mr. Bill skit, only it starred Mr. Greenleaf
and Sluggo the dog.

My lungs burned,
as I chased across the second tier after the terrier.  Baiting me, he slowed
down to do a pony prance.  Agitated and wheezing, the sudden burst of unwanted
exercise had put me in a foul mood, but I knew yelling at the dog would serve
no purpose.

“Come on boy, be a
good doggie, drop the chameleon.”  The little beast stopped and looked at me as
if to ask,
what’s in it for me?
  As I was about to tackle him, he dashed
off up the hill.  He ran past a man standing up on the third tier.  Lit from
behind by the afternoon sun, all I saw was his silhouette.  I lifted a hand to
block the glare in my eyes, but all I could make out was his plaid shorts,
which were a definite abomination of style. 

A shrill whistle
sliced through the tranquility of the cemetery and pulled my attention away. 
Behind me, the terrier’s master held two fingers between her teeth, whistling
as if she were hailing a New York cab.  I turned to see the dog run down the
hill toward his master and ditch Greenleaf on the way.  Like a teeny weenie
stuntman in a chameleon costume, Greenleaf’s stiff little body tumbled down the
hill and toppled into a bright red potted geranium.  

I scanned the third
tier of the cemetery and found Nicholas examining what must have been a
photograph on a headstone, but there was no sight of the man, who seemed to
have vanished.

I made my way over
to where Greenleaf landed and rooted through the potted plant to retrieve him. 
Brushing the dirt off his poor tortured body, I noticed he was missing a leg. 
Find
my leg,
he seemed to say with his relentless stare.  I stuck my fingers
back in the dirt and searched, but the leg was MIA, and I didn’t have the
energy to trek back up the hill and hunt it down. 

I walked back to
Matt’s resting place and placed Greenleaf on the ground in front of the
headstone.  The tall grass concealed his missing back leg.  I peered up at the
top of the hill.  The feeling in the pit of my stomach was unsettling, like an
eerie calm before a storm. 
Who was that man?

As I ran a hand
over Matt’s gravestone, I heard Nicholas call to me.

“Mom!  Mom!”  He
was running down the hill in my direction with something in his hand, waving it
excitedly in the air.  He practically stumbled over his feet as he reached me.

“Okay, Partner,
just calm down.  What’s all the excitement about?”

Breathless he held
out his hand.  “Look what I have!”  The palm of his hand held a tarnished
silver chain-link bracelet with a single heart-shaped pendant.

“It’s for you,
Mom.”

“For me?”  I took
the bracelet from him.  It had been years since I’d seen one like it.  It
looked like a bracelet Matt had given me, one that I’d lost at a football game
when he was still alive.

“Where did you find
this?”  The pendant dangled as I held the bracelet by the chain.  

“I didn’t find
it.  The man up there told me to give it to you.”  Nicholas pointed up to the
third tier where the man with the atrocious shorts had stood, which oddly
enough reminded me of how Matt lacked any kind of fashion sense.

“Nicholas, what
have I told you about talking to strangers.”

“He wasn’t a
stranger.  He knew about Greenleaf dying, and told me not to be sad, and that
I’d get a pet for my birthday in October.”

I was taken
aback.  “He knew when your birthday was?”

“I guess,”
Nicholas said, with a shrug of his shoulders.  “Mom, look!  The heart has
writing on the back.”  Nicholas eagerly read the inscription on the pendant. 
“A. B., I Love You, M. P. M.”

As Nicholas stared
up at me, I became lightheaded. 
No, it can’t be.
 
There’s no
possible way.
  My heart pounded, as I stared at the initials.  Aubrey
Becker, I love you, Mathew Paul McCory.  I tried to tell myself it wasn’t the
bracelet Matt had given me in our last year of graduate school, and that the
inscription, although the exact words Matt had inscribed on the back of the
bracelet, was just a coincidence, but I knew it wasn’t.  The man knew my
son’s--our son’s birthday.