A Personal Essay “Vicious Entropy; What is That Might Have Been”
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Vicious Entropy; What is That Might Have Been
You remember the first and only times you saw them. The first was Christopher Robin Peraza, aged three, the year 2000. The second was Kyron Horman, aged seven, the year 2010. The third was your husband's granddaughter, Royale Mason DuPay, aged only four months, the year 2016. You've seen them all, if not before death then after death. Each scene is recollected, details gathered in, tucked away safely, for later viewing in that computer-like thing you hope to be your rational mind.
You mull over the first memory. It was early afternoon, in summertime, and the St. Vincent De Paul food bank on Powell Boulevard was hot, the air compressed, closed in and you wanted nothing more than to leave, to open the glass door and pull some cool air into your lungs, but instead you had to wait. You were there to donate a small box of clean kitchen utensils and also to ask for help with a utility bill. Donating the box of usable items made asking for charity more agreeable, though you knew they would help with only a small amount to keep the electric company from shutting off the lights.
That's when you saw them standing near the far corner, in front of the security glass of the assessment counter window; the two adults with Christopher Robin Peraza. The mother was horse-faced but with a perfect long limbed, tawny body and mane of gorgeous wavy blond hair. Her boyfriend, Robert McCann, he was the young man with Paul Newman, movie star good looks; short blond hair, tall and thin, with a single chipped front tooth.
Christopher Robin was playing on the floor, near their feet, his brown legs ashen, his clothing dirty. They were asking for a stroller. The overweight middle aged woman behind the glass window was rude as she lectured them about their constant requests for help. “What happened to the other stroller we gave you?! You know that little boy deserves better than this!” Her voice was loud, her public shaming of them flagrant and cruel. McCann, obviously not the boy’s father, bristled in offense. “We know that mamn,” he said. His jaw was clenched. You instantly thought about complaining to the supervisor of the volunteer for treating the couple so badly, but realized you'd be spitting against the wind. It would change nothing. It was the prerogative of the volunteers to be compassionate or not.
As the woman walked to the back of the locked room, to retrieve a cheap Umbrella stroller, you noticed an old corpulent woman in her seventies exit the filthy restroom, to your right. She was hot and out of breath. Her short Polyester yellow skirt, just above her chubby kneecap was worn and threadbare. A caramel colored smear of fecal matter stained the back of her left knee. She walked to a plastic chair and sat down heavily, sighing and folding her grimy hands neatly in her lap. You could tell that fifty years before, she'd probably been pretty, wearing Bobby Socks, Penny loafers and bright red lipstick.
Now, she sat with a greasy nose, perspiration sparkling on her forehead, wearing ancient looking pink Keds sneakers that were falling apart. You turned away, ashamed and embarrassed for her, rose from the chair, walked to the window and looked outside, concentrating on the scrubby trees near the end of the parking lot. Anything was better than having to watch this collection of lost souls, who like you, were there to ask the good charity workers of St. Vincent De Paul, for their kind help.
When you turned around and sat in the chair farthest from them, you watched the blond man. The glare narrowed his eyes, which he directed at the small boy, who played at their feet. You felt an immediate alarm and recited a prayer in the secrecy of your rational mind, quick and fervent. You asked St. Francis to keep the boy safe and “invisible to any evil all the days of his life.”
Later, as you waited for the bus, alone, glad your electricity would not be shut off, you could not have known Christopher Robin Peraza would be murdered less than six weeks later in an abandoned house in Gresham; slapped, beaten, cut, burned, strangled, and thrown down a flight of stairs, by that same young blond man you saw glare at him with such unadulterated hatred. Your prayer for Christopher Robin Peraza had accomplished nothing. He was murdered instead.
The second memory has you inside the convenience store. It was evening, with a purple dusk just beginning to settle over West Slope. The horizon lay in diminishing pink and orange streaks just beyond the rounded slope of eighty ninth and Canyon Road. That's when you saw them, the boy and his father, preparing to make their purchase at the counter. Kaine Horman motioned for you and your daughter to go first but you smiled and said no. “You've got your little boy with you, its okay; you go first.” You said the words kindly, encased in a quiet hush, your mouth smiling, and your eyes serene. He thanked you shyly, and his prominent nose and shaved head stayed in your memory. Kyron Horman's thick eye glasses stayed in your mind, too. And the way he kept bumping into shelves of candy and potato chips, in the cramped aisles on his way to the store counter, with something clutched in his small hands.
