South of Shiloh (22 page)

27

JENNY DID NEED A BREAK.

She had been standing at the stove in the kitchen, watching the edges of a scrambled egg sizzle in the black, Pam-coated frying pan, when Molly walked in from the den where she had been staring at the computer all morning. “Mom, hold out your hand,” she said.

Jenny extended her hand and Molly dropped four quarters into her open palm.

“What’s this?” Jenny asked.

“Four quarters weigh about twenty-one grams,” Molly said, knitting her brows.

“Yes?”

“Twenty-one grams is what a life weighs. It’s been measured when you die. Twenty-one grams leaves the body, what religious people call the soul,” Molly said, all serious eyes.

Jenny shifted the coins in her hand. “And you know this how?”

Molly cocked her head. “Dad and I figured it out.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh,” Molly said solemnly.

“Tell me about it,” Jenny said, turning the burner off under Molly’s lunch with her free hand.

Molly exhaled, blew a puff of breath at a tangle of hair hanging close to her eyes, and said, “We were talking about it when I was eight. After Grandpa died. So I asked Dad what happens when we die.”

Jenny smiled tightly and thought it might be a good idea to sit down at the table. She kept her hand with the coins held in front of her chest.

Molly continued to stand, slowly massaging her hands together in a meditative, washing gesture. “And Dad said, ‘That’s a good question. Let’s go find out.’ So we went on the computer and Googled it.”

Jenny took a deep breath. Let it out. “Okaay…” Google was Paul’s combination modern Sphinx and Sibyl. “And what did Google tell you?” Jenny asked.

“Well, there was a lot of sites to look at. We found this big one on Wikipedia with all these people arguing science. And Dad tried to explain it; how some said religion was just ghost stories. Then other guys said science was the real ghost story. It’s like…” Molly frowned, took a step forward, and tapped her knuckle on the table. “It’s like…the table’s hard, right? Except it’s really made out of millions of bits of tiny stuff…”

“Atoms,” Jenny said, feeling a conjoining of sadness and encouragement at the way her child’s mind was determined to work methodically through Death like a tough comprehension assignment.

“Right. Atoms, neutrons.” Molly made a spinning motion with her finger. “Except, the atoms aren’t really stuff either. They’re this energy. Dad called it ‘dark energy.’ And nobody knows where it comes from or where it goes. But it holds everything together and makes our brains work. And that’s what weighs the twenty-one grams when we die. The dark energy leaving. They said it weighs the same as four quarters.”

“I see,” Jenny said, staring at the shiny quarter on top the stack in her hand.

Molly nodded. “These four quarters leaving, kind of floating up like bubbles with George Washington on them. Except you can’t really see them.” She bit her lower lip and held it between her teeth. “Dad and I had this one idea: we’re like cocoons and our job is to grow the energy until it’s ready to leave.”

“Leave to where?” Jenny’s cheek twitched slightly.

“To whatever comes next. Like the next level in a game. Dad said nothing ever stops or goes away. It just…changes to something else.” Molly abruptly looked at the pan on the stove and asked, “Is that for me?”

Jenny carefully set the stack of quarters on the table, got up, crossed the kitchen to the stove, flipped the burner back on, and put two slices of whole wheat in the toaster. A few moments later she’d prepared an egg sandwich and a glass of milk, which she took back to the table. Then she sat back down in front of the stack of quarters and watched Molly chew a mouthful of scrambled egg.

“Does it help, thinking about the twenty-one grams and the dark energy and the quarters?” Jenny asked.

Molly swept a yellow particle of egg from the corner of her lip with her tongue, chewed, swallowed, then said, “What helps most is playing the piano. The last time John was here with me on the piano he said music started when the first man listened to the rhythm of his heart beating. Or something like that.”

Molly took another bite of scrambled egg and continued, “It’s better than being mad at God I suppose. When Johnny Barns’s mother died of cancer he blamed God, saying God had stolen his mother. So it helps more than thinking Dad got ripped off.”

“And this is what you’ve been reading, glued to the computer all morning?”

Molly shook her head. “Uh-uh. I’ve been looking up burial ceremonies. I heard you and Gram talking about it last night…”

“When you were supposed to be in bed?”

“Uh, yeah. I learned so far there’s three kinds. There’s earth burial and then there’s sky burial. That’s when they leave bodies out for the birds to eat. It said in Tibet they used to cut up the bodies and feed the best parts to the dogs. And then there’s fire burial.”

