Gravedigger's Cottage Read Free Page B

didn’t try to explain anything away even though it was not his fault. “I am so sorry,” he said again, shaking his head, looking at Lucy, shaking his head. I felt so sorry for him, seeing his face, seeing this big guy, this big nine-foot-tall truck driver guy, seeing him go all crackly faced, and it just got worse when he leaned over past me and put his plaid shirt down over Lucy, as if we could still keep her warm, keep her wrapped, keep any more of her from seeping out and away.
    “I’m sorry, mister,” I said, looking up at him, but staying crouched low to stroke Lucy. “I’m not supposed to let her off the leash, ever…I’m sorry…”
    That was when I started to cry. And then that was when the truck driver started doing not so well himself, and I got a whole lot worse when I saw him, not crying exactly, but coming I guess as close as one of these big nine-foot men probably comes.
    I turned away from the bright glassy eyes on that man, bright glassy shiny eyes where I could swear for a flash I was sure I saw us reflected. The picture of me and Lucy on the ground, her helpless, me useless. I turned from him and buried myself, laid my whole face right down into the neck part of my Lucy, just below her folded velvet ear, where she used to let you nuzzle for hours, and I nuzzled her for maybe hours, at least until I felt my dad’s hands squeezing my shoulders, warming me and comforting me and making me start to wail harder than ever.
    She was already all stiff when we put her down in the corner of the yard a few hours later. I couldn’t believe it. Already. Already going and gone and taken away. Rigid, like she was already not our Lucy who would fetch oranges across this same yard, but a stuffed museum version of our Lucy. Her closed eyes were kind of pulling in, like she was squinting them, holding them tight against seeing what was going on and maybe then keeping it from going on.
    Nice try, Luce. Hold ’em closed tight and maybe see something better.
    Dad scooted up next to me at the foot of Loose Lucy’s grave. He had an arm draped over my shoulder. His fingernails were packed with the rich clay dirt of the digging, and his shirt was moist with sweat. The smell of him made me feel comfortable and right in a very sad way. This was the smell, to me, of saying good-bye.
    I would know that smell, wouldn’t I? I was doing this all the time, killing things. Unless it was them doing it to me, dying. All the same, in the end, they ended up there, under there, under us, with the earth upturned and the scent penetrating all the way into me and staying there.
    Walter had stood by the grave now for as long as he was able to do any one thing. He had been okay through this, resisting his natural urge to upset me and to pretend he didn’t feel hurt. Without speaking, he went into the house.
    He didn’t see me see him, but I saw him raise his eyes and tell her good-bye.
    “What are you thinking, Sylvie?” Dad asked.
    Two things. One, for starters, he didn’t ever call me Sylvie, like I said. He was trying to play. He was trying to help. I loved it when he tried.
    The other thing was, he knew better than to ask that. We had been through this many times before, with him asking me what was I thinking.
    I never answered that. Because I said what I was thinking when I wanted to talk about what I was thinking. I had no trouble saying, when I wanted to be saying, but when I didn’t want to be saying, you could tell, because I stood there, not saying. Because I think that’s important. I think your thoughts are more like a place, where you can stay, comfortably alone if need be.
    But he asked, and I told him. I told him all that, or at least I used to tell him all that, all those first few thousand times he asked me what I was thinking, but now I had shortened the whole thing to a special one-word digest: “Dad,” which was pronounced with two distinct syllables, “Da-ad,” and he remembered right away and then we were