Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [103]
“Hey, you’re a priest,” she said as he turned away.
And he stopped and zipped up the jacket, covering himself, and headed to the bus.
Chapter Thirty-nine
There was no consolation for the people of Pie Town on the Sunday they were to assemble at the burned-out church, the Sunday Alex died. No organizing, no clarity, no hope. Katie White had finally gotten everyone to listen to her as she explained that she and Rob Chavez had been at Holy Family the night of the fire, that it had been the two of them who left the candle burning on the altar. She screamed it out after everyone had heard Roger’s announcement about Alex, screamed out the entire thing, how Rob had dropped Trina off but then had later gone and gotten her and how they had snuck into the church without ever alerting the priest and had snuck out the same way.
She shouted her confession, ran from person to person, looking for absolution, but no one responded, no one really cared. They only looked at her, looked through her, as if she was a babbling idiot. In the wake of Alex’s death her confession mattered little.
For the next week Roger and Malene walked around like ghosts. Ever since the hospice nurse called the time of death at 10:30 A.M. on Sunday morning, and after the funeral home personnel drove over and removed Alex’s body, the grandparents had wandered from place to place as if they were waiting to be swallowed up by the earth.
Neighbors and friends came to sit and hold vigil, and they came armed with food. They brought casseroles and homemade tortillas, pitchers of iced tea and bottles of wine. They made biscochitos and baked cakes, had bowls of chile stew and plates of tamales. They made sausage from their hogs, chorizo, slaughtered for the season, and searched for the fattest and most tender chicken breasts to grill in open pits like their ancestors used to do. In sorrow and in sympathy, they brought the very best they had.
Malene accepted each gift, each offering of friendship, each token of helplessness, but she ate only what was fed to her, only what was spooned to her from Roger’s hand. She was like a child, sitting at the table, hands in her lap, leaning toward her ex-husband, chewing and chewing. And even though she ate sopaipillas, empanadas, and fresh posole, she never tasted a thing. Food became only something she had to swallow like medicine. She didn’t speak to anyone, wouldn’t brush her hair, and had to be forced out of bed by her father. She could not even cry.
Roger was no better. He stayed with his ex-wife, moved into the master bedroom with her, the two of them curled around each other every night, arms and legs wrapped around pieces of their broken hearts. He received visitors, talked the small measured talk that goes on in houses where death has struck. He watered the plants around the house, long since wilted, took out the trash, mopped the floors, changed their sheets, even went through closets throwing out old clothes, but he had closed and locked the door to Alex’s room. He could only walk by it, stand there with his hand on the knob, unable to enter.
The funeral was held at the chapel at the funeral home in Red Hill. More of a memorial service really, since the body was not present, having been donated to science at the boy’s wishes, the funeral was brief and ordered. Everybody from Pie Town was there, and many had to be turned away because the seats were full and the line of those standing was three deep and stretched around the room and outside under the large stained-glass windows. A few of the townspeople spoke about the boy, about how he had meant something special for them, some secret act of tenderness, about his quiet and kind ways. A resident of Carebridge, driven to the chapel by ambulance and carried up the stairs by an attendant, explained how Alex was their favorite visitor at the nursing home, how he read them stories or taught them new card games, how he never complained when he had to stay late because his grandmother