“Cremation,” Jenny said.

“Uh-huh, so you get ashes,” Molly said. “I guess I like that better than the others. That way we could take the ashes up to the Quetico and scatter them in Poobah…”

Jenny nodded. Poobah had been Paul’s favorite lake in the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario.

Lois and Vicky came home from Cub with grocery bags, so Jenny helped unload the car, then retreated to her bedroom and sifted through the irony of Molly being better equipped to deal with Paul’s death than she was. Maybe she’d been wrong about her daughter. Perhaps she was a swimmer after all; a deep-water swimmer.

Paul had just moved on to a higher level in the game.

Should call Patti about this. Maybe about a lot of things. The psychologist, another refugee from the inner-city trenches, had paid some dues and was the one trusted friend she’d acquired since moving to the valley. Call any time, Patti had said. And Jenny had said, I might take you up on that.

But how much do you tell her?

Jenny turned and eyed the broad walk-in clothes closet. Paul’s body would be arriving on Thursday, and Jenny had been informed that he—it—would show up outfitted from a Mississippi Wal-Mart in white boxer shorts, a white T-shirt, and white cotton socks. She stared at the long line of Paul’s clothes on hangers. As she faced the practical next step of dressing Paul’s remains for the fire, her mind executed a dark pirouette and she considered the old East Indian custom of
suttee
.

Widow burning.

She pictured herself putting on her best dress, doing up her hair, applying lipstick, mascara, and eye shadow, and then lying down next to Paul’s body in the furnace.

Ghost stories. Tables that aren’t tables. Quarters.

In the Indian scenario, the dead man’s eldest son lit the fire under Mom.

Takes a man to design that kind of ritual. Well, fuck that. She and Mom and Molly would decide how Paul was buried. No men allowed. That’s what she was thinking when Rane called. Talk about dark energy. She agreed. Paul’s journal belonged with Molly.

She definitely needed a break and there was something she needed to tell Rane face-to-face.

28

RANE SET THE PHONE ASIDE, THEN STOOPED AND
started to open the bottom drawer of his file cabinet. His hand paused. Not yet. Not like this. He stood up, reached for the pack of cigarettes, and again stayed his hand.

No crutches today, Rane. Straight ahead. Tick by tick he pushed the minute hand on the clock with his eyes. Watched the pot. He positioned himself at his front window and stared out into the street and finally exhaled when he saw the Subaru pull to the curb and saw her get out.

Jenny walked up the pavement to his front door, stepping to avoid the tufts of dead grass poking through the cracks. She wore faded jeans, a white T-shirt, scuffed sneakers, and a jean jacket. No purse. Car keys jingled in her left hand, marking each step. When she drew abreast of the Jeep in the drive next to the walk, she paused, noted the bags stacked in the cargo space, and slapped the keys against her thigh.

No makeup, clear-eyed; her widow’s burden an ongoing icy shower that firmed her face. He opened the door and they met without speaking and she walked past him into the living room.

“So you’re going down there,” she said matter-of-factly.

“We agreed, last night,” Rane said.

She nodded. “This isn’t going to turn into another of your method-acting adventures, is it? Go use Paul’s stuff to help you sneak around, then turn his death into a story with your name on it?”

The edge in her voice sharpened the tension set off by their bodies in proximity. He was leaving town. She was preparing for a funeral. It would be sacrilege to admit that their entombed past had been resurrected by Paul’s death and now loomed over them.

“I don’t know what it’s going to turn into,” he said.

Jenny cocked her head and slapped the keys against her denim thigh.

“Before you go there’s something you should know. The day Paul left we talked about when to tell Molly about you. I came over here to propose a sit-down, you, me, and Paul, to discuss it,” she said frankly. “But the way things are now…”

“Your call now. Whatever you decide, I’ll back you,” Rane said in a level voice, too quickly. And he felt the new idea of having a daughter suddenly dance away.

Then, seeing she was on the verge of saying more, Rane changed the subject. He turned and picked up the journal off the coffee table and handed it to her like a reminder of the dead man between them. “He wrote in there, to you and Molly.”

Jenny accepted the bound leather book and held it in her upturned hand. “Did you read it?” she asked.

Rane nodded. “I get the feeling this Mississippi thing was a challenge he’d set for himself…”

“He was a serious guy, Rane,” Jenny said. “Not exciting maybe, but steady and reliable. He never ran away.”

