Sunday, November 30, 2008
Riverside, California
Rose sat at the kitchen table, absently sipping a cup of tea. It was five o’clock, much too early to be up, but she couldn’t sleep. In spite of the continuing weakness caused by her miscarriage and her injuries, she was plagued by insomnia.
Today was Paul’s funeral. Rose stared dully at the table, thinking about it. At three o’clock, they would bury the youngest member of the Dawson family. They had purchased a burial plot in the children’s section of Riverside National Cemetery, as well as a small marker with Paul’s name and the dates of his birth and death.
Paul’s organs had been donated, just as she had requested, and although she didn’t know the names of the recipients, she knew that several young children had benefited from those organs. His heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys had all gone to sick children in several parts of the country, and she could only hope that those children would survive, and that their families wouldn’t have to go through what the Dawsons had.
Rose looked up as Jack came into the kitchen, wrapped in an old bathrobe. He looked at her for a moment before pulling over a chair beside hers, sitting down and putting an arm around her. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Rose leaning into Jack’s embrace.
"Are you okay?" Jack asked her finally. "I noticed you weren’t in bed, so I came looking for you."
Rose nodded, her eyes filling with tears again. Jack had been continually loving and supportive of her, even though he was grieving, too.
"I’m okay," she whispered at last. "I just couldn’t sleep, is all."
"Me, either. I woke up and found you gone, so I figured I might as well get up."
"Thanks." Rose leaned against him, sipping her tea. "I keep dreaming about him, about that awful night. Has it really been three days already?"
"Yeah. It’s hard to believe. Life is going on, even with Paul gone."
"You know, I was right about Paul and cars. They were his life."
"How so?"
"He was conceived in that car, born in it…and died there, too. I guess it’s just as well that the car was totaled…I don’t think I could bring myself to drive it again."
"I don’t think I could, either." Jack rubbed his eyes. "If only I’d been paying a little more attention…"
"It might have happened, anyway. After all, the other driver was drunk, speeding, and driving with his lights off in a dark area in the rain. It would have been virtually impossible to see him, no matter how careful you’d been. And you had no reason to think that he was there. That intersection is usually safe."
"I don’t know, Rose. It just feels like I could have done something differently. If I had stayed on the freeway, this wouldn’t have happened."
"Maybe not. But you couldn’t have known it would happen. And if you had done something differently—braked sooner, or driven faster—it might have been worse. It could have all of us killed that night."
"It should have been me."
Rose turned to look at him. "Jack, no. Don’t say that. It isn’t a matter of should or shouldn’t. It just happened."
"I was driving. That puts me in a position of responsibility."
"Jack, listen to me." Rose gently turned his face to hers. "You were not responsible. You weren’t the one driving drunk. It shouldn’t have happened, but it wasn’t your fault. Not in any way." She could see from his face that he didn’t believe her, so she pressed on. "You have to stop beating yourself up over this. I could claim some guilt, too. If I hadn’t been sleeping, I might have seen the drunk driver coming. I might have been able to warn you. But no one had any idea that this would happen. This isn’t the sort of thing that happens in real life. It’s something that you hear about in the newspapers and on television. But it is real, and Paul is gone. No one is at fault but the drunk driver."
"Who wasn’t even hurt." Jack leaned against her tiredly. "Goddamn him."
"I can’t believe he wants to sue us for wrecking his car."
"I doubt that will get anywhere. It was obviously his fault."
"You see? Jack, remember what you just said. It was obviously his fault. You couldn’t have prevented it. There was nothing you could do."
Jack looked away from her, but not before Rose saw the tears running down his face. Choking on a sob, she pulled him into her arms, holding him tight.
"I miss him, too," she murmured. "I never thought I’d say this, but I even miss diapers and midnight feedings."
"And the noises he’d make when he was content, and his smile."
"He won’t ever have any more pain or suffering. We have to remember that. He’s gone on to a better place. He’s with your parents now, and my father. He isn’t alone."
"I would rather he were still with us, and this was just another ordinary Sunday. We’d still be asleep in our room, and the kids in theirs. Then we’d have a relaxed breakfast, take Lizzy to the playground…all the usual things."
"I wonder if we’ll ever get back to normal." Rose laid her head on his shoulder. "Everything has been turned upside down."
Jack didn’t have an answer for that. It seemed like nothing would be normal ever again.
*****
"No! I wanna wear my red jumper!" Lizzy looked at Rose challengingly, perched on her bed in her underwear.
"Lizzy…you can’t wear your red jumper to a funeral. It isn’t appropriate." Rose sighed inwardly, realizing how much she sounded like her mother at the moment. "I want you to put on your navy blue dress."
"Why? Baby Paul liked red. He always smiled when I gave him a red toy."
Rose took a deep breath, trying to contain her temper. Lizzy had been whiny and irritable ever since they had told her that Paul had died. Nothing ever seemed to make her happy, and every request was met with the word why. On one level, Rose could understand why the child was misbehaving, but she wasn’t making it any easier to cope.
"Lizzy…"
"Please, Mommy?"
Rose sighed. It was hard to resist Lizzy when she gave her that look, especially since she was finally being polite. And Rose had admit that she was right. Paul had liked the color red. He’d had a red teddy bear that he had poked, tugged at, chewed on, and drooled over. It had been his favorite toy—which was why Jack and Rose had decided to have it buried with him.