Kaine Horman's patience and gentle regard also stayed in your memory, as you never forgot how tenderly he called for his small boy. “Come on Kryon, come on Son, we need to go, now.” You and your daughter looked at each other and smiled the smile you reserved for the men who were good fathers; like Kaine Horman was a good father. Your and your daughter’s eyes locked and a secret language shuttled between you, that only you and she could understand. “He's a good father,” your eyes said to each other. To the west, the rounded lavender hills grew darker as the evening wore on and you and your teen daughter walked home, never knowing Kryon Horman would wind up missing a month or so later in early June of 2010.
The final scene is night, June 23, 2016, at 9:45 pm in the kitchen of the big stucco house you've lived in for almost eight years. You're sitting at the small round breakfast table your writer friend Tim gave you. It’s a table you've grown to cherish, with so many conversations and pleasant meals having been shared around it. You take the brown paper bag and pull out the bottles of sweetened iced tea, one for you, one for your husband. As you prepare to drink from the bottle, a large gold and silver moth, with intricate dusty wings flies in through a tiny opening in the kitchen window, despite the screen that is in place. The moth doesn't find a place to rest, resting on an upper wall or ceiling area, but rather flits about the center of the room, jerkily, uncertain, becoming a nuisance. You can't recall a moth ever flying into your kitchen in all the time you've lived in the house.
“Would you look at that?” you ask your husband. The restless insect becomes bothersome, insistent and you are immediately reminded of the symbolism of a moth. “What is the significance of a moth coming in through the window?” He's tired and brushing his teeth. He shakes his head that he doesn't know. “They're considered an omen, also called a messenger or a harbinger of death.” He shrugs and smiles and taps the toothbrush on the side of the sink. Tap. Tap. Tap. You both walk into the bedroom, not knowing that a little life has died earlier that day. Not knowing the message the gold and silver moth was trying to bring you.
The next night, June 24, you're both tired, after a long day of writing, running errands and doing yard work—but your husband is finally making the call. Once again, you take out iced tea. He knew something was wrong, couldn't put his finger on what it was that troubled him, but he had worried since June 21st. He knew his son was in trouble. Somehow he just knew and you finally insisted he call his ex-wife to inquire about their son. He picked up his cell phone, encased in the neon green protector. He pressed the buttons and the call went through.
It seemed like any other day, as you sat down and twisted off the cap from the bottle of iced tea. Putting it to your mouth, you pulled deeply. The thick body and sublime taste of the black tea, with just the right amount of sugar was like a protracted bliss. Your eyes closed as the pleasure centers in your brain activated and you swallowed more of the amber liquid. Then you heard her voice over the line. Something was wrong. You heard the words. The words.
You set the iced tea down on the table. Your mouth slowly opens. Your jaw drops. Your hand moves to your mouth, just like the ladies do in the movies, with their sandy colored, teased, coiffed hair and painted faces, a diamond ring glittering on their finger or centered at their milk white throat. It is involuntary and just happens, the hand that glides to your mouth. And it surprises you. How silly you think. How silly you would do that. Sitting in the chair, your eyes are wide and still your hand covers your mouth. The hand acts as protection from the horror of it. Perhaps the hand on the end of your arm will prevent the horror from entering what you hope to be your rational mind. You must protect your rational mind from all that is on the outside, from all those who might try to enter and compromise it.
Those on the outside range from the homeless wandering downtown Portland, the “walking wounded” your mother used to call them, to your own family members. The homeless walk down Fifth Avenue and scream at the world, “God damn Motherfuckers! No good, God damn Motherfuckers! I want my money! Gimme my money!” The outside also encompasses your mentally ill older brother, who whenever you see him, demands, “Say blue, Theresa! Say blue!” or “Say River, Theresa! Say River!” You must protect your rational mind from all that exists on the outside. It is all you have ever had; what you hope to be your rational mind.
You listen to the woman on the other end of the line. Your husband's former wife and the mother of their grown 34-year-old son. Her voice breaks. Helplessness, sadness, despair, fear; they are an unctuous soup in the cauldron of her voice, as it is projected into your dim kitchen. Her voice conveys the felt jeopardy. Something is wrong. She weeps in an exhausted way as she tells your husband that his fifth granddaughter has died. The new one, the new baby. The one we hadn't been able to see, yet. The one we were planning to visit over the summer, sitting on an Amtrak train in relative comfort, moving forward with the green scenery becoming one long blur of green branches and stagnant bodies of silvery agate colored water.