The words slapped his face and he lowered his eyes.

Her voice working, she continued, “He was trying to figure out how to live the rest of his life. The way the world is now, he’d say, you practically have to be Bill Gates to make a difference. That’s what attracted him to the reenactors; the idea there was a time when ordinary men took a stand and changed history. He helped Molly write an essay about what the First Minnesota did at Gettysburg. You should read it some time. And you know what? I think he pulled it off. I see it in Molly, the way he built tools in her that are helping her get through this…time.”

Rane drew back from her steady gaze and said, “Look, I’m going down there after more than a story.”

She studied his face, then lowered her eyes to the brown leather journal and tucked it in an inside jacket pocket. She loosened her shoulders and her hands fell to her sides, tense, fingers cupped, almost fists. Holding a lot in.

“How’s Molly?” he asked quickly.

“She has these work sheets they use in the grief groups. My friend, Patti, talked to her briefly and told me Molly might have an advantage over some of the kids because she wasn’t an ‘over-feeler.’ Where’d she get that I wonder—from Paul or you or from me?” Jenny said.

“Will the group help?”

Jenny shrugged and lowered her eyes. “I think time is what helps.” Then she raised her eyes to his and said, “Given enough time people can get over anything.”

Came out like a question. Eyes measuring him.

Rane made a quick decision to let this moment of truth pass. He turned, crossed to the light table. “Look,” he said, banter coming into his voice. “There’s something you could do for me.” He picked a key from the table and held it up. “To the front door. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Maybe you could stop by and check on Hajji. He gets pissed off when he’s alone and tips over the food bowl. Now that he’s old, he’s fussy and won’t eat off the floor.”

“Your cat?” Her voice verged on incredulity. But his eyes were far from frivolous; he wanted her to have the key for a reason. “Okay,” she said simply, plucking the key from his hand.

Rane pointed to the kitchen, muttered about the food and water bowl; the broom closet where he kept the food bag. The cat box in the bathroom was, ah, optional, he explained. And suddenly Jenny realized they were through here. It was time for her to leave. She walked to the door, turned, and faced him. Impulse brought her hand out, hovering between them. He was going off into possible danger to look into who killed Paul. After more than a story, he’d said. In a way, she was sending him. The words instinctively formed on her lips. Take care.

But he simply shook his head and her farewell stayed unsaid. She had a last look at John Rane’s face; his expression so like the mysterious, moving music he had played for Molly. Now Molly was toiling to master the piece in tandem with her piano teacher, so it seemed that Rane’s melancholy presence had come to live in their house.

Jenny Edin turned and walked through the door, went down the steps, got in her car, and drove away.

After the engine sound faded down the street, Rane exhaled, sagged to the couch, and reached for that cigarette. He lit it and pictured Paul and Molly writing an essay about Civil War soldiers making a difference.

Rane blew a stream of smoke. He knew about the First Minnesota. He liked to think there was a time when schoolboys in the Upper Midwest learned their story as well as Southern boys knew their Pickett’s Charge.

He pushed himself up off the couch, went outside, and lifted the now orange-speckled rifle from the flower bed. As he turned it in his hands, he visualized Rufus Zugbaum’s oil painting that hung in the state capitol and portrayed the First Minnesota regiment’s suicidal charge across Plum Run into Cadmus Wilcox’s Alabama Brigade. Even when you subtracted all the romantic eyewash and nostalgia, the fact remained: on the second day at Gettysburg, two hundred sixty-four Minnesota boys stopped sixteen hundred Alabamians in their tracks for ten crucial minutes that helped save the battle and perhaps the war. Forty-seven of them came back.

Rane let the rifle hang loose in one hand, took a last drag on the cigarette, flipped it away, and bit his lip. Setting the bar kind of high, ain’tcha Paul?

Then, satisfied that he had an advanced case of rust eating at the rifle’s exposed metal, he carried it in the house, slid it in the canvas sleeve, and took it to the Jeep. He pulled a blanket over the case.

Back inside, he knelt, opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, reached in, and withdrew a black portfolio. He tore a Post-it from the pad on his desk, fastened it to the cover, picked up a pen, and jotted
JENNY
on the note. Then he placed the portfolio on the coffee table in front of the couch. Hajji padded into the room and arched against his shin with that prescience cats have about impending events: earthquakes, floods, or the setting straight of a life.

He stooped, patted the cat once, and then walked out the front door.