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“The other night, Hattie’s husband said, ‘Christina’s next to Brock.’ Brock’s my mom’s brother, Aunt Connie’s late husband, and Nana Mama said he’s buried up there. My mom’s got to be buried beside her brother. And the groundskeeper said there’s also a Cross family plot up there.”
I drove through the gate and up the gently rolling hill, looking for the monuments that the groundskeeper had described.
“Alex,” Bree said softly. “You’ve never been to your parents’ graves?”
I shook my head. “People thought I was too young to go to my mother’s funeral, and we were sent to Nana Mama’s right after my father died. Given all that we’d been through, she wanted to spare us the pain of a funeral.”
Bree thought about that, said, “So your parents died close together?”
“Within a year of each other,” I said. “After my mother passed, my father was so heartbroken, he started drinking a lot more, using drugs.”
“That’s horrible, Alex,” she said, her brow knitting. “How come you’ve never told me that?”
I shrugged. “By the time I met you, my past was…my past.”
“And who took care of you and your brothers while all this was happening?”
I thought about that, driving slow, still scanning the hillside. “I don’t remember,” I said. “Probably Aunt Hattie. We always went to her house when things got—”
The monument was gray granite and far down a row of similar tombstones. The name CROSS was carved across the face of it.
I stopped the car, left it running for the air conditioner, and looked at my wife. Her features were full of pain and sympathy.
“You go see,” she said softly. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
I kissed her before climbing out into the heat and the clamor of insects coming from the woods. I went around the front of the Explorer and down the row of graves, my attentio
n on the one that said Cross.
A general numbness settled in me when I reached the monument, which was barely tended. Grass grew up at the base. I had to crouch and spread it to find three small granite stones carved with initials. Left to right, they read:
A.C. G.C. R.C.
I dug in the grass to the right of R.C. and found nothing but thatch and soil. There was no fourth stone. No J.C.
I stood and went around the back of the monument, finding more on the people buried there. The first name and the particulars startled me.
ALEXANDER CROSS
BLACKSMITH
BORN JANUARY 12, 1890
DIED SEPTEMBER 8, 1947
The second and third inscriptions read:
GLORIA CROSS
MOTHER AND WIFE
BORN JUNE 23, 1897
DIED OCTOBER 12, 1967
REGINALD CROSS
MERCHANT MARINER
