Grave Concern (45 page)

A light frost had fallen in the night, but Kate, reluctant to break summer routine, decided to do graves first thing anyway, rather than wait till afternoon. Clad in thick wool socks and rubber boots, she swung the Chevy by Grave Concern to pick up the huge batch of flowers sent up the previous evening from Binary Blooms.

Setting the flowers on the back seat to keep them warm, Kate fairly skipped around to her driver's door. Was it the invigorating touch of winter in the air? Was it the prospect of a whole new start in both professional and personal life? Whatever it was, Kate felt she'd lost ten years overnight.

All morning, as she weeded and clipped, removed wilted bouquets, trimmed stems, poured water, and set fresh flowers in their vases, Kate hummed and sang. She thought about winter and snow and did not cringe. In fact, she was looking forward to it. Winter wasn't so bad when you knew it would be over in March, not May or June. When they weren't working, which would likely be practically never, Kate planned to get Leonard out exploring the local cross-country ski trails. Maybe she'd even get him off-track (ha! as if she hadn't already), bashing through the bush with no particular goal, one of her favourite pastimes. When dusk fell, they would come home and cozy up with a bottle of Carmenère, or something else of Leonard's choosing, and watch a succession of the good, bad, and terrible
VHS
and
DVD
movies that had, as of yesterday, been freed from Ho Lam's shelves and now sat in messy piles on Kate's living-room floor. (Leonard had decided to continue renting some of the better
DVDs
for a while.) Somehow, she knew watching a bad movie with Leonard would be preferable to watching a good one alone. Heck, with Leonard there, they could possibly redo the whole set-up, get one of those downloadable movie thingamajigs, like everyone else.

Finished with her paying customers, Kate made her way, as nearly always, to her parents' grave before she left. It was a little past noon, and warming up nicely to another glorious autumn day.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
… Mists? In Pine Rapids? Well, maybe occasionally. Fruitfulness? A few dried-out berries to make pemmican with. Not exactly what Keats had in mind. But, hey, what was this?

A note was duct-taped to the top of the
SMITHERS
grave. Not the most modern way to get in touch, but admittedly Kate had been hard to pin down lately. With any luck, this would be Leonard's doing, finding new and novel ways to woo her. Kate peeled the note from the stone and sat down on her pack. Prolonging anticipatory pleasure, she left the missive unopened and revelled in the sun's growing warmth, gazing about at her surroundings. The leaves, touched by the first frost, had given up some of their glory. But still they were not defeated, not by a long shot. Further delaying the thrill of unprovoked correspondence, Kate talked for a bit with her parents. She informed them of new developments, assured them she'd continue to visit just as often, despite the accelerated business plan. That conversation over, Kate finally unfolded the note. Not from Leonard at all, but rather a wobbly, wrong hand-signed
Anon
.

DON'T POKE YOUR NOSE IN WHERE IT DOES'NT BELONG. EVEN IF IT LOOKS LIKE IT WILL SMELL GOOD
,
LIKE A YELLOW ROSE. THINK WHO U R DEALING WITH. YOUR DAYS HERE ARE NUMBERD. GET OUT NOW
,
WHILE YOU STILL CAN. SINCERLY
,
ANON.

Kate burst out laughing. What bad movie had Greta been watching? Did she think this would actually scare Kate off her business? Well, now it looked like what had been an undertow of rivalry was escalating to all-out war. At least in Greta's mind. God, if it wasn't one thing, it was another.

Disgusted, not least at Greta's atrocious spelling, Kate gathered up her stuff and prepared to leave. Oh, great. Just what she needed. Here was Raw-Raw, landing behind her parents' grave (always
behind
the grave, she noticed — was he afraid of her?). The great black bird dropped something from her beak. Kate would have taken little notice, but the object caught her eye. Not natural. Not a pebble or a twig, but something shiny. Kate drew closer, edging around the grave for a better look, thinking, if anything it should be she who was afraid of Raw-Raw, not the other way around.

In their previous encounters, Raw-Raw's movements had always echoed Kate's. When Kate moved, so did Raw-Raw, keeping a distance between them. Now the raven just stood there, as though daring Kate to retrieve the object. No sirree, thought Kate. Did this stupid bird think Kate Smithers was about to risk hand or eye to those gnarly talons, that demon beak?

“Not on your life, Buddy,” she said.

“Life-uddy. Life-uddy,” Raw-Raw said.

“Oh,
please
,” Kate said.

“Uh
please
,” Raw-Raw repeated.

“Can you say
anything
?” Kate said.

Silence.

“Ten grand,” said Kate.

“Tengrand, tengrand,” Raw-Raw said, and cocked her head.

Kate eyed the thing in the dirt. This seemed to be the day for unexpected surprises, all right. Slowly, very slowly, Kate bent down. Raw-Raw fluffed her feathers. With her eye firmly on Raw-Raw, Kate stretched her hand out. Raw-Raw fluffed more, and stood her ground. When Kate could just about reach, Raw-Raw squawked once. Kate whipped her hand back and stood up. Raw-Raw half-spread her wings and hopped farther off. Kate leaned down again, slow and smooth. Quick as a flash, she snatched the thing. Raw-Raw squawked twice but stayed put.

Kate examined the thing in her hand. A painted-gold child's plastic ring, set with an acrylic emerald, something from a bubble gum machine. In a sudden terror, Kate looked up, expecting the worst. But Raw-Raw seemed to have lost interest in both Kate and the ring. Deep in some corvid dream, she was pecking invisible dainties from the soil.

