Twenty-five years later, it occurs to me: Memory is not a gift, but an instrument of delicate torture.
Under a colorless late May sky, I wander through the old cemetery, irises wilting in cellophane under the crook of my arm. Heat rises from the pavement through the soles of my shoes. Headstones slowly waver, rows of marble angels hovering in the weighted air. It will rain tonight, if there is any mercy.
I wore black today for duty. This dress holds the scent of a perfume I wore years ago, the fabric suffused with gardenia. Then, I wore it to attract, to throw a cloak of mystery over my passage through a crowd. Now, I want to slide into a room without preamble, like a shadow under a closed door.
I recall that old expression of Mim’s, “Everything changes, and everything stays the same.”
The path I walk winds up a hill I do not remember. This place is not the place I have played out in my head for twenty-five years. Back in California, I had been naïve enough to believe a cemetery first viewed through a scrim of tears when I was eight years old, would remain burnt into my memory. My body retains of that morning only the churning in my stomach, my mother’s hushed voice, the collar of the velvet dress too tight around my neck ― not these leaning trees, dark birds slowly wheeling in the air, this manicured too-green grass.
White stones repeat themselves, with different names: Gordon, Rivers, St. Clare, Miller. All beloved. All remembered by someone. I cannot find our family plot, the two stones marking my own beloved, inscriptions long memorized: Anton Jozef Novak. 1901-1970. John Christopher Stone. 1960-1980. No stone at all for my tiny lost one.
As I bend to read the name on a flat gravestone, a rivulet of sweat courses down my temple to my lips, salt spreading on my tongue. The gold cross taps the hollow of my throat. My head throbs in the heat. I long for the cool sting of tears against my hot cheeks. Under this sky again, I feel pinned to the earth. I close my eyes, but nothing comes. I raise my wrist up to my mouth in an old gesture, ridges of scar tissue against my parted lips.
I lean back against an angel with folded hands, her kind, weathered face tilted as if listening to an invisible speaker.
This is the day the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad.
Learn more