Page 77 of Townshipped
He pulls back and looks down at me. “I didn’t know what it was going to take to crack through and get past the natural reluctance they would have about me. You made it happen. I’ll never forget that.”
Why do those words,never forget that,sound like a farewell? I clamp my lips and force my mouth into a smile. Then I look back into his eyes.
“I’m glad I could help.”
The funeral director and another cemetery employee weave through the crowd, directing all of us toward the pop-up canopy perched beside the grave. Folding chairs flank the gravesite with gaudy displays of flowers on either side. I follow Aiden.
Ty and Paisley each grab one of Aiden’s hands, and he looks over his shoulder at me with awould you believe thatlook in his eyes. Yes, I would.
I’m sure they have some rough waters ahead, but they’ve at least made a step forward. I soak in the image of the three of them walking across the green lawn together hand in hand.
If you thought Aiden on his own could make a room of grown women behave like they were teens with backstage passes to a Justin Bieber concert, Aiden flanked by two adorable children could cause the spontaneous combustion of every ovary in both Ingham and Clinton counties.
He’s too good, and I don’t think he even knows it.
Aiden’s aunt, uncle, and parents take the front folding chairs. A few other relatives fill in the remaining seats under the canopy. The rest of us either take the back rows of chairs or stand at the periphery.
The pastor shows up like Mary Poppins—sort of out of nowhere—and says some comforting words. The family has wisely chosen to end the graveside ceremony before the casket is lowered, for the sake of the children. A benediction is recited and we wait for the final commemoration.
Aiden’s aunt had requested a release of twenty-eight doves at the close of the graveside service—one to honor each year of Vanessa’s life.
As it turns out, the cost of doves was exorbitant and outside the budget provided by Vanessa’s parents, so at the last minute, we discover that the funeral director arranged to substitute pigeons and a smattering of other common birds for the doves.
Yes. He’s the same man whose phone was responsible for the musical interlude ala Michael Jackson during the eulogy.
As if a serenading, waltzing biker gang, and a cell phone in the casket playing disco weren’t enough, now we have commemorative urban scavenger birds.
A woman in a black, floor-length dress and matching black peacoat walks out to where two rectangular baskets sit on stands. After the pastor gives a nod in her direction, she opens the first basket with a flourish of her hand. She follows the first basket by opening the second, and within moments, the birds rustle, then flap and start flying away from their confinement.
A crow cries from one of the nearby trees, and whatever he says must translate into something like,I’ll get you, my pretty, because the sound of his call sends the pigeons flapping in multiple directions. Most of them turn and fly over the crowd like a low-soaring airshow where the pilots simultaneously learned they were running out of fuel, are being shot at, and then pass out.
Birds fly in a massive flock of confusion, not one of them in sync with another. Some fly up and try to land again, others circle slightly, nearly knocking into others in their alarm.
The crow cries out again. And I feel like I’m in a reenactment of the old Hitchcock film, only now, beneath the mass of panic-stricken iridescent birds, a flurry of white pelts down from the sky, splatting on mourners and the officiant. The whole scene is starting to look like the beginnings of a Jackson Pollock painting.
People are scrambling to dodge the onslaught of droppings and the randomly flapping birds. Everyone’s screaming and running in crisscross patterns toward their cars. This mayhem only seems to further excite the birds, some of whom momentarily land on people, the flower arrangements, or chairs before taking flight again. Most of them continue to flap with no seeming sense of purpose or direction.
A number of guests who aren’t running toward their cars duck under the canopy to avoid being hit by bird guano—or actual birds.
We’re standing off to the side of the commotion. Aiden looks at Paisley and Ty and shouts, “On your marks, get set, run!” Together we race to his truck on the road next to the burial plot.
There’s a snapping sound behind us. From what I can tell someone must have hit one of the canopy legs on their way trying to get under it in an effort to seek shelter. I look over my shoulder while I’m running and see the whole easy-up start to bend. A woman—probably the one who tripped on the canopy support—falls forward toward the other guests and a sort of domino effect happens with people piling inward while the canopy collapses on top of them.
We make it to the truck, throw open the doors, lift the kids from each side of the truck and then jump in. Paisley leans over Ty, fastening him into his booster seat like she’s done this hundreds of times before. She hops into the seat next to her brother and buckles herself in.
“I saw a lot, a lot, a lot of birds pooping and pooping,” Ty says with a bob of his head.
Aiden chuckles. “Me too, buddy.”
Paisley shudders.
“Are you okay?” I ask her softly in a voice that’s meant to be between us girls.
She squares her shoulders and nods her head. Then she gives me another one of her timid smiles. I tuck it away in my heart.
Ty starts chattering on the drive, having shed his shyness now that the four of us are alone. His big brown eyes are so expressive and he uses his hands to accentuate his story as he tells us all about the plot of a recentWild Krattsepisode about the ostrich.
“Dat was uh-oh Ostrich!” Ty exclaims. “And the Kwatt brudders were going to help Aviva.”