You watch his face fall. His mouth opens, slack, and you see his chin begins to wobble. His eyes fill with tears, become reddened, his breathing increases, becomes ragged. “Oh no...” he murmurs, “Oh no...” His pain suddenly becomes your pain. You want more than anything to hold him. But you can't. And still, your hand covers your mouth. After he ends the call, he stands up and you walk to him in two short steps. You look up at him concerned, with your hands resting lightly on his chest. He's not focusing on you, his eyes are not focused on anything in particular as they wander from left to right.
He walks to the bedroom and you follow him. He lays down on the bed. You stand at the foot of the bed, watching him. It is then you notice the gold and silver moth has come out of its hiding place, and has followed you both into the bedroom. You watch as it circles in the dim light and then lands on the pink curtains that cover the southern facing window, less than two feet above where you lay your heads. “Look. It’s the moth from last night!” You're trying to engage him but he doesn't answer as he continues to lay on the bed, his eyes focused on the ceiling.
Your husband reaches over and turns on the bedside radio. You hear the muted talk radio but soon the voices begin to dissipate and become a murmur in the background. You’re thinking of something else. Christopher Robin Peraza and Kyron Horman fill your hidden eye. You remember them and their faces and bodies became a composite image of two boys conjoined; a brown face, a pink face. Brown eyes, blue eyes. You remember how small they were, how fragile, how young. That they were harmed, one confirmed dead, the other suspected dead and now this one. Yes, she's dead, too. The coroner will tell you that in only a couple of days’ time. Her body became still, she stopped breathing. Her organs failed and she slipped away in the early morning light of a foreign place called Auburn, Washington, a Seattle suburb; a place overrun with poverty, methamphetamine and heroin.
The next morning, you watch your husband in the dim light. He's risen and dawn is just breaking, the sky outside is periwinkle blue and muted purple. He's sitting on his side of the bed. His head is bowed, his mouth contorted, pressed tight as he once again fights the inclination to weep. “My son is in jail and I hate it!” The words come out in a hoarse, accusatory whisper.
You don't know what to say. You don't know what to do. You stand there, unmoving, your bare feet cold on the hardwood floor. “She just decided she didn't want to be around anymore!” he continues, his tone sorrowful. The words pushed out of his throat with difficulty, through a thick tremulous voice. You know he's trying to find meaning in chaos. What was her purpose? Why was she here? Why did she die? He's grasping at straws and you know it and it breaks your heart to watch him, knowing this is a pain you cannot take away or absolve for him.
Both of Royale's parents are in custody, charged with murder in the second degree. Murder by neglect. Murder by abuse. You walk to your husband as he sits hunched into himself and bend down. You wrap your arms around him, pressing your hands into his lean hard back. You cradle his head between your breasts and stroke his abundant silver hair, wavy and in need of a trim. He wraps his arms around your hips and waist and says things you can't make out, broken things, things that don't make sense.
You rock your husband in your arms, and think of an old friend with her pretty Hippie name, how she wrote an essay about the concept of entropy. You want to laugh. Entropy! It’s the new catch word in praise of the unexpected, of the wonderment of the serendipitous moment, celebrating the fourth-base slide into chaos, but with a smile of appreciation. And in your case, garnering the positive out of the spectatorial sideshow of urban life that results, apparently, when babies die. You hate the idea of entropy. You see it for what it is; “A lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder—deterioration—decline—degradation—decomposition.” Entropy becomes your new hated word. Fuck entropy!
In only a few days’ time your husband will turn eighty. You had planned a birthday celebration at the Spaghetti Factory off Macadam, down there where the Willamette River moves forward in silent evenness, just outside the ostentatious windows and fake Tiffany Lamps. There was to be a tiny smattering of family, but mostly friends, the writers, poets, painters and professors who are now a part of your new periphery. Your new “tribe” of assembled supporters, fellow artists and older beloved eccentrics. It was going to be a joint birthday party, for you and for him. A large banner would have read, “Happy 80th birthday Don! Happy 50th birthday Theresa!” For you and your husband, the odd couple with the age difference—who are in love.
But that won't happen. Not now. Not now.
