Building Graves
Genevieve exited the limo without poise. She straightened her stockings absent-mindedly and tugged the tight black skirt down towards her knees. As she took a deep breath, the buttons on her jacket stretched their holes. She thanked the driver with a short, professional nod.
Genevieve walked up the steep driveway towards the crowd. The tang of wet asphalt invaded her nostrils and she wondered if the world was always so gray. Her heels clicked rhythmically and many people looked her way. The strangers clad in blacks and grays were people from long ago, people she no longer knew. She touched her hair, pulled back in a French twist so tight the roots had formed a white frame for her stretched face. Everything was in place.
She joined the group huddled around the casket and looked at what was left of her father’s legacy. A white wood, turned a light charcoal from the dark clouds, encased his body. The fresh dirt that lay beside his grave was dark and fertile. Many eyes followed her every move as she shifted her weight continuously to keep her heels from sinking into the earth. She wanted them to look away, pretend they did not see. The whispering began immediately, as she knew was inevitable. She let the hushed voices blend with the light wind as she closed her eyes and remembered. The world around her swirled in black and white and she felt numb.
When she dumped the contents on the floor, she was surprised to find a stack of black and white photos. Since when did her family own a black and white camera?
She couldn’t place the photo that lay on top until she recognized the ducks on the shower curtain.
What could this possibly mean? She couldn’t imagine why her dad would have these. Apprehensive, she looked at the other photos; all of them were like the first. She stared. She couldn’t piece it together – what did this mean?
The whispering invaded her thoughts and she pulled herself from the reverie. Genevieve saw the desire on the patrons’ faces; they wanted to approach her, ask her for answers to their burning questions. But they held their peace as the priest read a passage from the Bible. He called her father a warm and loving man and her heart began to pound alarmingly. She stood stock still, her head erect on her long neck. Her outward poise had returned.
She told her heart it wasn’t being fair – for fourteen long and wonderful years “loving” was the way she would’ve described him. He was the father every little girl dreamed of. She was his little princess.
“Evie? What’re you doing in…”Her father saw her face then. He saw the look of horror, disgust, and fear in her eyes. She thought she heard the sound of his heart breaking.
“Princess…” he said and he reached for his little girl. She jumped away.
Genevieve knew she couldn’t let herself surrender. Not now. She had come here because it was the proper thing to do. This was when she was supposed to make amends, to forgive the man who forever changed her life. His betrayal hurt so terribly because she had loved him so fiercely. It was such a hard thing to remember, to reach back in her mind and pull out the memories that existed before the poison spread.
She focused her gaze instead on the mound of soil. A metal shovel stuck out of it at an awkward angle. She wondered how long it would take one man to dig a hole so large and perfectly rectangular. The angles were sharp and the sides so shockingly straight she wondered how grave digging had gone so long undiscovered as an art form. It saddened her to think that once her father’s casket was laid within, all this beauty and hard work would be destroyed.
Before long the mound of dirt grew hazy and her focus drifted into a realm unseen. The priest had asked for a moment of silent reflection and Genevieve could not resist. She struggled for something further back, something before her poise was what she valued most.
She wanted to wear her Snow White costume to school in 3rd grade. She came floating down the stairs, lips smeared in ruby red lipstick her mom kept hidden in the back of a drawer because she never used it.
“Genevieve, what do you think you’re doing?” her mom scolded, “You’re not a little kid anymore, you have to dress properly for school.” Then she mumbled under her breath about how they were late again, and how was she supposed to explain to her boss that having a family really wouldn’t interfere with her work.
Little Genevieve began to tear up and turned to go upstairs, tripping in heels three sizes to big. Her dad sneaked up the stairs after her, hugged her, and said, “You’re still my little princess. How about I take you out after school today and you can wear any outfit you like?” She smiled widely, hugged him, and kissed him on the cheek. She giggled at the misshapen lip markings left on his scruffy face and skipped to her room to change.
A less carefree, black-clad Genevieve touched her lips and looked at the lipstick mark left on her fingertip. It was a somber, neutral shade appropriate for the occasion. She had grown. She had changed.
Finally, she saw what she knew she feared most. Swallowing hard, she stood even straighter as her heels sunk further into the earth. She brushed any excess lint from her dry-cleaned jacket and ran her hands over her slicked-back hair. A few strands fell out of place and hung by her emerald eyes.
Her mother made her way over. It had been 12 years since she walked out of her life and Genevieve was amazed to see she looked so much like she did back then. Her hair had gone completely gray; dyeing was a cosmetic practice she’d long since left behind. The snowy wisps stuck to her face where tears had trapped them and her green eyes looked determined. There was no hatred or anger in those eyes, but neither was there love.
“You came,” she said quietly, as Genevieve’s uncle, Michael, began the eulogy. Focus had completely shifted to the mother-daughter encounter. Every head was turned their direction and all that remained whispering was the wind. Twelve years and Genevieve expected no less from her mother. No hug, no cry of joy. This was the mother she always knew.
Genevieve feared losing her poise, her one pride, her one element of control. As she stared into green eyes she had inherited, she was transported back to the last time she recalled succumbing to their gaze.
Every year on her father’s birthday in early September, Genevieve planned something special. Her mother’s birthday she ignored. It never occurred to her young self that her mother could possibly enjoy a birthday surprise. Mom was always angry, with her daughter or with her husband. She said her work stressed her out, but Genevieve knew her dad worked just as hard and never brought any anger home with him. Her father’s birthday always fell at the beginning of the school year and little Genevieve spent much of the summer planning for it. It was even on her list of back-to-school supplies she and her mom took to the store.
“Let’s see…” Mom read, “Pencils, three notebooks, plan for daddy’s birthday – Genevieve, can you be serious and focus for once?” Genevieve had wondered if maybe her mother’s anger stemmed from jealousy. Perhaps Mom wondered where her appreciation was. If she caught the note early enough her mother would rewrite the entire list before they left for the store.
