The Deep End of the Ocean (38 page)

Wandering with that more innocent Beth, she missed the modest iron arch that marked Rock of Ages, and had to turn around in a farmer’s stupendously green field. She remembered, then, that the incursion of road repairs had forced the moving of the cemetery’s oldest graves up onto a hill more than a block away.

“That’s where I want to go,” she told Sam, “up on the hill. That’s where the people from the fire are.”

She pulled into the cemetery over a graveled rise, parked, and hurriedly began unpacking her equipment. The afternoon was getting old; and the late light, with its low color temperature, its orangeness, was what she wanted for compositions of the rectangular and rounded shapes of the headstones. She took out her little flash unit, for backup, the case with the Hasselblad, a fold-up reflector so new it still felt stiff and funny under her hand.

“What do you want me to take?” Ben asked, and Beth realized it still caught her off guard, how easily, naturally helpful he was—well raised, well bred.

She gave Sam her bag and they began to hike up a narrow, stony path. Beth watched her son, only half-aware of the building drama of the late light. There was a crowned tomb with smaller headstones ringing it like pupils around a teacher’s desk. “Let’s take that,” she told him; and Sam watched her as she squatted, shooting up from the base of the tallest monument.

“What do you see?” Sam asked her.

“What I’m looking at,” Beth said, “is the way the big tombstone sits against the sky, almost like it’s protecting the little ones. Here…” She unlooped the strap from around her neck and put the viewer in front of Sam’s eyes. “See?”

He peered. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to take it?”

“I never used this kind of camera.”

“It’s easy,” Beth told him, putting her fingers on top of his, feeling the jolt that still accompanied her contact with his downy skin, showing him the buttons. “I’m going to stand up now, and you shoot it.”

She stood up and, backing off a step, collided with something hard; she whirled, nearly toppling an old man. Beth yipped in surprise, and to her relief, the stranger pushed his striped railroader’s hat back on his sunburned forehead and began to laugh.

“Think I was a ghost?” he asked. Then, noticing Sam, who had continued to click the shutter, not even turning at his mother’s shriek, he asked, “Who’s the photographer?”

“My son,” Beth said, adding, “Actually, I am. I take pictures for my job. But we’re just playing around here.” Sam stood up then, and extended his hand, carefully settling the camera on its strap around his neck first.

“Hello,” he said, and the old man, taking the boy’s hand, smiled at Beth, a conspiratorial smile of shared pride in Sam’s almost antique politeness.

“I’m Will Holt,” the old man said.

“I’m Beth. I’m from Chicago. This is Sam. Do you work here?”

“Work here, live here.” He smiled, a farmer’s face with permanent riverbeds along the margins of his jaw. “Not
here,
I mean. At least not yet, though I suspect the time will come. But live in Peshtigo. Always have.”

“I’m looking for the graves of the fire survivors.”

He laughed again, harder. “Got none of them, I’m afraid, young lady.”

“The victims, I mean, of course.” Beth blushed.

Beth noticed that behind him, Holt had a little wheeled cart, shaped like a wheelbarrow, but really more like a wagon. It was filled, as nearly as Beth could tell, with masses of red and blue flowers and piles of tiny American flags. Following her eyes, Holt told her, “Fourth of July. Wanted to get them cleaned off before it rains and they fade. That saddens people. The Christmas wreaths sat here until February. I felt bad about it. Had flu for a couple of weeks and was weak as a kitten most of the winter. Better start jogging, eh?”

“Better,” said Beth. “Can I take a picture of that wagon?”

Holt gestured at the cart. “Well, sure, why not?” he said. Sam handed her the camera.

“Are all those from soldiers?” he asked Holt.

“No, not all, son,” the old man said. “Some. But most are just from the graves of ordinary people. Their folks miss them, on the holidays.” He turned to Beth, who’d finished her shooting, and continued, “Now, most of the fire graves are up there—not in the middle, over there, just under the aspens. Of course, that’s not where they originally were; parts of this cemetery were moved a few years back.”

“I know. I’ve been here before,” Beth said.

“Ah,” said Holt. “Live up here?”

