Chapter Eleven

I spent the next few days preparing for the funeral on Saturday. There was a rosary Friday night at the mortuary, with a reception at Dad’s house following. The funeral the next day would include Mass, interment (why couldn’t they just say burial?) at the graveyard, and another reception at the church hall. I had to help Connie get the house ready for the post-rosary reception, including hiring a last-minute caterer and buying a load of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. The fancy Murano came in handy.

One chore I had to fulfill was to go to the graveyard and decide where Daddy’s grave should go. To the right of Grandma or to the left? My father had purchased four plots years ago. Why four? One was supposed to be for my hellish grandfather, but he had adamantly expressed his wishes to have his ashes spread in Ireland. I think most folks, including my father and grandmother, were relieved to have Grandpa Paddy’s remains as far from Prairie View as possible.

So Grandma had two plots to her left and one to her right. I wanted to see which plot had the best view, so my father’s ghost would enjoy the dazzling sunrises and sunsets the Hi-Line is famous for. It’s a common practice there to bury even cremated bodies in the ground, complete with headstones. It’s one of the advantages of living in a state where vast land tracts can afford spacious resting areas for the dead. My father’s urn would be planted next to his mother’s.

The graveyard gate was open, so I inched my car along the well-maintained gravel lanes that separated blocks of graves. I fought back tears and my breathing hitched as I studied all the familiar names etched on the headstones. I learned something about small towns that was rarely mentioned. I could walk through the cemetery of my tiny town and have a cathartic grief experience. I knew almost everyone there: teachers, family friends, waitresses, janitors, attorneys, babies, doctors, parents of friends, friends my age who met untimely deaths. They were all there, waiting for someone to walk by and acknowledge them. It was a rock-hardened soul who could walk into her little town graveyard and not shed a tear or shake a bewildered head.

The Prairie View Cemetery lived up to its name. You could see the prairie for miles around, with the Sweet Grass Hills in the northern distance and the Rocky Mountains sixty miles to the west. Panoramic dramatic vistas, complete with cirrus clouds and red-tailed hawks. Breathtaking in spring and summer, desolate and biting cold in fall and winter. I was thankful Daddy died in the spring so that the ground was thawed and we could bury him right away. We had to store Grandma for four months before we could bury her, and it felt like pressing business unfinished until we had her in the ground.

It only took a minute to decide to plant my father to the left of Grandma. That way an empty plot would be to either side of them. More symmetrical and the view was wonderful from every vantage point. Daddy had chosen his final resting place well.

I had a Jewish girlfriend once who taught me the custom of placing a rock on any gravestone we visited. It’s a practice I appreciated, so I searched around for a stone to put on Grandma’s grave. As I put a golf ball–sized rock on her headstone, I heard a rumbling engine getting louder. I looked up in time to see a large motorcycle, driven by a black leather biker, barrel too fast down the road adjacent to the cemetery. A huge cloud of dust boiled up from the rear wheel, making the rider look far more dramatic than he deserved to.

“Asshole,” I muttered. “Oh, sorry, Grandma. You know I’ve always had a potty mouth.” Here I was, apologizing to Grandma’s grave for swearing. Some things never change. But it pissed me off that the bike rider had no respect for the dead. Never mind I used to take that same road at death-defying speeds in my old Chevy.

On my way home from the graveyard, I got to thinking about the maps on Dad’s worktable. His obsession with them bothered me. He usually bought land quickly and turned it over just as rapidly, making a tidy profit before he had to pour any maintenance money into the property. As far as I could tell, he’d been holding the Martin farm for almost a year and, during that time, poring over the maps.

Maybe he was holding on to the land because of the threatened suit by the Martin boys. As far as I knew, old man Martin had no quarrel with Daddy’s purchase of his land. Farming wasn’t lucrative around Prairie View anymore, so why were the boys so all-fired to get it back? And the big question for me: did I really care? Hell, I had no connection to that land. I could just sell it back to the Martins and be done with it. But my father was fascinated by it. Why? Those damn maps.

I decided to set the Martin mess aside until I had a meeting with my father’s attorney after the funeral. I was really in no shape at that moment to think about or discuss business legalities.