Your husband will instead spend the afternoon of his eightieth birthday at River View Cemetery, high up on a hill overlooking the city, signing document after document and deciding on either a wicker casket or a more traditional plastic and metal casket, “the kind that seals,” the director explains quietly. You and your husband will decide on the colors of the flower arrangement to be placed over the tiny casket, (pink and purple) and whether or not there should be a Teddy Bear placed in the casket with his dead grandchild. Yes, there will be.
You will watch as he gazes, blankly, out a large window overlooking the city of Portland. “What happened? I don't understand what happened. How could they not take care of their baby?” His questions fall into a silent room. You're alone with him for just a moment. The others leave to go fetch another document to sign. He turns to you and looks you in the eyes, knowing you have no answers. His eyes are dry then, but that's the moment the emotion of it comes down on you for the first time. It is a bottomless sadness, and it seems to descend. You were the strong one. Until now. Now, you find yourself bewildered and you want nothing more than to jump up and jog outside, sit on the front steps, and feel the cool wind on your face. You want to leave, but of course you can't. “This is just awful,” you whisper to the polished wood table top.
The girl intern walks back into the room. She watches you. Her face is so young. She's only a year or two older than your 24-year-old daughter and she watches as your face crumples into itself. Her eyes are wide. She's uncertain and she doesn't understand your exhaustion or your husband's exhaustion. That kind of awareness won't come to her for another thirty years. She walks to the large desk and pulls a box of Kleenex tissues out of the slender top drawer. She offers you the box. She seems afraid you'll say no, or that you'll bark at her. The worrisome expression is plastered on her face. You know she's apprehensive and the mother in you wants to make her feel at ease. She's only a child to you, only a child. You take three, one after the other, in deft motions of possession. “Thank you Sweetheart,” you whisper, smiling over at her briefly. She smiles wanly, calmed now. Clumping the tissues together, you wipe away fat tears as they gather in your smile lines and slide into your closed mouth, salty and comforting.
“She was so pretty. Royale was so pretty,” you hear yourself say. Your husband looks at you and nods without a word. Your husband is a retired homicide detective and he's seen it all. He knows how things work. He knows how people are, but this he doesn't understand. This is different. This he cannot accept. “Why didn't they take care of her? What happened?” he asks again. You have no answers for him.
You notice he's starting to get that vacant faraway look in his eyes when he's headed for a depression. He gets depressed once a year, like clockwork. In June; when he remembers his fiancée. She was the murdered girl found in Seattle's Seward Park in June of 1980. The slender beautiful black girl, the “Skinny Minnie” he fell in love with, murdered by an old boyfriend when she proudly confided she was engaged to marry a white man who used to be a cop. Devon would make sure that didn't happen. Devon would stab her 27 times and dump her body in the bushes face down, her rayon flowered dress and her face covered in mud. Now, there is another June death to commemorate. Another June death to remember and to mourn.
The media in Washington churns out one article after another and you read each one while perusing the Internet, searching for answers. The tears come and go as you do research and print copies for the plastic folder, full of cemetery documents, and jail information printouts. You wipe away the moisture without feeling in any way self-conscious. The PSU students in the computer lab don't seem to notice and if they did, you wouldn't care. You're numb. You just don't care what people think anymore.
The articles say the baby was bitten, tortured in essence. The articles say she had multiple fractured ribs in various stages of healing. You know what that means. You know from your studies in criminology that rib fractures in a four month old generally point to intentional trauma, intentional abuse. But bitten? How can that be? How could anyone do that? And is it even true? The autopsy report will provide more details, but that won't come for another three months.
You've been on the phone on and off for days. There is no money and no way to pay for the funeral and burial but this child MUST be buried. There must be a funeral too, maybe with a Catholic priest, perhaps one from St. Mary's Cathedral. You'll see what you can do. That's another phone call to make. It’s been six days since June 24 and you have a headache every day. You take four to six aspirin each morning, to stave off the pain and the throbbing. Your eyes ache from crying, but you can't stop. It’s so sad. The whole thing is just so sad. And you cry.
In another telephone conversation with the woman at River View, she tells you they have a fund and will cut costs by 95%. She tells you there is a Victims Assistance Fund that will pay for all the other fees and costs, like the casket and the flowers. The baby will be buried. There will be a funeral, with a priest. You are so grateful, you're breathless. You tell her how grateful you are, that you cannot possibly thank her enough. You gush into the phone, thanking her again and again. You wonder how many times she's heard it all before. How many other penniless people must beg to bury their dead babies in the city of Portland?