“Chicago,” Beth repeated. “I used to live in Madison.”

“Madison,” said Holt. “I went to college in Madison. Ag school. I was the Langlade County extension agent for more years than Ollie’s cows have legs.” He walked stiffly toward the cart and lifted its handle. “Then I retired and all. And now I do this, just whenever I want to. Little money. A little peace. I used to dig the graves with some boys, but now they have a backhoe for that.”

Holt began to walk, and Sam followed him. Beth caught up. They walked along a wide, glimmering, flat swatch of green that led to the foot of the ridge. They passed a grave that looked too new for the rest of its companions. “Caron Anne, Our Youngest,” it read. “1985–1988.”

“Now that’s the Willards’ youngest. The funniest thing—died of an ear infection. Seems that my grandkids get one of those a week, and it hasn’t killed one of them yet. Her mother wanted her up here, though most people prefer all the landscaping in the new cemetery by the church. We all felt so bad, we wouldn’t have suggested otherwise, and of course, there are generations of Willards up here, so she’s among her people.”

They walked on.

“That’s a kid, too,” Sam said, pointing.

“Right you are.” Holt nodded, taking off his hat. “Places like this should be reserved for old folks like me, but it don’t always run that way. Now, Grace Culver was the age of my older boy, Bill. Her brother told her on the school bus he was going to shoot her with his daddy’s gun when they got home, and that’s just what he did. That was in ’56. Yes, that’s right—’56.”

“My God in heaven,” Beth breathed.

“Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry,” Holt said, gesturing at Sam. “I never meant to scare him.”

“I’m not scared,” Sam said, his eyes level. “I was kidnapped once.”

Holt shot a glance at Beth. She nodded. “He was,” she said.

“Were you afraid?” Holt asked Sam.

“No,” Sam replied. “I was little. And my mom, she…Well, I just got back before school let out.”

“You were away for months?”

“Years. My whole life,” Sam said.

Beth squirmed, adjusting her cameras. “It was…you probably read about him…we lived in Madison then. Benjamin Cappadora.”

“Oh my yes, oh my yes,” said Holt. “Goodness yes.” He looked Sam up and down. “Still, you seem to have survived it.” Then, to Beth, “And you, too. Things okay now?”

“Yes, mostly,” Beth said, struggling with a sudden longing to tell this gentle ghost encountered in the graveyard, “You should know better than to believe everything you think you see; our son was stolen, and we never really got him back, though you may have read otherwise in
People
magazine.” She wanted to ask, “Now, Mr. Holt, you have long experience of human nature, does this polite and curious young fellow seem at home in the world to you? Like the prodigal son of one of the luckiest and happiest of families? And me? Do I seem like his mother? Or an actor? Actually, it was his other mother who was the actor—”

Then Sam asked Holt if the graves nearest him were people from the fire. “They all have the same name,” Sam said.

“Well, Sam, that’s another one of those stories. Carrie Moss and her four children. Oldest was eleven, the youngest one three.” Beth looked down at the neat gray stones, all exactly matched, then at Sam. Should she stop Holt? This was damned gruesome. Sam was transfixed. “Fellow was a railroad worker. Hailed from all over, you know the kind. But born here. The way he said, when they got hold of him in Madison, was that he was in love with Carrie Moss from when they were children. One day while her husband was out harvesting—oh, not a half-mile from the house—he came to their house.”

“The guy…” Sam’s voice was low, choked. “He killed them?”

“He did,” Holt said evenly. “That house is still there right out on the road near Keller Creek. Nicely built. But nobody ever bought it. Frank Moss moved to Des Moines. No, I’m wrong there. It was Dubuque. This was just before the war—’43. Not all the crime happens in Milwaukee—no, not by a long shot. Not all of it happens in Chicago.”

They walked up a small footpath to the knee of the ridge. A single stone stood just to the left of the path, and Beth stopped. No, she thought. Maybe Sam won’t notice it.

David Taylor Holt. No dates, simply the etching of a water lily on the marbled rose of the surface. Sam squatted down, touching the stone.

“Is this a relative of yours?” Beth asked softly.

