Per Mom’s instructions, the family meets in the rectory. We wear various versions of the appropriate mourning outfit. For women, black—or a somber color like navy or aubergine—is preferred. Hemlines must be modest. In Charleston, it is considered incorrect for women to wear pants to a funeral. Loud colors, synthetic fabrics, and plunging décolletage are frowned on, too. Shoes should be closed-toed. Jewelry should be modest, and some old-school ladies still turn up in hats and gloves. The men wear dark suits, subdued ties, starched button-downs, lace-up shoes.
Mom stands near the door of the parish hall. The minister is speaking to her, but I can tell her attention is wandering. She stares at the program, tracing the text with one finger in the same way she ran her hand over Francie’s fuzzy head when she was a newborn.
Dad chats with Andy near the window. Some male cousins—invited to serve as pallbearers—gather next to the mantel and wait to receive procession instructions from Mr. Mackey. Weezy has been offered the only chair in the room. She sits awkwardly, her feet splayed. Caroline massages her shoulders. I crouch next to Weezy, as far away as possible from some distant relatives from the Upstate. I can’t make small talk right now.
“It’s time,” Reverend Montague announces.
The pallbearers go first. Dad and Andy push Tito in his wheelchair out the door. Mom follows, and the rest of the family gathers in a line behind her.
My eyes land on the black hearse parked in front of hulking columns at the church entrance. After Mr. Mackey opens its back door, the pallbearers silently maneuver the coffin over the curb and onto a roller. As we watch, the wind picks up and the temperature drops. We clasp our arms around our chests and follow the casket to the church.
St. Paul’s is a giant sand-colored stucco church built in the early 1800s. The grand structure, with its sweeping arches braced by fluted columns, has always felt important. The vaulting space, the tall steeple, proclaim there is meaning to be found here, though I never could determine what it was, at least not anything that made sense; I felt alone among my family not to find it. Today is no different.
Two ushers open the secondary set of massive doors that lead into the church proper. Sunlight pierces the stained glass, scattering prismatic fragments of color around the church’s high walls. Charleston’s aristocracy turns to greet us. It’s a handsome group. Some of Mom’s friends wave their hands in restrained but affectionate hellos.
Everyone here has bathed, dressed, and made sure to arrive early; funerals are the one social engagement where punctuality is esteemed. In this moment, I’m grateful for the pageantry. Laudie deserves a proper formal send-off.
Andy wheels Tito down the aisle and parks the wheelchair beside the family pew. Dad unhooks the little latch to our pew, which is near the front. I sit at the end to make room for Mom and Caroline. Weezy and Ashley file into the pew behind us. Even though we have our own designated pew due to generations of our family having worshipped here, I can never get comfortable in it. The cushions scratch. My dress’s tag itches, and the elastic around my waist is too tight. I am never sure when to sit, kneel, or stand. No one else seems to need to watch the crowd for cues as to when a prayer starts or hymn ends. The parishioners are attuned to some preordained protocol that I never wanted to memorize or decode.
The pews are unmarked, but just as with seats in a classroom, everyone knows who sits where and no one messes with the seating arrangement. There is so much order here, from the very architecture of the church to the repetitive form of the rituals. Perhaps most congregants, like my parents, find all that order comforting: same liturgy, same creed, same prayers, same pew, same church, same minister Sunday after Sunday and year after year. And according to some unwritten but very real Charleston hierarchy, the Pringle, Rutledge, and Middleton families sit in the pews in the front, the prime spots.
Some unfamiliar faces watch us from high in the balcony, which is generally where latecomers, newer members, or tourists sit. In the post–colonial era, the balcony was for Black people. In a house of God, where the brotherhood of man was preached, the enslaved congregants entered the church through the side door to find their segregated seats upstairs, where they tried to cool themselves in the summer heat with woven-rush fans. Eventually, Blacks left the white churches and built their own. Today, the most segregated hour in the South is 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday.
The audience today is all white except for Shaniece. She sits on the main floor, close to the aisle, near the front. She shares a pew with Louisa.
Laudie’s service starts with flatulent blasts from the organ. Invisible hands fling open the doors of the narthex. Reverend Montague heads the procession, his hands wrapped tightly around a cross affixed to a long pole. We watch as he parades to the front. White-robed pairs of lower-ranked ministers trail him. All men. What do they think of the Timothy verses in the Bible? And Corinthians? And Proverbs? Do these men believe women should submit to their husbands? That they should keep quiet? Sure, these texts were written at a different time, but that doesn’t make them okay today.
The stained-glass panels, as cheery as melted Jolly Ranchers, depict robed white men holding scrolls, robed white men extending a hand, robed white men worshiping a robed white man. It strikes me that with a haircut and some khakis, these men would look like the members of Battery Hall. The church feels like another club that exists to exclude. I shudder to think that this similarity isn’t by coincidence but by design.
