Chapter 19: Hannah on the Grave

The sun was coming up red over the maple when I reached the hill.

A yellow backhoe stood on the gravel path with its engine idling.

Two workmen in orange vests leaned on its bucket, looking at their boots.

A lawyer in an overcoat stood between them and the grave, holding a sheet of paper in a leather folder.

It was the same tall man from the hotel steps.

And on the grave itself, in a quilted housecoat and her husband's old barn jacket, stood Hannah.

She stood with her feet planted on either side of the little stone and her arms folded.

She had not combed her hair.

"Mrs. Kinsella, I'm asking you politely," the lawyer said.

"This is a lawful order from the probate court."

"I'm sure it is," Hannah said.

"I'm standing on my daughter."

The workmen looked at each other.

The older one took off his cap and put it back on.

"Ma'am, we got a paper," he said.

"I know you do, honey."

"It says we got to move the casket."

"Then you will have to move me first," Hannah said, "and you'll want to ask your mothers if they'd like you to."

I ran up the last of the path.

Dean was already there, and the firefighter.

The boxer came up the hill at a jog in his gym shorts, with a towel still around his neck.

They formed a line behind Hannah without being told.

Three big men and a woman in a housecoat, standing on a grave.

The youngest was at the bottom of the hill with his phone out, and I could hear him narrating to somebody what the paper said.

"Show me," I said to the lawyer.

He hesitated, and then handed it over.

It was a single page headed ORDER AUTHORIZING DISINTERMENT AND CREMATION.

It gave the date as yesterday, the hour as two in the morning, and a judge's signature.

Under that, on the line for NEXT OF KIN, it said Janet Winslow, mother of the interred, and Gordon Winslow, father.

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