Twinkle Fiddles

Chapter Fifteen

The crumbling blacktop bounced under her Jeep tires. The center, double, yellow lines were inconsistent at best. Faded to a light recognition in most sections, plain missing in others, those lines provided little guidance. The road was narrow with brown, dried, winter overgrowth in most ditches. The blackberries thickets had long been picked leaving only thorns. Red Cedar trees grew among the barbed wire fences that often lined the rural countryside properties. Julie found herself driving alone.

It was the kind of desolate road that would have given her pause if her mind was on it. Walter's morning service in Charlotte had ended. A more private family burial had followed in his hometown an hour and a half to the south.

Julie had never heard of Winnsboro, South Carolina before that week. When she crawled in her Jeep Wrangler late afternoon it wasn't where she planned to go. Sometimes you find things; Julie found Winnsboro. She found Walter.

The funeral home tent stood solo. Its blue canvas matched the deep color of the sky, as the last light of the day was closing to the far horizon. The cold reality of winter was harsh as she opened her driver's side door to the chill that was February.

A small brick house occupied the lot across the street. As Julie exited her vehicle, she could smell the billows of smoke rising from its aged chimney. It was the smell of a fire just beginning, that lighter fluid on newspaper, white smoky smell, that twirled and puffed as it rose into the dark, blue, early night.

Dressed in jeans and a heavy black coat, Julie raised the hood on the sweatshirt that she wore beneath the jacket. She pulled her hair, across her right shoulder, over the coat. Her warm breath was evident as a heavy, audible sigh exhaled. There was no wind, but a rosy flushness soon filled her exposed cheeks and nose.

Raised tombstones and obelisks, in varying heights, dotted the landscape, over brown dormant grass. Sharp pine straw and dry oak leaves had blown over time and scattered among the cemetery plots that were maintained only during the summer months.

With her hands in the front pouch of her zipped coat, she walked slowly among the grave markers. Faded fabric flowers were held loosely in aged and often overturned vases. Her head was lowered, less out of respect, than an uneasiness of being in that place so soon after Walter was lowered there. Julie felt she needed to see his grave. If not for Walter, for another reason. It had been a long week for personal goodbyes. A cold lonely cemetery seemed appropriate.

As she approached the funeral home tent, Julie walked slower. She could see his manicured site. The sandy ground was groomed. The dirt was carved in a rectangle, slightly larger than the vault beneath the soil. Along the raised edges, scalloped arches prevailed in a meticulously consistent pattern. She knew when the tent was removed, and after the next significant rain, it would be a dirt hill, but for that night, she was pleased to see the ornate detail surrounding his final resting spot.

Julie sat at the base of the scratched sand of Walter's grave. Flakes of newly cut granite that had been turned in the digging process glittered in the darkening night. Hues of bright blues and silver dirt were illuminated. Three flower arrangements rested on easel tripods, at head, of the burial plot. She sat for several minutes as if not sure what to do or say. She gripped her knees tightly against her chest as she stared at the fresh turned earth.

"Hey, Walter," she murmured. "It was a beautiful service."

Julie thought to herself before saying softly aloud, "You have amazing friends." Her mind began to wander. "Dylan spoke."

As she talked, her voice lowered until the sound was only in her head. "Well, you know," she chuckled slightly remembering scenes of Walter and Dylan laughing together. The image of both posed like dead squirrels came to her mind.

Minutes ticked slowly like the arms of a grandfather clock. Julie looked over her shoulder, back to her Jeep. It was the only

vehicle in the relatively small country graveyard. She clutched her hair tightly, for security, in the emptiness of the place and moment.

"I've wondered why people sit and talk to, you know." Julie looked down to the carved ground impressions and laughed awkwardly. She felt the need to speak. Her words didn't come easily.

"When I was little, I had these stuffed animals. They were small ones; things I could carry, or sleep with. Before I had a sister, they were my best friends. Bear was my favorite."

She smiled an uneasy grin as she thought to the memory of her childhood.

"I took Bear everywhere. And Bear and I would talk, or he would listen. He would always listen to me when we talked."

Julie's face grew sullen.

"My dad put these glow-in-the-dark stickers that were in the shapes of stars, on my ceiling, above my bed. Bear and I would look at the pretend stars. We'd talk about what being grown-up would look like. What it would feel like, where we'd be. Would we live in the city, or country? Would we have a house, or a farm? Would we have any animals? Who would I be when I was grown-up? That's what Bear and I talked about, being grown-up. We couldn't wait to grow-up, and it would be perfect."

Julie moved closer to Walter's grave, running her finger over the scratched, carved arches in the blue granite sand.

"What if your life is better than you thought it was going to be? What if someone could give you a magic wand to change anything, and you choose what you have now, because it's better than you dreamed it could be? What if you thought you were happy?"

Julie dropped her head and again raised her posture, arching her back. She held her knees tightly against her chest. She rubbed her damp finger on her jean leg to knock off the clinging sand and granite flakes of the Winnsboro ground.

"And then one day you go to work, like always, and you sit across the table from what you and Bear talked about."

Her tone lowered to a soft whisper.

"You sit across the table from him. And he has no idea how you feel. And he doesn't seem to care to live your dream, your hope. And that's what your life became; you hoped it was real. Hope."

Julie looked above Walter's gravesite to the cold, steel framed bars, holding the funeral home tent. The tight, hanging, fabric roof blocked the twinkling sky. She couldn't see the brilliant stars the clear February night had now revealed.

"And all you wish is you could go back and talk to Bear again. And to be that little girl at bedtime, and to dream, and to hope. And to talk to Bear again."