“Yep,” said the caretaker. “I’m sorry to say that this is my son.”

“Did he die in the war?” Sam asked. “Was he a soldier?”

“Sam, wait,” Beth rebuked him.

“Oh, no, it’s all right. I like to have him here—better than if we had to go down to Beloit, his mother and me. That’s where he was living. He wasn’t a soldier, son, just a college kid.”

“Was he…was he sick?” Sam asked.

“No, no,” said Holt. “Though in a sense I guess you could say he was. We thought it was what a boy goes through—some of the drinking, the bad grades, missing classes. But I guess you could say he was suffering a case of depression. He was in love with a girl—you might say she never returned that. And one night, well, he drove home, he’d been drinking, and he parked his car in the garage at the house where he rented a room. And he just left it on. He had a full tank of gas. The landlady, poor woman, she nearly died as well.”

“He was mentally ill,” Sam said. “That’s too bad.”

“Sam!” Beth didn’t know how to react.

“You’re right, Sam. He was ill. We just didn’t know.” Holt reached down and brushed a clump of clotted leaves from the face of the stone. “His mother, now, she thinks Donnie fell asleep. And I must say, I tell her that I do, too. But the truth is, I know better. I found this part of something, a poem he was writing. It was as sad as one of those country songs. He wrote, ‘I may be weak and I may be strong, but I’ve been in this wicked world too long.’ So I knew then he just couldn’t wait. And he wrote this, probably at the Christmas before, when he was home for break. Months before. Well, well. It’s been ten years now.”

“You miss him,” Sam said.

“I sure do,” Holt said. He gave himself a shake. “Now, right up there, to the left, there are your graves. I’m sorry. I have to shake a leg here.”

“Of course,” Beth agreed. But she didn’t want to leave him. She wanted to take him someplace fragrant and homely, like the Pepper Pot in town, and buy vanilla Cokes and steak sandwiches for him and for Sam. They could sit and talk in a warm ring of yellow light until all of them felt full and strong.

“Good luck to you, Beth,” Holt said, jolting his wagon onto the small path. “Sam, you take care of your mother.”

“You, too,” Sam said, kneeling down again near the pink marble tombstone. “Why do you think it’s a water lily?” he asked Beth.

“I don’t know. Maybe he loved those flowers.”

“They smell awful. But he was a nice old guy.”

“He was,” Beth said. “It’s very sad.”

“Yeah.” Sam paused. “For him, you mean, or his son?”

“Both of them.”

“I don’t know about him.” Sam pointed at the rosy stone, which glowed in the last blades of sun. “For him, it’s probably better.”

Beth froze, her camera dangling. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he was so sad and all, it’s probably better for him to just…sleep. There could be worse things than being dead.”

Beth grasped, gasped. Her camera knocked against her chest. Suddenly she wanted to shake Sam, or slap him. “Sam, he’s dead. His life is completely over. He’s not asleep. He took his whole life away from himself, from his parents. And all for something he would have gotten over if he’d given himself the time.”

Sam stirred the loose earth stubbornly with one toe. “Maybe not. Maybe he was just too sad.”

I could just fall, Beth thought. The very ground under her feet seemed to drag at her, draw her down with the seepage of its accumulation of mourning. Worse and worse, the bones warned her through the sound of shivering aspens above her head, there is worse and worse.

The scythe had whickered and swung; and it had indeed missed Ben. Ben, as Sam, had endured a middling-hard childhood, and yet, as Sam, he had thrived. And now he wasn’t thriving anymore. He was surviving, and only because of a base coat of basically healthy nature.

Not because of having his family back. Not because of that at all. Their gain was his loss. Beth had been returned a child who was as remote from her as heaven.

And yet, and yet, wasn’t she more fortunate and ungrateful than so many others she’d met at Compassionate Circle? She could see her child; she knew his favorite dinner was gyros and yogurt, that he was a fast, not altogether careful reader, that he could touch-type; she had seen how he transformed at bat from an oversized clown, pulling faces at his teammates, to a beautiful novice athlete with a clenched jaw and a level swing that made Pat’s eyes tear up.