And then there’s Mary. The lone female. How old was she when she got pregnant? Fifteen? Fourteen? Can a girl give consent at that age? Could she even say no to an almighty supreme being who wanted to impregnate her? Was she afraid? Was Ms. Ronan afraid?
In this house of God, beneath a giant, phallic steeple piercing the sky, I can’t help but feel that misogyny is sanctified. I’m so over this religion; redemption be damned. I wait a moment for God to strike me dead with a thunderbolt for my blasphemy. Nothing happens. An idea occurs to me: a slogan. And then I wonder, where is that old button-making machine?
Reverend Montague slips past Laudie’s coffin, steps up to the chancel. He gives a brief reading about death, life, and seasons for everything. Ecclesiastes. We sing a few hymns: “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Amazing Grace.” He delivers a eulogy, which is painfully generic. The theme: her commitment to family. One of Mom’s cousins reads a few verses from the Book of John, and before I know it, I’m being elbowed by Caroline to hurry up.
Is that it? I glance over my shoulder: a few people tuck the hymnals away. One woman reapplies lipstick. Some check their phones.
Wait! What about her story? There’s more to Laudie than her role as wife, mother, grandmother. What about tossing dolls into trees? What about her love of dancing, her dedication to ballet? Her consummate discipline? And he never mentioned that beautiful secret garden she tended for more than fifty years. Laudie had so many facets. Should I say something at the graveside?
The music changes tempo, and everyone stands. The pallbearers roll the casket down the aisle. Confused and numbed, my brain full of static, I follow my family out the church door. We wait at the stone steps as the men negotiate the casket around a sharp turn that leads to the churchyard. A stream of mourners gathers behind us, like reeds caught against a dock piling. Soon, we’re surrounded. When the path ahead clears, we move with the crowd to the adjacent cemetery.
The Mackey funeral team has already dug a pit for the coffin. It’s cavernous—eight feet deep at least. Two nylon ropes stretch over the hole, which is rimmed by a metal contraption, reminding me of a narrow bed frame. A bed for one. Communicating in a silent language, just nods and eye contact, the workers manage to lay her coffin on the straps so that it hovers above the hole. A dove perches on a crepe myrtle branch just above the gravesite. She preens and ruffles her feathers. I watch her, hoping for a sign, some magic from the universe.
Mr. Mackey beckons the family toward the dozen white chairs set up under a small canopy—our front-row seats. Weezy exhales audibly as she drops into the chair to my right. Caroline sits on the other side. As the sun slides behind the steeple and afternoon shadows advance over the churchyard, Caroline buttons her coat and Weezy rewraps her pashmina. We wait silently for the burial ceremony to begin.
In recognition of Tito’s status as the paterfamilias, the minister asks if he is ready for the burial to begin. Tito nods. Reverend Montague pinches some soil, mixed with roots and clay, from the mound of dirt that’s piled high behind him. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . . ,” he intones as he sprinkles dirt onto her coffin.
A gravedigger unlatches a hook, triggering the pulley system to lower the casket slowly, steadily, into the ground. Either the pulley system is mesmerizing, or I’m stupid with grief. When I hear a muted thud as it hits the pit’s bottom, I wince, imagining Laudie’s body being jostled.
The minister asks if any family members would like to put dirt on her grave. Finally: a way for us to be involved. I could probably shovel that whole pile myself.
Unsure of the protocol, I wait for a signal. Andy steps up first. He shovels a spadeful of dirt into the hole and passes the shovel to Dad. Dad rams the shovel into the pile and tosses a clump into the pit. I stare at him, willing him to hand the shovel to me, but he passes it to a cluster of second cousins, the pallbearers. My mother remains seated, as still as a museum bronze. I look to my sisters, who appear not even to consider the opportunity.
Is this ritual only for the men of our family? They don’t love her like I do. They don’t know her story. I may not know all of it, but I know more than they do. I want to rip the shovel from the male who wields it—some distant cousin twice-removed who barely knew Laudie. It’s my job to cover her with the earth she loved. I am the one who should plant her like a seed.
But I don’t. It would cause a scene. And people are here to remember Laudie, not her rebellious, inappropriate granddaughter.
After each male family member has taken a turn, the gravediggers pick up their shovels and resume. Their bodies move in synch in an appealing, practiced rhythm. Scoop, toss. Scoop, toss. Scoop, toss. We watch them work while long shadows overtake the graveyard completely. The undertakers smooth the mound. The minister reads one more psalm. The mourning dove cries and flies away. Claudia has died. She is buried.