Fruit of a Poison Tree

VI

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine.

We walk around the perimeter of the park, up the hill for some distance until we rounded the top. On the small plateau sat the cemetery, with tombstones more than a hundred years old. It was in no semblance of order, someone who died in 1902 next to someone who died in 2002, but that gave the place a kind of symmetry.

In the back corner, nearest the hills, there is a clump of people clad in black. Jameson and I walk over to them, quietly, my feet squishing down a little into the ground. I can hear the pastor speaking over the two open graves. Going up on my toes, I can see the two coffins, one light-colored wood and very gothic-looking in shape, the other dark and square.

A few people standing on either side of the two coffins hold flowers in their hands. One group, those I realized are there for Adam primarily, held long-stemmed white roses while the others cradle different flowers in various beautiful colors. That seems more like Tyler, anyway. With my hands resting on my hips, I sit back on my heels and here the reading of Psalm 23, about the Valley of Death, the one they always read at burials and funerals.

Just as the coffins are being moved to above the graves, slowly lowered down into the earth, I spot Lucy not far away. She is sitting on a headstone, which does not look particularly right but is certainly forgivable on a day like this one. She is barefoot, staring out with her back to where the boys – where Adam – is being buried, the sunlight illuminating her like an aura, and I cannot help but wonder what is running through her head, what thoughts were plaguing her at this moment. But I knew I could not just walk up to her and ask. It would be more than insensitive, coming from a girl who, before everything, still did not like her very much.

When I heard the thud of the coffins hitting the bottom end of the grown, my head snapped back to the scene in front of me. I swallowed hard as Tyler's mother walked up to lay a handful of dirt on her son's coffin. It made an awful, hollow sound that makes me feel sick to my stomach. I have to turn away when Adam's sister walks up to put the first handful of dirt in his grave. I want to plug my ears, but I know that would be terribly rude. So even though I do not see, I hear the terrible sound again, feel sick again, and want to leave. But I stay the whole time, Jameson standing next to me, as the dirt from the pile on either side of the holes is dumped on top of the coffins.

Everyone began to leave, parting like the Red Sea, each family walking off to two separate sets of cars. They boys had died almost simultaneously, had lived similarly and closely, were memorialized together, and buried beside each other. But in the end, their families moved away from each other, their grief separate.

"You ready, Danielle?" Jameson's voice was little more than a whisper, barely louder than the sound rustling through the leaves on the trees.

"Yeah," I slide my eyes over to look at Lucy, still sitting there, motionless. "No. I think you should go talk to Lucy."

"I think that she needs to be alone right now," he looks at me.

"I think that is the last thing she needs," I tell him. "She is hurting and sad and guilty and angry and she needs somebody who cares about her, somebody who is not going to judge her. And quite frankly, that is your specialty. I cannot even count how many people you've helped through hard times, through the hardest times of their lives."

"I know, I know," he purses his lips as he looks down at the ground covered in lush grass. "I'll go."

"Do you want me to wait?" I ask as he takes a step forward.