A norther blew on the day we buried Papa, and a cold hard winter light glanced off the river. The mourners gathered under the great banyan tree inside the gate. The Langfords turned up not to mourn but to be mannerly, that is, not so much courteous as proper: they wished to appear steadfast, correct, and faintly disapproving.
The old cemetery had sunk under hard brush and thorn since Mama’s burial ten years before, but Lucius had worked like a madman for days to clear off enough ground for Papa to be laid in there beside her (Walter had paid darkies to do this hot, mean job but Lucius was so desperate to do something that he sent them away). It’s comforting to think that Papa-though “somewhat the worse for wear,” as he might say-is reunited with dear Mama. When I whispered this to Eddie, he retorted too loudly, “Nonsense, Sister! How can they be united? Our father is in Hell!”
The gravediggers stepped back, doffing their hats. Perhaps the two who went to the Islands with Lucius and Frank Tippins had passed the word, for these men knew all about the frightful corpse inside that casket. I’m not being oversensitive. They knew something!
The sheriff ordered them to finish quickly, his voice rough and loud: he seems to dislike nigras. Looking severe in his black suit, he stood guard over Papa’s casket as if to defend him from a vengeful Lord. It was kind of Frank to come, and goodness knows, our dreary little party needed all the support that it could get. When I thanked him, he exclaimed, “Mr. Watson had my respect, Miss Carrie, ma’am, no matter what!” He was very embarrassed, as if he’d said something crude and tactless rather than kind; his mustache, overlong and droopy, gives him a hangdog air. I wonder if he still imagines that he loves me.
After Papa’s trial in north Florida, Walter and Eddie hinted that he would not have been acquitted without political connections. A month later, a drifter at the jail had been condemned to hang for slaying some local lout in self-defense, and Walter remarked that if the defendant had had local friends or influence, he would surely have gone free: for the crime of being a stranger, he would hang. I asked Frank Tippins if this was just. The sheriff said, “He was found guilty by a jury of his peers and condemned to death. That may not be just but it sure is justice. Justice under the law.”
At Papa’s burial I whispered, “Was justice done here, too?” Knowing what I referred to, Frank said, “No, ma’am! No due process! This was murder!” He had spoken loudly; turning red, he stood gulping like a turkey. Then he whispered, “This was murder, Miss Carrie. But some would say that this was justice, too.”
Four of Papa’s friends came from the Islands. Stiff and shy, they stood apart in threadbare Sunday suits and white shirts without collars buttoned up tight. Lucius introduced them to Eddie and me: Captain Bembery Storter and his son Hoad, Mr. Gene Roberts from Flamingo, Mr. Willie Brown. The men paid their respects and offered a few words of formal regret. Where, I wondered, was Postmaster Smallwood? Or Erskine Thompson or Tant Jenkins, who had known us since childhood?
When Lucius moved away, the Island men, very uncomfortable and nervous, urged us to prevail on our younger brother not to return to Chokoloskee Bay asking hard questions; for Ed Watson’s son, it would simply be too dangerous. s “He won’t listen,” Eddie grumped and moved away.
A little woman stood with Lucius, very bright dark eyes and long black hair-cheaply dressed but pretty, I suppose, in a common way. She had a girl with her, a ten-year-old or thereabouts, eyes hollowed out by weeping, rather plain. When the child caught me staring, she smiled a small shy smile, then dropped her eyes.
Lucius had embraced these females a bit freely, so it seemed to me. When I asked him who they were, he said, “Tant’s sister from Caxambas and her daughter Pearl.”
“The one who kept house for Papa? Lost her baby in the hurricane?” Lucius nodded. “Is that the one that he called Netta?” He shook his head. “Aunt Netta’s half sister.” I kept after him, jealous because he knew an intimate side of Papa’s life that I did not. I said meanly, “And did this female betray Mama with Papa, too, like your ‘aunt Netta’? Why is she sniffling so hard? She have a cold?” Lucius gazed at me, not sure how much I knew. “She loved him, I think.” His mild tone chastised me.
By now Sheriff Tippins had overheard us. Trying to smooth things after Lucius moved away, Frank Tippins said, “Lucius is taking this real hard, Miss Carrie. At Rabbit Key-” I cut him off, indicating that Caxambas delegation. “He’s not the only one, it seems.”