The funeral home has merely to get her body from the state of Washington and transport it to Portland. It won't be too hard, they promise. The grandfather, (your husband's word) is good enough for the King County Coroner's Office. He is the only next of kin asking to take over “guardianship” of the baby's body. He talks with them briefly over the phone. He explains that he can't speak very well now, he's too upset but would they please talk with his wife instead? You. You take the phone and begin again.
The baby is prepared for the trip, wrapped in baby blankets. She will be kept in a refrigerated section of the truck. Your husband says when she gets to town, he cannot see her. “I'm sorry honey, I just can't see another dead body.” But you know you will see her. You have to. “It’s okay, I'll do it.” You know that with the parents in custody, you must see the baby’s remains. It has to make sense to you.
You follow the woman past the foyer and into the windowless room to the right of the restroom. You see an extremely small baby wrapped in several baby blankets. She is light skinned and biracial, with straight light brown hair. You can tell that in life she had large eyes. And though, she looks as if she's only sleeping, you also know she's dead. The eyes sink into the orbital cavity in a way that only dead eyes will. The eye lashes are absurdly long and curled. She has a perfect nose and a heart shaped face. Her color is an even pink, and despite her body being covered, you can tell she is incredibly thin and underweight. And she is so pretty. You know had this baby lived, she would have been a beautiful girl, and later, a lovely poetic woman, with doll-like features and a melancholy, romantic face.
The embalmer/funeral director stands to your left. You ask questions. She tries to answer but makes it clear she's not a pathologist. Her opinions don't carry any legal weight, she tells you. You nod your head and murmur that you understand. “Did you see any evidence of bite marks when she came in?” you ask. She says no. She watches you intently and seems alarmed by your questions. You turn to face her and speak quietly, your voice quavering. “The parents are being charged in her death. The police and prosecutors are making some really serious claims. I have to know certain things. If only for my own peace of mind.” She nods her head and says nothing.
You bend over the baby and with your new reading glasses on, you can see her face more clearly. You don't see any bite mark evidence anywhere. You see that the left side of her mouth was either injured or infected. There is a line that extends into the cheek, but what does it mean? Turning to the woman, you ask her, “The papers said her mouth and chin were bitten, but I don't see anything.” Once again, she says she cannot comment on the condition of the baby. “I'm not a pathologist. I really can't offer an opinion.” You nod your head.
“I don't see any injury to the chin. How could they have gotten that so wrong?” She says there is a mark on the neck. She explains that she can lift the baby’s head up and show you. You watch as she carefully lifts the back of the baby’s head up and dips the chin toward the ceiling. You see the exposed throat and what appears to be a lesion, just in the crease at the top left of the neck. She had to sew it up she says. It looks like an open wound or ulceration, sewn with large stitches that seem too far apart. The shape appears organic and circular. It doesn't appear to be a bite mark or even the remnants of a bite mark. The shape is organic and meanders like a waterway in an aerial photograph. What does it mean? There is no discoloration, no swelling, no indentation or demarcation of any kind of bite mark. What are you missing? “Okay, I've seen her,” you whisper to the woman. “I guess I'm done, now.”
You leave the room, breathe deeply, walk into the foyer and sit in one of the large overstuffed chairs. You lean back and give over your aching spine to the full support of the chair. You think of the baby's short unhappy life, how she wasted away and then died. Funereal music plays softly on the sound system. Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven, Clair De Lune, by Debussy, Rachmaninoff's piano concerto number two, the adagio portion. Every mournful piece of classical music in existence plays over the sound system. You look over at the table in the center of the room. It has the three five by seven photos of the baby you had developed and then framed the day before. There is a small pink scented candle in a pot burning just in front of the framed photos. In a small basket are the little paper folders, with her photo, name, date of birth, death and the short poem on the left hand side, that you chose. The only words you could think of for this kind of loss.
I AM NOT THERE
Don not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the star-shine of the night,
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Don not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
You lean your head back and silently weep as you look out the open front door, with the front of the nearby cemetery visible, the old gravestones jutting up out of the well-manicured lawns. The tears well in your eyes and wash over your cheeks. You wipe them away with the top of your black shirt. You pull your black jacket closer around you. You feel a comfortable emptiness, content as you sit there, feeling like a mountain of inertia, your face covered in tears. It’s just that you've never seen a dead baby before and it is jarring and it is unforgettable.