Kate pocketed the ring, and began arranging her grave-tending materials across her shoulders, over her arms. She stuffed the ridiculous note from Greta in her pocket. Ready to go, she glanced over toward her parents' gravestone, the
back side
of her parents' gravestone, the side she normally tried never to look at, never to see. At the time of their death, when Kate had to make so many decisions so quickly, old man Krebs had offered some advice.
Why not
, he suggested,
get your own name carved on the reverse, ready for the time, doubtless many years away
… A plot could be reserved behind her parents', and Kate could rest with them together as a family for eternity. Having her name and birth date engraved now would save a pretty penny in the long run, he said. Let's face it, Krebs gravely counselled, stone engravers' fees were only going in one direction (he pointed heavenward). The sad truth was, he went on, there weren't too many of them left. Heaven knows, years on, they could be as rare as mastodons.

And so Kate had done as Krebs advised and had her own name and birth date carved on the reverse. She looked at it now:

George Eliot had cost more than Kate had counted on, the quotation being so long. Still, it was worth it to speak everything one could say about passing on.

Who, Kate wondered, would fill in the date after the “D.”? Who would wander by her gravestone years hence and muse on her memory — perhaps, as Kate often did, on the middle name they saw there for the first time, carved in stone.
So that was it
, they would think.
Well, well.
Named after an aunt, perhaps, or a dead sibling. Or a grandmother, sick and beloved.

For wasn't it true that the middle name was often more meaningful than the first? New parents, in excited anticipation, chose the first from a popular book of names. They chose in accordance with (or avoidance of) current trends, and for the ambitious or pragmatic or romantic hopes they held for the life their child would live. By stark contrast, Kate had noticed, the
second
name often harkened to the past: a stillborn sister, a close friend or long-ago lover —

Kate went cold. There it was, undeniable, up out of its hiding place. Before her eyes all these years. And she had not seen. Katherine
Jean
. At a certain time in her life, oh twelve or thirteen, Kate would complain to her mother about it — the name Jean. Jeans were something you wore. What a flat, dull, unimaginative choice, she would whine. A name, like Madge, to sell dish soap with. And not even named for a relative, which would have explained the lapse. Why not something pretty, like Emily or Cordelia? Think of Anne of Green Gables, her desperate attempts to remake herself. And no wonder. Why did mothers insist on saddling their daughters with plain-Jane names like Anne and Jean?

And Molly would smile enigmatically. “I'm sorry you don't like it,” she would say. “Well, luckily for you, you won't have to use it much.”

And Kate would agree, and that was that.

But of course, Kate saw now what her mother had done. And she understood what Adele's secret had been, and possibly even why her friendship with Molly had been strained. Had John Marcotte, a.k.a.
Jean
Pierre, even known? Had Dean? She thought not.

But Adele had. It was their secret, hers and Molly's. A secret Molly had sworn Adele to never
ever
divulge unto death and beyond. Adele, on the other hand, thought disclosure, in the fullness of time, best for everyone, disclosure at least to the
product
of the union, Kate herself.

Weak-kneed, Kate collapsed to the ground, there at her own gravestone, her trowels and bags and backpack in a jumble all around. John Marcotte?

John Marcotte
—
her father?
Oh, God. So what did that make J.P.?

The triage nurse paused by Kate, looking her up and down. “What's yerrr problem, then, eh?”

“Extreme mental anguish. I want to see Mary.”

“Ye mean Dr. O'Beirrrne.”

Kate's irritability meter shot up. “Just don't give me that Lyon son of a bitch.”

The nurse whooshed on past and returned to her desk. “Yerrr a lucky lassie,” she said, indicating a sign that warned patients against abuse of staff. “I'm not going to throw ye out fer that. Though I have evvery right.” She spoke quietly into her phone, and after a minute or so, Mary walked through the large double doors Kate well recalled from Hille's pseudo-suicide.

“You're walkin' a mighty thin line, dear,” scolded Mary. “You're just lucky we're not scandalously busy.” She waved at the nearly empty waiting area, turned abruptly, and led Kate into a small adjoining room, where she firmly closed the door. “Okay, Kate, who peed in your cornflakes today?”

“Look at me, Mary. What colour are my eyes?”

“Is this some kind of joke, dear, because I'm not finding it funny.”

“No joke. Just
look
.” Kate bugged out her eyes and thrust her face into Mary's.

“Uh, kind of nondescript. Hazel, I guess. You could stretch it to green on a wish, but you could just as well say brown.”

“And what about my hair?” Kate pulled a hunk away from her head and leaned in under Mary's nose.

“Brown.”

“Any reddish bits? Auburn highlights anywhere? Maybe up at the top, or the back, where I can't see it myself?”

Mary looked perplexed. “Uh, what's this?” She yanked a strand of hair from Kate's head — Kate yelped — and held it up to the light. “Grey, I'd wager. You should get the girls over at Hair Flair on that.”

“No, look harder,” Kate said. “You're not trying, Mary.”

Mary's face was only the visible bit of a looming and dangerous iceberg.

“Sorry, Mary, really, it's important, just one more really close look. Do you see anything at all … incarnadine?”

Mary took what seemed to Kate a cursory glance, and gravely shook her head. “Sorry, Kate.” She sat back on her examining stool and held Kate's eye an uncomfortably long time. “Uh, wait a second.”