Poor Frank was embarrassed. “Well no, ma’am. I mean-” “My father was no saint,” I murmured, to let him off the hook. “No, ma’am,” he said. “That pale child is my half sister, isn’t she?” I said after a pause. “I reckon so, Miss Carrie.” I thanked him for his candor and he tipped his hat. “That the same old hat you bathed in?” I said, hating my own mood. He took it off and looked at it. “Yes, ma’am. Same old hat.” Like Lucius, he soon moved away and who could blame him?
Sun came, sun went. The clay earth of the grave was yellow-orange, dead, unwelcoming. Who could rest in peace in such poor soil? But I was glad of this cold norther because even in the wind, the odor of that box was shocking, truly. Driven back, the circle of Baptist faces looked stuffed tight, sipping their breaths, and women coughed, resorting to their hankies. I was grateful to those brave few who still pretended that they noticed nothing, but surely, they, too, were horrified by that frightful stench and the very thought of the putrefying corpse inside.
The only one who dragged out his big kerchief and held it to his nose, the only one who hawked and spat, was Mr. Cole, who drove up late in his new red Reo, scared he might miss some mean little moment he could chortle over later. Jim Cole hated Papa for not hiding his contempt: he had no business here among the mourners. Unable to hide my resentment, I turned away from him.
Knowing how shallow and vain I was, I prayed that all these Baptist folks considered such a ghastly stench some sort of satanic emanation, not the remains of Carrie Langford’s parent, the source of her own flesh and blood. Oh, Lord, I thought, when my time comes, please hurry me into the ground before anyone can even imagine worms or the dank gray hair and spidery fingernails that are said to grow like fungus in the grave. Pray they remember that rose-scented young virgin, Carrie Watson.
My good Walter supposed that I was grieving and put his arm around my shoulders. Eddie stood off to one side, stiff as a wooden Indian, as if trying to remember how to breathe. Lucius, unable to stand still, had wandered away from our stricken party to rejoin Papa’s woman and the frail half sister I had never set eyes upon before today, then crossed the cemetery to greet Sybil Dyer’s adolescent daughter-all by herself at a burial, imagine!
In the first days of 1901, when Papa came north through Fort Myers, poor dying Mama guessed that he was on the run. Knowing this meeting would likely be their last, she asked him what might have become of that poor Rob. “What has become of him?” Papa said coldly. “If God knows, He has said nothing to me.” Relating this, Mama looked unhappy and bewildered, as if wondering if she’d known her husband after all.
In her last hours of consciousness, Mama lay with her hands flat on the coverlet, those fine hands with their long sensitive fingers that would have the same cool ivory hue in death as in her life. She was mustering up strength, I think, for composing a final message to her children.
There is a great wound in your poor father I could never heal, and may the Good Lord who gave him life have mercy and forgive him at the last, and give him rest. Because Papa, too, is made in our Lord’s image. He is a man, a human being, whose violence is the dark side of him never redeemed. Yes, he is accursed when in his drink, hard, cynical, and tragically self-destructive, and I fear for his immortal soul. But as you well know, having seen it, he can be kind and generous, too, and does not stint, and he is manly. That side of him is loving, humorous, courageous, aflame with energy and enterprise. That is the side I loved and you must cherish, knowing that, for all his grievous faults, your unfortunate father loves you children very dearly.
Though the family had decided there would be no eulogy, I had copied that passage from Mama’s scrawled ungainly note. I summoned up nerve and read it out aloud at Papa’s graveside, in the hope that his true mourners might take comfort. Lucius wept silently, tears glistening. As for Eddie, I prayed that Mama’s words would ease his anger and permit him grief, but how could her words affect a son who was striving to pretend his heart was absent, somewhere else entirely?
I suppose Eddie was lucky to be sure of how he felt. Here was the grieving daughter at the grave, still torn about her father’s guilt or innocence and hopelessly confused about what her own feelings should be. What seems simplest is to go along with Eddie and Walter and never speak his name after today; I would tell my children not to mention Grandpa because it upset Mommie.
Lucius feels no such obligation. In a way I am touched by his loyalty to his father, but refusal to abide by our family decision is a lot easier for a young footloose brother who can always escape than for me and Eddie, both married with small children, who are stuck in Fort Myers probably for life and must suffer all the stares and whispers.
Mama and Papa lie just near the Langford plot, which shelters my own little John Roach Langford, 1906-1906, and Infant Langford, stillborn in 1907. Two little stones. Whichever family I am put in with at the end, I will be near them.
For Papa, Lucius had ordered a simple small white headstone with no epitaph, just the bare name and dates. At the sight of it, my tears came quietly, at last, at last.