And that was why the minister had not been left alone since his death, why someone had always been with him. His mother and a bunch of the other men and women from the church had taken turns and remained with the body around the clock, saying special prayers of protection even as they said traditional prayers for Jim’s soul. The assumption was that his death was not caused by the hand of man but was the work of demons or spirits, and there were hints that the minister had battled with a devil and lost, that he had died a martyr trying to protect the church. While Gregory didn’t believe that, the idea of it still gave him chills. He was not as divorced from the religion as he liked to pretend, and being back here in McGuane, being once again among his people, brought it all back and made him feel like a boy again, afraid of things that in California would have seemed to him like silly superstitions.
The dirt road wound up to the crest of the ridge, disappearing at the top, and Gregory drove across the rocky, ungraded ground to the spot where other vehicles were parked, outside the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. He slowed the van as he approached, feeling odd as he looked at the open gates of the graveyard. It was where his father was buried, and it had not changed one whit. The land, the sky, the fence, the headstones were exactly as he remembered them. It was as if time had stood still, and he licked his suddenly dry lips as he pulled to a stop behind a Ford pickup.
He had not been here since the day of the funeral, all those years ago, and he felt guilty and ashamed, acutely conscious of his filial neglect. His father had often been in his thoughts—not a day had gone by, in fact, when Gregory had not thought of him—but he had never made the effort to visit the gravesite. Until now he had been able to rationalize his actions and not face the fact that his avoidance was the result of a childish and selfish inability to confront his father’s passing. He’d always told himself that there was no reason to visit the grave, that his father was gone, that what was lying buried in the coffin was a husk, an empty shell. And he believed it. But the truth was that he also didn’t want to have to think about it. He had chosen the emotionally easy way out, preferring not to experience emotions that would make him uneasy or uncomfortable.
Now they were flooding over him.
He glanced at his mother in the rearview mirror and realized for the first time that she had never returned to McGuane either.
And she had not asked to visit the gravesite since they’d moved back.
She was unaware that he was watching her, and her face was set in what looked like a grimace. Her back had been hurting for the past few days, and he would have attributed the look on her face to the physical pain but for the fact that he recognized her expression: it was exactly the same one she had worn at his father’s funeral.
He remembered the way she’d broken down, sobbing, wailing, falling to her knees in the dirt next to the open grave; remembered that he’d been embarrassed and had looked away, looked over the side of the ridge, down at the ugly open pit of the mine; remembered that when he turned back to look at the group of mourners his mother was no longer crying but was grimacing as if in pain.
Precisely as she was now.
He couldn’t help wondering: was this face for his father or the minister? It was wrong of him to be so judgmental, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t like the fact that his father and Jim Petrovin would be buried in the same cemetery, and he hoped their graves were far apart.
Where would his mother be buried? he wondered. Between them?
Of course not. She had already purchased a plot right next to his father’s, had already planned out her funeral to such an extent that he knew where her burial clothes were and what style of casket she wanted. She was sad because an old friend of hers had died, and he was just being an insensitive asshole.
He and Julia got out of the van, Julia unfolding a sunscreen over the windshield so the inside of the vehicle wouldn’t be an oven when they returned. He opened the sliding side door, and his mother stepped out slowly, pressing one hand against her aching back. “Oy,” she groaned.
He took her arm as she straightened. “Come on,” he said kindly in Russian.
And flanked by his wife and his mother, he walked through the gates, across the rocky ground, past his father’s final resting place, to the open gravesite near the edge of the cliff.
5
Just as he’d thought, just as he’d known, his parents wanted to take him out for his birthday, and though he’d begged them not to, though he’d specifically requested that they celebrate alone, at home, his mom and dad had made reservations at the Mining Camp restaurant, the most popular eatery in town, and invited Scott to come along.
Adam just hoped to God they hadn’t told anyone at the restaurant about it and that all of the waitresses and busboys weren’t going to come over and sing “Happy Birthday” and embarrass the hell out of him.
He’d never be able to live it down.
At least he had gotten his family to agree to open the presents at home, so he didn’t have to sit at the table with a pile of wrapped boxes in front of him and open them while everyone stared. Two girls from his class were at the restaurant tonight, Liz and Livia Stanson, the blabbermouth sisters, and he knew that anything occurring here this evening would be all over school by Monday. If he had had to unwrap a package of underwear from Babunya in front of them, he would have been humiliated all the way through junior high.
Actually, things weren’t turning out as badly as he’d feared. The Mining Camp’s one banquet table had already been occupied when they’d arrived, so their party had had to spread out over two tables. Since he was the birthday boy, he got to sit alone at one with Scott, while the rest of the family sat together in a booth.
So, all things considered, it wasn’t too embarrassing.
Not as embarrassing as it could have been.
He’d been told by his dad that he could order anything on the menu, but there wasn’t a whole lot to choose from, and both he and Scott decided on bacon double cheeseburgers and Cokes. Over at the other table, his parents were having a difficult time getting Teo to order anything. She was in one of her non-eating moods, and they read off the menu items to her one by one, trying to entice her, but she continued to shake her head.
“I’m not hungry,” Teo said.
“Zdohcly!” Babunya admonished her.
“What’s that mean?” Scott whispered.
Adam shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know. She always says it when we don’t want to eat. I think it means, like, ‘puny’ or something.”
“You can’t speak Russian?”
“No,” he said, and now he was embarrassed about that.
The waitress came and took everyone’s order, and his stomach sank as he saw his father motion her over and whisper something in her ear. He knew what that meant. The old candle-on-the-dessert-while-everyone-sings-“Happy-Birthday” routine. Great. He had told his parents he didn’t want that, had threatened to walk out if they did it, and he’d thought they understood. They’d acted sympathetic, had promised there would be no singing, but apparently they had no intention of honoring his wishes. He should have known by the smirk on Sasha’s face when he’d talked to his parents that they had something planned.
“Looks like there’s going to be singing,” Scott said. He grinned. “But don’t worry. I won’t participate.”
“Yeah, that makes a big difference.”
He looked toward his family’s table and happened to glance over just as Sasha was shifting position. The booth bench seats were slightly higher than his and Scott’s on the floor, and he saw, between her legs and up her skirt, a flash of white that was her underwear.