"All right, Lizzy. You can wear your red jumper. But you still have to dress nicely. Here’s your tights, and you’re going to wear your pretty white blouse with it, okay?"
Lizzy slid off her bed. "Okay, Mommy. Can I wear my black patent leather shoes, too?"
"Sure, sweetie. Now, come on. Let’s get you dressed."
Jack knocked on the door. "Everything okay in here?"
Rose opened the door, letting him in with relief. "Just fine. We’re finally getting somewhere."
"Are you giving your mommy a hard time, Lizzy?"
Lizzy hung her head. "I wanna wear my red jumper. Baby Paul liked red."
"Go get your clothes, Lizzy, okay? We’ll help you get dressed. Hurry up. We need to leave soon."
"Mommy?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"I’m sorry I was bad."
"Oh, Lizzy." Rose gave her a hug. "You aren’t bad. You just need to stop arguing with me about everything, okay?"
"I know." Lizzy headed over to the low bar in the closet and came back with her clothes.
Her parents quickly helped her dress, Rose making sure her blouse was buttoned straight and zipping the jumper, and Jack buckling the shoes onto her feet.
"All set, Busy Lizzy?" Jack asked, taking her hand as Rose slid two barrettes into the child’s hair.
"Yeah. Daddy, what’s a funeral for?"
"It’s so that everybody can say good-bye to the person who died."
"But I thought Baby Paul was gone already."
"He is. It’s just how people get together and remember him. A minister is going to talk about him and how he went to heaven, and we’re going to bury his body."
"So we’re saying bye to his body?"
Jack nodded, surprised at the child’s perceptiveness. "Yes. We’re saying good-bye to his body."
"And it’ll be food for the flowers."
"Yes. And lots of people are going to bring flowers."
"Can I bring a flower?"
"Well, we already had a bouquet sent ahead. We gave him some flowers."
"I wanna give him that flower." Lizzy pointed to the row of small pots on the kitchen windowsill that Mari had helped her set up and plant. A radish plant, in spite of the lateness of the year, had bloomed, its white flowers drooping over the table.
"I don’t see why not." Rose pulled a pair of safety scissors from a drawer. "You want to give him the radish flower, Lizzy?"
"Uh-huh."
Rose cut the flower and wrapped the end in a wet paper towel and tinfoil.
"Come on, Busy Lizzy. Let’s go say good-bye to your brother."
*****
The sun shone brightly over the group assembled at the cemetery, oddly bright and cheerful for such a sad occasion. Weather as overcast and gloomy as the night Paul had died would have seemed more appropriate, but the Southern California climate didn’t always cooperate.
Rose stood beside Jack, Lizzy standing in front of her with her arms wrapped around Rose’s legs. Jack’s good arm was around Rose’s shoulders as they listened to the minister’s voice drone on.
Neither of them had gone to church very often in the past few years, so it hadn’t seemed appropriate to have a church funeral for Paul. But Rose had called on Reverend Kilpatrick, the minister of the church she had once attended in Masline, to conduct the funeral.
He had agreed to conduct the graveside service, refusing to allow her to pay him. He had known Rose since she was thirteen years old and had always thought well of her, even though he had seen her only a few times since he had married the Dawsons five years earlier.
Jack glanced at Rose as she leaned against him, wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue, and pulled her closer, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. Her body shuddered in a sob and Lizzy looked up at her, patting her hand.
"It’s okay, Mommy. Baby Paul’s gone to heaven. They’ll take good care of him there."
"Thank you, Lizzy." Rose squeezed the little girl’s hand gently, pulling her close and putting a hand on her shoulder.
Jack looked at the flower-covered casket as Reverend Kilpatrick ended his sermon, standing aside as the bouquets of flowers were removed and the tiny casket was lowered into the ground. He blinked rapidly to hold back tears as the entire group moved forward to pay their last respects to the baby whose life had been short, but full of love.
There were only a few people there—Paul’s life had been too short to have really touched many other lives. Helga and Bill were there, though they had left Daniel and Lena with a babysitter. Helga had thought it might be too frightening for Daniel to go to a funeral, especially since the child who had died was so close in age to his sister, and Lena was much too young to understand. Tommy and Sophie were there also, as were Mari and Kathleen Fleming, whose face was drawn and pale and looked every moment of her seventy years.
Jack and Rose stood beside the tiny grave, looking down at the plain, unadorned casket at the bottom of it. They had opted for a closed-casket funeral because of the nature of Paul’s injuries. He hadn’t looked good when he died, so they had decided to spare everyone the trauma of seeing the injuries that had killed him.
Slowly, aware of Rose and Lizzy at his side, Jack picked up a handful of dirt and squeezed it tightly before dropping it with a dull thud on the wooden box below. Rose followed suit, showing Lizzy how to drop her own handful of dirt on top of her baby brother’s casket.
Silently, the Dawsons moved out of the way to allow everyone else to take their turn. Lizzy clung to her parents, her arms wrapped around a leg of each of them. Handing the umbrella to Rose, Jack picked her up, resting her head against his shoulder.
"Daddy?" Lizzy whispered.
"Hmm?"
"Why’d Baby Paul have to die?"
"I don’t know, Lizzy. He was hurt very badly, and I guess God just decided to take him to heaven."
"I wish he was still here."
"Me, too, Lizzy. Me, too."