Beside Evie, Daniel stands with his hands folded and his head lowered. The entire town is here, a sea of dark coats and hats that surround a tiny grave, lying in the shade thrown by three large pine trees. The pines’ branches are thick and white and clumps of snow drip when the wind blows. Celia tries to think it is a lovely spot for Julianne, so much nicer with the trees and the view of the church than the newer section of the cemetery where Mrs. Minken was recently buried. Here, Julianne lies near the grandparents she never met. Here, she lies in a grave that was probably meant for her mother.
From their spot near the back of the crowd, Father Flannery’s voice, fighting with the heavy wind, is no more than a broken few words. “Tender young life… accept God’s will… forbidden… we powerless sinners…”
Arthur touches Celia’s arm and points to a closer spot, but Celia shakes her head and squeezes Evie. She is afraid to go closer, afraid that whatever took Julianne might find its way to her family. After a brief silence, the mourners around Julianne’s grave say “Amen” in tandem and, following their lead, though she can’t hear Father Flannery, Celia makes the sign of the cross, nudging Evie to do the same.
Behind her, Celia feels Arthur make the sign across his chest and his deep voice echoes “Amen.” She leans into him, letting the sound of him comfort her. As everyone parts, filtering down the narrow shoveled path toward the gate, Evie tugs on Celia’s sleeve. In a whisper, she asks to go to Elaine, who is standing a few rows up with Jonathon, Ruth and Reesa. Celia nods, and watching until Elaine has wrapped both arms around Evie, she turns toward Arthur. He is gone.
Daniel offers his arm to Mama because when Dad slipped behind him and started to walk away, he whispered for Daniel to take care of her. Mama takes Daniel’s arm and smiles up at him. She does that now, smiles every time she has to crane her neck to see into his eyes, as if she’s proud that he’s finally become a man. Except maybe taller doesn’t really mean he’s a man yet. He hasn’t fired a shotgun. He’s still afraid of Jack Mayer and Uncle Ray, and he cries when he has to be alone at night and remember Julianne Robison lying under that white quilt. Being taller isn’t all it takes to be a man. A man doesn’t hit a crippled kid square in the nose. Only a boy does that, no matter how tall he is.
Watching the others leave, Daniel wonders if Ian told yet and if his pa will see Daniel standing there by Julianne’s grave and come punch Daniel in the face for doing the same to Ian. Ian’s brothers had picked him up from the ground after Daniel punched him, and one of them shoved a napkin under Ian’s nose. Then they both looked at Daniel like they had never seen him before and dragged Ian, only his one good leg able to keep up, to the bathroom, where they cleaned him up so not even Mrs. Ellenton knew anything happened. Daniel doesn’t see either of those brothers walking away from Julianne’s grave. In fact, he doesn’t see any Bucher brother, or Mr. or Mrs. Bucher or Ian. Maybe he should tell first. Maybe he won’t get in as much trouble if he tells what Ian said about Aunt Eve getting bloodied between her legs and murdered in Grandma Reesa’s shed. Watching Dad walk away from Julianne’s grave, Daniel decides to tell because that’s probably what a man would do.
Ruth reaches for Evie, but she slips into Elaine’s arms instead and buries her face in Elaine’s wool coat. Jonathon begins to say something, probably words of comfort. Ruth pats his hand, silencing him, and nods as if she understands why Evie can’t love her right now. Then she steps away from the crowd, not liking the feeling that everyone is leaving Julianne cold and alone, not liking the feeling that everyone is leaving her. Many of these mourners for Julianne have come from the country-farmers who have probably checked every abandoned barn and deserted tractor, fearing that another tiny body will turn up. Some of them stare at Ruth, at the swell she can’t hide beneath her coat anymore, because they haven’t seen her, only heard. They look at her as if they think Ruth should be with a husband. They stare as if she is sinning against poor little Julianne and her parents. Orville and Mary wouldn’t squabble. Mary wouldn’t keep her baby from Orville. Orville and Mary have to witness their baby in a casket, withered away to nothing but bones. Orville and Mary, standing at their daughter’s graveside, withered away themselves, the life gone out of them, two people as dead as the daughter they’re burying. They wouldn’t waste time thinking a beating was so bad. Ruth closes her eyes and lifts her face into the icy wind, hoping it will be easier to breathe, and when she opens her eyes, she sees Arthur wading through the deep snow, away from Julianne’s grave. She holds one hand over her baby girl and follows.
Ruth has come here every week for twenty-five years, and she’s watched the pines grow, first standing with them to her back on the day they buried Eve. They were green then, not snow-covered, and thin and widely spaced. Now they’ve filled in and grown tall, their branches tangling together. The pines have always marked the way-two headstones to the north of the biggest pine, which was bigger than the rest even twenty-five years ago, and three headstones east. She doesn’t have to count anymore, never really had to. Arthur must remember, too, or maybe he’s been here to visit Eve since he came home. Maybe every week like Ruth. He seems to know the way as he steps through the smooth, clean snow and stops directly in front of Eve’s grave. He looks back when he hears Ruth behind him and takes her hand. On the ground, a few feet ahead, stands a gray stone. EVE SCOTT. OUR DAUGHTER. OUR SISTER. OUR LOVED ONE. Ruth pulls off one of her brown gloves and reaches into her coat pocket. Pulling out two smooth rocks, she sidesteps along Eve’s grave, through the snow, and lays them on top of the headstone.
“I always leave two,” she says, stepping back to Arthur’s side. “One for both of us, since you weren’t always here. But you are now.”
Arthur nods. “I couldn’t come before,” he says. “Before now.”
“My stones were always missing,” Ruth says. She feels Arthur watching her, but she keeps her eyes on Eve’s headstone. “My two stones, every time I came to visit, they were gone. Strange. Don’t you think?”
Again, Arthur nods.
“Ray was here that night, the night Julianne disappeared. He was here and he took my stones. All these years, I imagine. Why do you suppose he would do such a thing?”
“I hope to never know the answer to that,” Arthur says and slips around Ruth to block the wind, taking her arm so that she won’t fall.
But Ruth doesn’t move to leave.
“He loved her,” she says. “He would have been such a different man with her.”
Arthur wraps an arm around Ruth. “Doesn’t much matter what might have been.”
“While she was here, while Eve was with us, she was happy because Ray loved her.” Ruth takes Arthur’s other hand, presses it between both of hers. “He would have been a different man.”
“But he’s not, Ruth.” In the dry, cold air, Arthur’s voice is as deep and raspy as Father’s ever was. “He’s not a different man. I’m sorry for it, but he’s not.”
Ruth lifts her chin, turns her face into the wind and nods that she is ready to go. Together, she and Arthur step out of the snow onto the cleared space around Julianne’s small grave. With all the other mourners gone, the tiny casket sits alone, waiting to be covered over by cold, frozen dirt. Two Negro men stand nearby, one of them stubbing out a cigarette in the snow, the other leaning on a shovel. Beside them lays a mound of dirt covered by a blue tarp. Ruth hadn’t seen the open grave before because of the crowd of people, and seeing it now brings tears to the corners of her eyes.
“Come, Ruth,” Celia says, stepping forward. “Let’s get you home.”