You remember the last disagreement you had with the baby’s mother. You knew you should have backed down. But you didn't. You were frustrated, and allowed yourself to go past that point of reasonableness. She was too young everyone said, and far too inexperienced to have children. It would end in disaster everyone said. The two older girls, the two-year-old twins would be taken away. You always knew that and of course after the baby's death, that's what happened. The twins were taken into protective custody, spirited away to a “facility.”
The day of the dispute, you had told the baby’s mother you had a box of baby clothes you wanted to mail, and before you knew it, the chat descended into pettiness and insults. An old girlfriend of the father was mentioned, a woman you care about and that tipped the chat into anger. But now, sitting in the foyer, you know it is you who is to blame. The baby's mother was only twenty four, your daughter's age, with less than one fifth the advantages your daughter had. She grew up in foster homes, abused by her drug addict parents, abandoned and left to fend for herself, pregnant at fifteen, a mother at sixteen, her child taken away at seventeen. As a woman old enough to be her mother, it is you who is to blame for that last fractured contact. And the truth of it fills you with fierce remorse. The truth of it leaves you swimming in a calm self-loathing.
You lean back and you contemplate what might have been. Had you made more of an effort to connect, to do the right thing and send the box of baby clothes anyway, had you arranged to take that train to Washington. Had you made more of an effort to connect everything might be completely different now. You sit and contemplate what is that might have been, if only you had…
The day of the funeral you stand behind your husband for the graveside service. There are only five family members to mourn this baby’s short life. Only five. The thought of it seems contemptible and makes you silently furious. You stand behind your husband and seethe in anger. You knead his beefy shoulders but your fury is for no one in particular as you gaze out at the grey Oregon sky. Your husband sits in one of the green plastic chairs. He bows his head and sobs openly but makes no sound. His face is a grimace of sorrow, tears slick his cheeks, his mouth is open, his teeth visible. The white casket is so small it seems like a surreal image as it sits above the hole in the ground. To your husband's left sits the baby's great grandmother, to her left sits the grandmother, his former wife, and to her left, the baby's Aunt. You are the only family member who stands. Supporting the casket up over the ground are two thick two by four pieces of lumber, painted green. They look old and worn. They have probably lain over many grave sites.
You know what is about to come and you wait for it. You know the baby's grandmother. She is filled with regret and you know she can't help it. She inhales deeply in preparation and then slides off the green plastic chair. She sits on her right side, her legs curled beneath her on the green carpet of fake turf. She bends over, directly in front of the baby's casket, her head hanging. She sits there with her head bowed and her hands flat on the fake turf and begins to wail. The shrill sound pierces through you like fingernails on a chalkboard. You stare ahead, over the lawn and out into the blue Portland hills. It will be over you tell yourself but she doesn't stop. She wails and wails. Her voice is broken as she sobs, “I want my baby back! I want my baby back! I want my baby back!” She gasps and her breathing is ragged and hoarse. Her daughter rises from her chair, gets down on her knees and puts her arms around her mother. “Oh, Mom,” you hear her say. “Oh, Mom.” But the grandmother continues to wail until finally her daughter begs her to stop. “Come on Mom, come on! You need to get up. You need to get up. Please get up, Mom. Please, get up.” Her daughter hoists her up and steadies her until they can both sit back down. The baby's grandmother is out of breath as she continues to sob, her hands limp in her lap, her head hanging at an angle, defeated, an empty vessel now.
The priest begins the rite of internment. His voice is soft and warm, like a doctor’s voice, a melodious tenor. He looks thirty if he's a day and you wonder once again why a man would choose the Spartan life of the Catholic priesthood over the pursuit of self and the American pleasure principle. As he finishes the last prayer, he takes out the white bottle and throws long ribbons of silvery holy water over the casket and the flowers. The water sparkles in the light.
After the rite of internment, he walks to each person and holds their hand briefly. First your husband's hand, then your hand, then the great grandmother's hand, and then the Aunt's hand. Last, the priest stands in front of the grandmother and with both his hands he grasps her right hand. His large hands work the flesh of her elegant brown hand over and over. He murmurs words you can't hear, comforting her, bringing her back.
