Chapter 34
We buried Granddad Angus in a field just beyond the fence of his old house, underneath one of the trees. A tattered old birch tree, with the bark peeling off like it was waiting for somebody to write something on it.
Only I couldn’t think of any words that would fit.
Mom sang “Amazing Grace.” Dad just hummed along and tapped his foot several beats out of time. Warren sang something soft and Gaelic in a surprisingly fine tenor. I didn’t know what the words of the song meant and I didn’t know how to ask him at such a time, but a part of me felt that Granddad Angus would have understood and would have appreciated the deep Celtic mystery of it all.
“This isn’t legal, is it?” I asked. “Burying somebody outside of a graveyard?”
“I’m the police chief and your mother’s the mayor,” Dad said. “That’s as legal as it needs to get, here in Deeper Harbour.”
I cried.
Mom cried.
Dad cried.
Dulsie cried.
Warren dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and foghorned his nose a little.
All of us stood there around my grandfather’s grave, letting our tears splash in the dirt together. Us crying together wasn’t going to change anything, but it felt good and bad and sad all at the very same time.
Then Mom took Dad’s hand and squeezed it a little.
Dad smiled. I thought again that everything was going to be okay.
And then Mom let go in a movement that wasn’t really sudden.
I had seen it coming all along.
I could hear the waves lapping at the beach, like a kid eating a forever ice cream cone on a hot summer day.
The three of us drifted gently apart.