lost soul of her father. She knew Jack Cardinal was a good man, a wonderful writer and
teller of tales. She knew he would be deeply missed. No choir, no man of the cloth, no
god needed to tell her these things.
The singing stopped, and the priest once more took up his ramblings, while Lou picked
up on the conversation of the two men behind her. Her father had been a shameless
eavesdropper in his search for the authentic ring of conversation, and his daughter shared
that curiosity. Now Lou had even more reason to do so.
"So, have you come up with any brilliant ideas?" the older man whispered to his younger
companion.
"Ideas? We're the executors of an estate with nothing in it" was the agitated response
from the younger man.
The older man shook his head and spoke in an even lower tone, which Lou struggled to
hear.
"Nothing? Jack did leave two children and a wife."
The younger man glanced to the side and then said in a low hiss, "A wife? They might as
well be orphans."
It was not clear whether Oz heard this, but he lifted his head and put a hand on the arm of
the woman sitting next to him. Actually, Amanda was in a wheelchair. A wide-bodied
nurse sat on the other side of her, arms folded across her flop of bosom; the nurse was
clearly unmoved by the death of a stranger.
A thick bandage was wrapped around Amanda's head, her auburn hair cut short. Her eyes
were closed. In fact, they had never once opened since the accident. The doctors had told
Lou and Oz that their mother's physical side had been mostly repaired. The problem now
apparently was only a matter of her soul's having fled.
Later, outside the church, the hearse carried Lou's father away and she did not even look.
In her mind she had said her good-byes. In her heart she could never do so. She pulled Oz
along through the trenches of somber suit coats and mourning dresses. Lou was so tired
of sad faces, moist eyes catching her dry ones, telegraphing sympathy, mouths firing off
broadsides of the literary world's collective, devastating loss. Well, none of their fathers
lay dead in that box. This was her loss, hers and her brother's. And she was weary of
people apologizing for a tragedy they could not begin to understand. "I'm so sorry," they
would whisper. "So sad. A great man. A beautiful man. Struck down in his prime. So
many stories left untold."
"Don't be sorry," Lou had started saying right back. "Didn't you hear the priest? This is a
time to rejoice. Death is good. Come on and sing with me."
These people would stare, smile nervously, and then move on to "rejoice" with someone
else of a more understanding nature.
Next, they were to go to the grave-site service where the priest would no doubt say more
uplifting words, bless the children, sprinkle his sacred dirt; and then another six feet of
ordinary fill would be poured in, closing this terribly odd spectacle. Death must have its
ritual, because society says it must. Lou did not intend to rush to it, for she had a more
pressing matter to attend to right now.
The same two men were in the grassy parking lot. Freed from ecclesiastical confines,
they were debating in normal voices the future of what remained of the Cardinal family.
"Wish to God Jack hadn't named us as executors," said the older man as he pulled a pack
of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He lit up and then pressed the match flame out
between his thumb and forefinger. "Figured I'd be long dead by the time Jack checked
out."
The younger man looked down at his polished shoes and said, "We just can't leave them
like this, living with strangers. The kids need someone."
The other man puffed his smoke and gazed off after the bubble-topped hearse. Up above,
a flock of blackbirds seemed to form a loose squadron, an informal send-off for Jack
Cardinal. The man flicked ash. "Children belong with their family. These two just don't
happen to have any left."
"Excuse me."
When they turned, they saw Lou and Oz staring at them.
"Actually, we do have family," Lou said. "Our great-grandmother, Louisa Mae Cardinal.
She lives in Virginia. It's where my father grew up."
The younger man looked hopeful, as though the burden of the world, or at least of two
children, might still be shed from his narrow shoulders. The older man, though, looked
suspicious.
"Your great-grandmother? She's still alive?" he asked.
"My parents were just talking about us moving to Virginia to be with her before the
accident."
"Do you know if she'll take you?" the younger man eagerly wanted to know.
"She'll take us" was Lou's immediate reply, though in truth she had no idea at all if the
woman would.