“You came.” Her mother repeated, recognizing the faraway look in Genevieve’s eyes as one she’d so often worn herself.
Genevieve didn’t answer. She simply nodded and pretended to listen to Michael speak ignorantly about her father’s decency and impeccable character. Her mother turned to him as well, but remained beside her. Genevieve nervously twirled the escaped strands of hair as more fell free of the French twist’s bonds. She prayed the eulogy would never end so she wouldn’t have to face this woman, this worn out soul who looked so thoroughly exhausted from the inside out. Genevieve mused that what her mother seriously lacked was poise.
But it did end. And the crowd was silent as mother and daughter stared at one another over the grave of a man they both claimed to have loved. Could we ever understand each other? Genevieve wondered to herself.
When the silence between them was not broken, Michael came up and gave Genevieve a hug.
“It’s been a long time, Sweetie,” he said, “How you holding up?” She gave him a crooked smile that looked more like a grimace. She felt her poise slip from her grasp as a tear threatened to disrupt her impeccable makeup.
“I’m doing all right, Uncle Mike” she said.
“Your father sure missed his little Evie.” Uncle Mike replied. Suddenly, he looked as if he wanted to pull those words back from the air and shove them down his throat. Genevieve fiddled with her top button and hardly noticed when it broke free of the threads and came off in her hand. No one had called her Evie in a very long time.
Eenie, meenie, Evie!
Her dad used to do that all the time. Ever since she was a little girl he’d say, “Who’s my favorite little girl, huh?” and he’d point to an imaginary object to her left.
“Eenie…” then to an imaginary object on her right, “Meenie…” then he’d look at her and squeal, “Evie!” and tickle her like crazy.
She loved it. It was stupid and childish and by the time she was ten it was downright embarrassing, but she loved it, anyway.
She took a deep breath and attempted to regain that infamous poise. Her tears had caused mascara to trespass down her cheeks as the wind freed more of her dyed blond hair. When she tried to shift her weight, her heel was stuck so deeply in the cool wet mud she couldn’t remove it. Reaching down to help her foot along, sharp, manicured nails caused a run in her stocking. A cry of frustration escaped, so loud that the few heads that had turned away turned back again. She released the stocking and stood up tall. She straightened her jacket, not realizing how odd it looked without the top button. The onlookers were given her most professional once-over and Genevieve turned away haughtily. The gravedigger had begun to shovel dirt into the grave, covering her father’s body.
No more birthdays for him, Genevieve thought soberly.
She came home to the empty house and got her bag of birthday decor out from under her bed. She went downstairs to her father’s study and surveyed the scene. She had a general idea of how she wanted to decorate it, but she had to start by cleaning up. Genevieve began to pick up papers and folders off the floor and desk and move them aside. Then she noticed a manila envelope with “Evie” printed on the front in pencil. If she hadn’t been looking for a title in order to decide where to put it, she never would have noticed. She knew she shouldn’t open it. Staying out of other people’s things was one of her mom’s favorite lectures, especially after the Snow White incident with her lipstick.
Genevieve’s eyes grew cloudy and Uncle Mike was at a loss for words. He walked away and decided he would be most useful as a buffer between mother and daughter and the curious crowd. Genevieve, little Evie, heard nothing around her as she smelled the sweet scent of plush carpet from the study in her childhood home.
Her name was scrawled on the envelope in a way that made her think it wasn’t addressed to her so much as her father wanted to mark it for his own personal reference. This realization only made her more curious and she figured if she was caught she could just play dumb and say she thought it was for her.
Her heart pounded with excitement; this was a bizarre mystery she couldn’t wait to solve. She undid the clasp slowly and quietly, even though she knew no one could hear her if she ripped it open. She looked inside and saw an enormous stack of 8 by 10 sheets. Not wanting to leave fingerprints, she spilled them onto the coffee table.
“Genevieve,” her mom finally interrupted. It was as if she knew exactly what point Genevieve had reached in her mind and was begging her to go no further. Genevieve teetered on the edge of reality and employed all her strength to keep herself in the present.
She focused on the gravedigger’s progress. The grave was almost full. What is the gravedigger’s real job, Genevieve wondered. Was it to dig the grave, or to fill it up? Was his the business of digging or of building? She watched the soil fly by the shovelful and saw the mound grow smaller as the grave filled. The casket was no longer visible and by now many of the attendees had begun to make their way down the steep hill in twos and threes. No one comes to a funeral alone.
The task was finally complete and the gravedigger went about smoothing the dirt on the top of the grave. He did so with such precision that Genevieve thought perhaps this was the art form.
She left her mother’s side and walked up to the dirty man and begged his pardon. The gravedigger looked at Genevieve with pity. Her hair had come undone and the jacket, sans button, was askew. The run in her stocking had made its way up her skirt and her heels were covered in mud. No matter how many mourners he had witnessed in his lifetime, they never failed to move him.
“I was wondering,” Genevieve asked, feeling sorry for the mud-clad old man who did nothing with his life but dig, “does it make you sad to fill in a grave you worked so hard to make?”
Surprised, the gravedigger put down his shovel with which he was smoothing the dirt and thought. No one from any of the funerals he’d attended had ever spoken to him unless they needed directions. And no one had ever wondered about his work.
“Well, no ma’am,” he said after a while, “I think I take the most pride in how well I can smooth it over and make it look like a hole was never here.”
Genevieve stared at the grave and marveled at how well he had accomplished his task. Her mother lightly touched her arm and she turned to follow her down the driveway. She took a mirrored compact out of her small purse and looked at her face in alarm. She thought perhaps she should forgo the limo. Perhaps her mother could drive her home.