The small Louisiana cemetery was shaded by oak trees, their fat trunks clothed in damp lichen. The air was humid, filled with the songs of waterthrush and blue jays. Tom came here when he could, but his grandma tended his mother’s grave lovingly every Sunday afternoon after church, polishing the brass surround latticework and washing down the marble headstone. The general had never been here before. He bent forward now and placed a bunch of white roses at the base of the headstone; her favourites, Tom had said when they’d stopped at a florist’s a hundred metres from the entrance.
The inscription read simply:
In Loving Memory of Melissa Dupree
Who Died in Tragic Circumstances
Rest in Peace in the Arms of The Lord
1950-1988
“I’m sorry for what I did,” the general said. “I’d like you to forgive me.”
Tom looked down at his mother’s grave. “It’s me who should be asking forgiveness.”
“I don’t know what that means, and, I tell ya, I don’t wanna know. Whatever you did or didn’t do, you were just a kid.” He put his hand on Tom’s forearm. “We’ll make some regular time for each other, Tom. That much I know.”
They turned and began to walk away from the simple gravestones, along a flint-ridden path edged with low iron railings. Here, the older graves of the rich lay a few metres back. Moss-stained, stone sarcophagi decorated with angels and laurels. Untended now, the dead no longer even a memory. Tom thought about all those who had sacrificed their lives, although Lester had survived, due to a surgeon’s expertise. When they’d met up in a bar in DC, he’d thought his friend appeared to have lost ten pounds or more. But Lester had spent the time joking and saying how fine the nurses were. As for the secretary, her wounds were mainly superficial, at least the physical ones, and she was recovering with her family at Camp David for security reasons. Tom had been asked to visit, but as yet he hadn’t. He would, soon enough, though; he knew that.
Twenty minutes later, the general drove them to a small town thirty miles or so from Baton Rouge. The main street was bordered by two-storey buildings, mostly unkempt retail stores with timber-frame accommodation above. Tom’s grandparents lived in a detached bungalow set back about twenty-five metres from the road. They passed the old whitewashed church with a green-tiled, pitch roof where Tom had sung in the choir as a boy. Nearby, surrounded by short grass, a huge bell was still on a brick plinth. The bell was going to hang in a larger church, but the church hadn’t moved on any more than the town had.
As the general parked the Buick Tom asked his father to give him a minute. He got out and walked up a stone path, feeling the sticky heat of a Louisiana afternoon start to encroach on his body. He saw his grandma sitting on the porch in a wooden chair. Her grey hair was up in a bun and she wore a plain beige dress. He hadn’t told his grandparents specifically what he did for a living, other than saying he worked for the State Department. He hadn’t wanted to worry them. She smiled and waved as she always did, getting up and stepping forward to give him a hug.
“Good to see you, Tommy. Dear Lord,” she said, registering his beat-up face. “What happened to you?”
“I fell down some stairs.”
“Drunk?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You lost weight, too.”
“Where’s Granddaddy?”
“He’s watching TV,” she said. She hollered out behind her, telling Tom’s granddaddy to come outside. “You want some lemonade?”
“No, thank you, ma’am.”
She tried to run her fingers through his dark hair. “You cut your hair too short. You ain’t in the military. No need to.”
He scratched the back of his head.
“Your momma wouldn’t like it.”
“Momma’s in heaven, Grandma. She don’t fret about such things.”
Tom’s granddaddy appeared and, after glancing at his strapped shoulder, slapped him on the opposite one and shook his hand. His shake was firm and the dark-brown eyes Tom had inherited from him sparkled like sunlight on the Mississippi.
“You look well, son,” he said.
“You’re blind, Daddy,” his grandma said. “You can’t see his scars?”
“He ain’t dead though. Don’t fuss, Mother.”
Tom grinned, hearing the Buick’s door slam shut. He saw his grandparents looking behind him.
“Who’d ya bring along, Tom?” his granddaddy asked.
“Let’s all go inside,” Tom said, gesturing to his father to join them.
Despite what his father had said at the cemetery, he knew now that opening up about his part in how his momma had died would give him a peace that he’d longed for.