That afternoon was to be the last time I spoke to my mother. My mother. How strange the words sounded to me. Jewel. An innocent right up to the end. A child. A gentle and beautiful child who the world had bloodied but never made bitter. How could she have possibly ever been anyone’s mother? But she was, had been, a mother, second to none. A mother who had found the best in each of us, mined it, and never made us feel the lack of what we would never have to give. She was, after all was said and done, my mother, though I never called her anything but Jewel, and the next day, she died in my arms.
It was a glorious day, the first sunny one in what seemed like endless days of rain. Luca was in the orchard tending the trees. I didn’t have to tell him. I could see in his face what he had seen in mine, the knowledge that made him lean so heavily on his spade. “It’s over,” I said. “She’s gone.”
He didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, Darcy.”
And I said, “Thank you,” and had started back to the house, when his hand touched my shoulder. “Let me help with the funeral,” he said.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’d rather do it myself. It’ll give me something to do.”
His eyes fell back to his spade then, and he went back to his work, and I to the house. It never occurred to me that he might have needed to help me even if I didn’t need help, that perhaps he was already missing Jewel as much as I was. It just never occurred to me.
It turned bitter cold the day of the funeral and Caroline showed up looking like something out of a magazine, complete with black-veiled hat and gloves. Over her dress, she wore a fur coat that must have cost her lawyer husband the proceeds of a major lawsuit. Even Jolene breezed in from Philadelphia, where she had won a scholarship to keep going to school.
It was a simple service conducted by a minister Caroline had brought with her from Connecticut over my objections. Jewel had never thought much of churchmen or churchgoers and I didn’t think it fitting to have one at the funeral. But Caroline said it wouldn’t be proper, and I gave in to her who had developed a mortal fear of being improper. Her husband took us all to the service in his big black car that must have been a mile long. During the service, he kept taking his watch out of his pocket every five seconds and looking at it like he had a train to catch.
The minister talked for a while by the graveside in a very general way since he had never met Jewel, and then we all threw a rose onto the lowered coffin. I watched Luca drop his rose and thought I’d never seen anyone look so stricken. When it was over, I felt disgusted with myself for letting Caroline take over like she had. And I asked if anyone would mind if I read from a book I’d read to Jewel in her last months. It was not really a question and I didn’t wait for a response. I just took out my Rubaiyat: “Then said another—surely not in vain my substance from the common earth was ta’en, that He who subtly wrought me into shape should stamp me back to common earth again.”
The minister had a hissyfit and said it wasn’t right to read pagan verse on such an occasion. So for spite, I followed up with: “Ah, with the grape my fading life provide, and wash my body whence the life has died, and in a windingsheet of vineleaf wrapt, so bury me by some sweet gardenside.”
Walking back to the car, Caroline’s husband took her arm and the minister took Jolene’s. I hoped Luca might offer me his arm, but he walked by himself a little ahead of the rest of us with his hands in his pockets. And so, I walked alone.
Back at the inn, Jolene left right away. She had to get back for some examinations, she said over her shoulder as she swept out the door. Luca went upstairs to change his good clothes and Caroline and her husband proceeded to ransack the house under the guise of collecting mementoes of Jewel.
In every family, there is a vulture, for some unfortunate families more than one, who can smell death even from great distance, and once having caught the scent, cannot rest until all that once belonged to the dead is theirs. Often, they swoop down on the house before the undertaker can get there. Sometimes, they cannot even wait for death, but begin to dismantle the house piece by piece while the sick still live. With a cold eye, they appraise value, and with greedy fingers, they grasp and carry off in their talons whatever isn’t nailed to the floor. Caroline was our very own vulture, and in the time she had been gone from Galen, she had developed an appreciation for antiques. To me, the inn and all its contents were junk, but to Caroline’s practiced eye, the things that had belonged to the Justice and then to Jewel, were valuable. She filled her big black car with small chairs and tables and lamps and jewelry and anything else that could be made to fit. For a moment, I thought she was going to tie her husband to the car roof to make more room for her plunder. She was good enough, however, to leave me my bed and enough skeletal furniture to keep the house functioning.
Luca stood in the hall watching Caroline go in and out
