Diana Adams "Private Ceremony" (Short Story for Literary Potpourri)

Theda wasn't sure when it happened, but then again she wasn't sure about many things when it came to her family. She had come home to the farm, after an ambiguous call from her mother. She only had to look at the slope of her mother's shoulders, and at her hair drawn back too tightly, to know she had carried the burden of this secret for a long time. How long ago did he die? There were many questions to ask, but she kept them to herself for now. She was a journalist; she had learned to be observant to pain and panic.

They sat in the kitchen. The window looked over the undulating, yellow-green landscape of a dry summer. Long summer days spent with John Malcolm in those fields flashed in her mind. As absurd as it seemed, she had to admit that she was not surprised how easily the truth was revealed by her mother's silence. Unspoken communication was the norm in her family. Her father had been a deeply silent man, completely devoted to his horses, and unwilling to combat the intricacies of learning a new language fully. It was more an act of defiance. He learned only what was necessary to get by in their community: to buy his food, get his gas, and greet the neighbors that lived on farms many acres away. Only when he was with his horses did his he appear to loosen up and the hard, inexpressive lines of his face would soften. He was unwilling to subscribe to his new country: he ate in German, he thought in German, he laughed deeply in German, and now he had died in a way that would maintain this stolid unwillingness.

Her mother was not German. She was French-Canadian. She had caught his eye in the supermarket, buying day-old bread for stuffing. She was slender, dark-haired and intense. She spoke German, but she did not like conversation. Now she rose from the kitchen table to start a pot of coffee.

'Mother, ….you must tell people. So there won't be any …confusion.'

Her mother looked smaller now than she remembered as she stood by the stove. She still made her coffee in the dark blue camp-fire percolator, and moved around the kitchen with the same peculiar intensity as if guarded, waiting for a reprimand. Like a dog that knows it has done something wrong.

Theda looked out the window to her side to the small kitchen garden. It's thirty feet deep, twelve feet wide, she had told her school friends proudly after helping her father plant the garden when she was a young girl. The earth was upturned between the corn, the beans, and the butternut squash. The soil is a rich dark brown; recently watered. A large patch of the garden was completely cleared. Just large enough for him. She went outside the kitchen door to look at it closer. Images of decomposition came to Theda's mind. Her mother followed her out, and stood close behind her, her small hand held her elbow.

'Not there Theda, how could you think…? He was very specific. He had to be placed so that he could get to where he wanted.'

'To Dresden?'

'No, west to the mountains. He wanted to ride his horses there.'

'Oh…'

'He is out there.' She pointed with her coffee cup. 'You don't need to know where. He is facing west.'

Theda was relieved when dinnertime came. They shared the fresh rolls, and the beef stew that they made together, with wine, carrots, and plump fava beans. It was difficult to look at her family's belongings in the house: the sagging red chesterfield, her father's neat study, his boots in the closet, the oak dining room table. They ate at the kitchen table as neither of them felt right eating in the dining room without him. Everything in the house was rubbed with pain.

But she had known it was coming, and her father refused to go to a doctor. Still, she grieved just as much as if she had not known. They never did learn what it was that finally took him. He had only laughed when anyone asked him what was wrong. Now she longed to leave the silence of her mother, and get into her bed to cry privately. She could take a sleeping pill, and then there would only be two more days to endure.

It shouldn't have surprised her when John Malcolm rang the front bell, right after dinner. He had always come for her at this time, back then. He would talk to her mother briefly, and then take Theda out for the night. Her mother must have told him she was coming home. He had not changed at all in the last ten years, and still had the dark bright eyes of a hawk.

Theda had lost her virginity to him because of those eyes and his strong, thick body. After that, they made love regularly in the back of his blue Ford pick-up truck. He had been a patient, slow lover, quick to adapt his strong body into positions so that she felt no discomfort from the hard surface under the blanket. She might have married him if she had stayed on the farm instead of going away to school.

Theda was glad he was here now. He kissed her cheek, and held on to her hand. Her mother finally looked a little happier. With John Malcolm there, she no longer looked as if she had a secret. Theda knew then that it was John Malcolm who had done the digging.

'You two get out of here, and enjoy the night.'

So, she would have a chance after all. She went to her room while John waited for her downstairs by the front door. She searched through her suitcase, and then her toiletry bag. Finally, she found something usable in the cabinet. A perfume bottle that her father had given her years ago. She closed the cabinet and looked in the mirror, her face was red and spotted from strain. She tied her hair back with a tight rubber band.

She was able to cry a little when she got into his car. He gave her a tissue and put his hand on her leg. They drove up the long driveway. She looked back at the house her father had built with his own hands for his family. It was a vision of glass, beam and stone. John drove west on the narrow dirt road.

'Will you take me there?'

'Are you sure?'

'I want to see...uh, him. '

When they got to the main road, he turned right and followed it to the furthest edge of the property. He had new jeans on, his legs looked stiff as he pressed on the brake. They still had some time before it got dark. He got out and opened her door. He helped her over the fence, just as he did ten years ago when they would smoke cigarettes together in the summer field. She found the spot they were looking for easily. How did they get him over the fence?

'Do you want me to leave you alone?'

'No, you can help me. I don't know what to do…'

'Why don't you say something nice, maybe a prayer or something.' He held out a flask.

Theda felt ridiculous, but she said the Lord's Prayer in her head first, in case she forgot the words. She started quietly, and then spoke louder to finish. She was beginning to feel less awkward about things, but it did nothing to diminish the raw emptiness growing inside her. She took another sip of the whiskey, and then she remembered the perfume. The bottle had yellowed over the years, but she could still see the flowers on the label. She poured the perfume over the earth, and closed her eyes.

John Malcolm stood about two feet behind her, smoking a cigarette. She could hear him exhaling into the country air. It must have been hard for him to do it, she thought. He must have felt like a criminal, burying her father secretly. He must wonder, like she did, what was happening under the dry earth. But, it was what her father wanted. Just as he would have wanted this: John Malcolm and his Theda standing over him, not a minister or priest. He wanted them both there, puzzling over, once again, some maverick idea that he presented to them.

Maybe she could come again tomorrow, to finish it off with a reading, and sprinkle some grass seed so that where he lay wasn't so obvious. Her mother could help, maybe they could water the seeds together. It might help her. That way your horses would have something to eat, Father. Then she thought she heard his laughter.

PRIVATE CEREMONY

by

Diana Adams