Two men you didn't notice before quickly lower the casket into the ground. It happens so fast you almost miss it. It’s there and then suddenly it’s not. She's in the ground now. Encased in cotton blankets with a pink satin ribbon tied around her tiny skull, the cosmetics still resting on her dead face, the pink color still on her mouth, sealed in. You walk to the grandmother and wrap your arms around her. “I love you,” you whisper as you hold her firmly in your arms. “I love you too, sister,” she says brokenly in response. You smooth the thick strands of gold hair that have fallen over her face and stand back, as her daughter and your husband help her to the Jeep.
You walk under the shade tree only feet from the hole in the ground as the others begin to gather near the Jeep. You stand off to the side, and remember the royal blue ribbon you put in the baby's casket the hour before and how you draped it over the baby's unmoving chest. It became emblematic of something that might have been. The baby's youth, had she lived. You could see the ribbon tied in her long straight brown hair as a teenage girl; a royal blue ribbon for a little girl named Royale.
You had found it a couple of days earlier as you walked into a restaurant with your husband in search of hot coffee, both of you depressed, with that heavy awareness lingering in your minds; the baby is dead. There it was, a coarsely woven satin ribbon, the color deep blue, just lying there on the sidewalk next to the building.
You picked it up instantly, wonderingly. You wanted to think of it as a sign; the blue ribbon, the color royal blue, much like you want to think of the gold and silver moth as a sign. You tell your friends about finding the blue ribbon and they tell you it’s a “sign.” They say Royale is telling you and your husband she's okay. You want to believe it but you're not sure. How much of what happens is that mercurial and misunderstood thing called destiny, and how much is just meaningless random chance? You're not sure and not sure you'll ever be sure.
As you drive home from the funeral, you remember how you saw her for the second and the last time, how you walked in alone and noticed her face had discolored a little more from the week prior. You looked at her and didn't feel the tears as they slid down your cheeks, wishing as you were, that you had been there in Auburn, to save her, to rescue her from her parent’s ignorance, lack of experience and perhaps even their unforgivable malice. You asked her to forgive you once again, as you placed the back of your left index finger on her forehead. It was soft and yielding, like a baby's forehead would be, but so chill, so cold. “Rest in peace, baby,” you whisper, ashamed, to her unmoving body, before you turn and walk out of the room.
The morning after the funeral, you sit at the round breakfast table your writer friend Tim gave you, and you envision the next visit to the cemetery, in eight weeks far up on the top of the hill with the view of the blue hills. Your husband sits across from you and neither of you speak as you sip coffee and slowly eat potatoes, onions and mushrooms, simmered in olive oil and salt and pepper.
He will drive you both up to the top of the hill there. He will place flowers on the grave of his dead grandchild. You will look down at her substantial and pretty gravestone and say little. In the upper right corner will be an engraving of Jesus holding a baby Angel, carved in the pale grey granite. To the left will be a small oval photo of baby Royale, as she was in life, encased in protective glass. In the center will be the words “With Jesus,” her full name, birth date and death date. Below that the words, “Beloved Sister and Granddaughter.” The word “daughter” obviously not included. It was your decision and not your husband's. You felt you had no choice and there was something hard in your heart that insisted upon it.
As you press the orange coffee mug to your mouth, you see all three faces morph into the same composite child. Christopher Robin Peraza, Kryon Horman, Royale Mason DuPay. They all seem to be the same baby, the same toddler, the same child. You watch the shadows drift and move across the kitchen walls and listen to the neighbor’s dogs as they bark in the distance. You know they're all well fed, cared for and cherished; cherished and cared for in the way baby Royale was not.
You know that in only a few weeks, you will stand behind your husband as he lowers himself to one knee and places his hand on his granddaughter's gravestone, contemplating the name Royale Mason DuPay. He will lay his hand on the cold gravestone, just as he bent down on one knee, the day of the funeral and gripped his hand to the corner of the white casket. You watched him massage the casket uselessly, the tears shining on his dark eyelashes and gathering under his exhausted eyes.
You know that in only a few weeks, you will watch your husband place the lush bouquet of pink and purple flowers on the gravestone and listen to him say the words he said the day of the funeral, after Royale had been placed in the ground and you stood next to him watching his face. In desperate cheerfulness, he will turn, look to you and smile and with tears pooling in his violet blue eyes he will say, “Now I can see her whenever I want to!”
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