The punishing heat didn’t let up for Leland’s funeral. The Blue Ridge had vanished, bleached by the haze until it disappeared, blending into the colorless sky. The horizon looked disturbingly flat and closed-in. Eli reported before we left for the funeral home that when Hector’s men dug the grave for the coffin, they broke a shovel trying to penetrate the concrete-like clay soil. The drought was reported as the lead news story on the local radio station, instead of being lumped with the rest of the weather forecast.
Once again, everyone in town showed up for the short ceremony, crowding in to our brick-walled cemetery, standing shoulder to shoulder, drenched to the skin in heat-seeking dark clothing. It seemed surreal as all funerals do, the bizarre intersection of time when Leland was and wasn’t among us—a lifeless body inside a glossy wooden casket soon to be lowered into the ground. I stared at my mother’s headstone, unable to clearly conjure the sound of her voice in my head anymore, however much I might want to hear it again.
The bagpiper played “Amazing Grace,” and it was achingly lovely. Next to me Mia sobbed quietly into a handkerchief. I put my arm around her thin shoulders, half-expecting her to pull away and gratified when she leaned against me protectively. I stroked her hair. Eli reached over and took her hand.
Then Reverend Martin said, “Please bow your heads.”
After a few minutes I noticed Eli glancing at his watch. His lips were moving.
“Stop it, will you?” I whispered behind Mia’s back. “It will be over when it’s over. Leland won’t come back and haunt you if it doesn’t end precisely at sunset. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“It’s far from perfect,” he snapped. “Fitz was supposed to give one of the eulogies. He’s not even here. Mason’s doing it instead.”
I looked around. “Where is he?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Reverend Martin cleared his throat loudly and Eli and I looked up. He was staring directly at us. Mason Jones, our lawyer, was standing next to him, hands clasped around a Bible. I blushed and quickly bowed my head as my brother did the same. We didn’t speak again until after the last note of “Taps” sounded as the sun disappeared, leaving a Technicolor sky behind.
“So what’s going on with Fitz?” Eli asked in a low voice. He handed me his handkerchief. “Here. Your mascara’s running.”
The three of us were standing in an untidy receiving line at the gate to the cemetery with Dominique. Mia was no longer crying but her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.
I pressed Eli’s handkerchief against my watery eyes. If I started to cry, she’d lose it again, too. I tried to keep my voice steady. “I don’t know. Do you think he’s all right?”
“This isn’t like him.” Dominique twisted her jet-bead necklace around her fingers until it became a choker. “I can’t imagine where he could be.”
“He reeked of booze last night,” Eli said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to light a match near him. Maybe he went home, had a few more belts, and is still sleeping it off.” He looked at me pointedly. “You were the last one to see him, weren’t you?”
“I suppose I was,” I said. “He told me he was coming here to pick up some cases of specially labeled wine for a wedding. I assumed after that he was going by the inn.”
Last night’s conversation with Fitz in the tropical darkness, his whispered accusations and revelations in the shadowy recesses of that porch, still haunted me. For the rest of the evening I’d felt like a sleepwalker, the jet lag clouding my judgment about what was real and what I’d imagined.
“If he was supposed to stop by the inn, he never made it,” Dominique said.
“Maybe somebody should go look for him,” Brandi suggested. “But not you, Eli. I need you to stay with me.” She folded her arms protectively over her belly. She’d been playing the baby card with a heavy hand ever since I’d laid eyes on her. Last night at the wake she’d had Eli dancing around like a Mexican jumping bean, getting her water, fanning her, massaging her feet. At this rate, by the time the blessed event rolled around he’d probably go into labor for her.
“Are you all right, angel?” He looked worried.
“The heat.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I need to lie down.”
“We’ll go right away,” he said. “I brought the Jag. Anyone else want a ride?”
“I’ll go with Greg,” Mia’s voice still shook. “He said he’d wait for me.”
I’d noticed him standing with a few of the Romeos next to an ancient oak tree. He’d nodded to me when we gathered for the service, but we hadn’t spoken. Mia left us, threading her way through the crowd and ran into Greg’s arms, clinging to him. He bent his head and I could see him talking to her. She nodded and began crying again.
I looked away, feeling mildly ashamed like a voyeur caught watching an intimate moment.
“I’ll go,” Dominique was saying. “I should check on my staff. I need to make sure there’s enough for everyone to eat.”
“We could feed Lee’s Army,” I said, “with what the neighbors dropped off before the service. Plus all the catered food you brought, Dominique.”
“Well, yes,” she said, “but I just hired two new girls and they’re a little green behind the ears.”
“In that case,” Eli said, pulling his keys out of his pocket, “let’s go. Come on, Lucie. You’re coming with us, of course.”
“You go on without me. I need to clear my head. I’ll catch up. Maybe I’ll go the long way and stop by the winery.”
Eli looked irritated. “I don’t think you ought to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because. For one thing it’s going to take you a long time.” He saw the expression on my face. “That’s not what I meant. What I’m saying is everyone expects you to be at the house.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Leave her, Eli,” Brandi said. “Let her do what she wants. Can we please go?”
He turned back to his wife, who looked bored and unhappy. “I’m sorry, babe. Of course we can. We’ll go right now. Dominique? You ready?”
Dominique squeezed my arm. “Be careful,” she murmured. “And forget about Mia and Gregory, okay?”
The three of them walked toward the Jaguar, and Eli’s headlights swept past me a moment later.
There was no one left at the graveside except Hector and two young Mexican workers who were standing about fifty feet from the gate, leaning on shovels. Hector raised his baseball cap in a small salute and walked toward me. The others followed. For an old man, Hector still moved with the compact fluid grace of a panther. I reckoned he had to be close to sixty-five, maybe even older. Now he and Fitz were the only ones left who could remember every one of our harvests.
“You okay, Lucita?” he asked. “Why aren’t you going with the others?”
“I’m fine. I just need a little time before I go back to the house.”
“Sure, sure. I understand. We’ll be taking care of Mr. Lee now.” He made the sign of the cross. “We wait until you’re gone.”
“Thank you,” I said. As I walked away I could hear the rhythmic chipping sound of their shovels moving earth from one place to another, which seemed to be amplified in the ovenlike twilight stillness. I walked as quickly as I could down the road toward the winery.
If those cases of wine were still there then Fitz never made it before he disappeared. Maybe a cop had pulled him over for DUI and he’d spent the night in the drunk tank.
Next time, no matter what he said, I’d take his car keys.
The winery was located just past the stone bridge where Sycamore Lane crossed over Goose Creek. I made it to the bridge and sat on one of the parapets, resting my sore foot. In the gathering dusk the deep fissures in the streambed were still visible and there was only a pathetic meandering gleam of water that looked like someone had forgotten to completely shut off their garden hose. That was Goose Creek.
A pair of headlights caught me in their glare. A white pickup truck came down the road from the direction of the winery. The driver tooted his horn and waved a hand out the window as he pulled up next to me. Harmon Animal Clinic and a telephone number were stenciled in black on the truck door.
“Lucie honey, what are you doing here? Are you all right?” Doc Harmon was one of the Romeos, another of
