The Gender Game 5 (The Gender Fall)(84)

There was a subtle clearing of a throat behind me, and my hands stopped in their vigorous scrubbing. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Violet there, her face somber. Her bruises had faded quite a bit over the past few days, but they lingered in yellow and green, almost fluorescent spots on the side of her face. I hadn’t stopped to look in a mirror, but I assumed I now had a set to match.

“It’s time?” I asked, and she nodded.

Swallowing the excess saliva that had built up in my mouth, I pulled the sheet I had been working on out of the water and dropped it into the next tub, which held cooler, clean water for rinsing. “I’ll be there in a minute,” I announced. “Just want to finish this.”

I heard her sigh softly, but her shoes began to move, crunching over the soil and fading as she headed away. Exhaling in relief, I quickly rinsed out the sheet, wrung it out, and then threw it over one of the lines strung between two trees to dry. It took a few minutes, but when it was done, I felt just a fraction more mentally prepared for what was to come.

I gave a dark, strained chuckle as the thought went through my mind. Who was I kidding? I was nowhere near prepared for this.

Steeling myself, I turned back toward the house, where I could see Ms. Dale, Amber, Lynne, Morgan, Jay, Thomas, and, of course, Owen, standing on the porch. Owen held Ian’s small body in his arms, cradling the young boy, and even from this distance, I could see the sad draw in his mouth and eyes. The gray day, with low rainclouds drifting slowly across the sky, seemed designed to reflect our sorrow.

Violet placed a hand on Owen’s shoulder, and together, they all started to move to the place where Violet had tasked a few of the refugees to help her in constructing a grave. She had picked a good spot for it: near the woods, just off the side of the barn, in the shade of the trees and out of the way of the daily routines of the camp. I watched as they moved, my throat tight.

The entire short day, I had been riddled with indecision on what I should do about this funeral. On the one hand, I needed to go—honor demanded it. On the other, without a doubt, I knew Owen didn’t want me there. With how he felt right now, it would just be an affront to him if I were at the ceremony. It was a conundrum. I still felt strongly that I needed to be there.

So I had come up with the next best thing. Or maybe it was the next worst, depending on one’s point of view. I waited for the funeral procession to make its way closer to the gravesite, and then moved around the opposite side of the tents, heading for the gap in between the tents and the barn. I moved quickly, businesslike but unassuming, not wanting to arrive late and draw attention to myself.

I headed directly for the tree line, pushing a few yards into the wooded area, then hooked back around so that I could come from the opposite direction, the light lower canopy of saplings shrouding me somewhat from view. As I neared the site, I heard the soft sound of voices and slowed down, picking my path as quietly as possible through the dead leaves and twigs littering the forest floor.

An old oak tree with gnarled branches was my destination. It sat far enough back that it blended in with the forest, but was close enough for me to watch the funeral without having to peer past dozens of trees. I approached the grizzled tree, coming to a stop next to it. From my vantage point, I was mostly out of view of the others, but I still had a clear view of the grave.

I watched as Owen placed Ian inside a small wooden box, resting the young boy inside the bright, freshly cut lumber and taking one last look at him. After a minute, he and Amber closed the lid, and Owen began hammering the nails into it one by one. It was hard to watch. With each nail he drove home, Owen’s face grew more and more bleak.

Somehow, he managed to finish the task, pounding in the last nail with a decisive strike from the hammer. He stood up and tossed the hammer to the side in one fluid motion, taking a moment to scrub at his cheeks. Amber and Thomas moved toward him, but he held up a hand and shook his head.

“I’m all right,” he announced hoarsely, his voice carrying to me. I could hear in his words the tears he was fighting back. I reached out and rested my hand on the tree to steady myself, feeling the churning twist of guilt in my gut.

Owen didn’t break down completely. He managed to pull himself together, and, at his nod, Ms. Dale, Thomas, and Amber helped him lower the coffin into the ground, using the two ropes draped across the grave. The box hit the earth, the ropes were pulled up and placed to one side, and then Owen moved to the head of the grave. I could hear his voice clearly from my spot, and though it was faint, none of the emotion was lost.

“My brother was one of the gentlest humans I’ve ever known,” he said. “He cared deeply for every living thing. I was ten when he was born, and even as a baby, he was full of smiles. I promised to be the best big brother I could, but I failed more often than I care to recall. It was only after he was taken that I realized how much I really cared about him, and when our parents didn’t want to help him, I knew what I had to do. I became a better person for him. I started to care about the people around me, forced myself to, really, and after a while, I realized I liked it. And I have him to thank for that.”