At eight o’clock, with the funeral set at eight thirty, Jerrold was forced to make his decision.
He would be faithful to his position, to the deceased protectors of the
United States, to their families. He would allow the funerals to
progress. Then he would take his punishment for the loss of Michael
Stanley Smith’s urn box. One way or another.
He called to the
gate and let the guard know it was time to allow mourners to enter.
There were ten cars waiting, all lined up at the entrance wondering if
our country was under attack. The first one in the queue was Janet
MacDonald, Jerrold’s wife.
Janet sped to the office, grabbed
her flowers and the favorite sandwich she’d brought to Jerrold off the
passenger seat. She dashed inside as Jerrold looked up. He was just
getting ready to walk over to the commitment shelter. She dashed up to
him, placing the things in her hands on his desk and wrapped her arms
around him. “Are you alright? What has happened today? I’ve been
worried sick about you.” She hugged him close to her, damn the
protocol.
Jerrold was speechless. He wanted to take her
outside and spill everything he’d been thinking, tell her about the
missing urn, about losing his job and ask her forgiveness for being such
a loser. His head throbbed from the nitroglycerin he’d just taken, but
his heartbeat had settled down and his arm quit aching.
Tears
formed in his eyes as she looked at him, then hugged him again. She’d
never seen him cry and knew this was a significant point in their
marriage.
“I have a funeral,” he said quietly.
“I know. We’ll talk after. I’ll wait here for you.”
“There are eighteen today.”
“Maybe Mr. Greevy could step in for you just for today.”
Cherrie, who couldn’t help overhearing their words, said, “I’ll find
Harold and I know he keeps slacks and a dress shirt in his truck for
emergencies.” She dashed out the door.
At eight thirty, every
car had parked, every cushion held a mourner for Mrs. Rene
Christophson, wife of Lt. Commander Richard Thomas Christophson,
USN.
The minister stood to talk about
the deceased as an attendant held the urn that would be interred in the
same crypt as Richard Christophson.
Natalie, who had been
waiting two hours for this moment, fidgeted, annoying the people in the
third row where she sat. At last she stood, walked up to the minister
and announced, “This funeral cannot continue. It is a fake and must be
stopped.”
The minister said, “I’m sorry for you loss, but why
don’t you sit down here next to me and I’ll continue. We cannot deny
this fine woman the last wishes of herself and her husband, the Lt.
Colonel.”
“Oh yes we can,” Natalie blurted out with her voice
raised. She shoved her hand into her purse as several people flinched.
She pulled back her hand holding a sheaf of papers.
“I saw the obituary notice in the newspaper about this woman’s death.”
From stunned silence, the congregation of the somber men and women
registered bemusement, chagrin, irritation and hostility on their faces
as Natalie continued. “I have for a long time been studying the
genealogy of my family to find where I placed in the world. I am an
adopted child whose birth mother died when I was four years old. All of
her papers were kept for me by my mother’s sister. In those papers I
found my birth father’s Last Will and Testament.” Natalie placed a set
of papers on the minister’s podium. You will see highlighted here that
my father mandated in his will for my mother to be interred with him in
this military cemetery. My mother was a military wife who moved all
over the world as my father was deployed to Alaska, to Argentina, to
Germany and Korea. She bore hardships you cannot imagine while hauling
her five children with her to all these countries and adapting like an
octopus to homes without bathrooms, without running water, without
vegetables, for heaven’s sake, so she could keep our family together
during the time my father was irreverently sent all over the place by
his government. She ultimately died of malaria contracted in Panama in
the 1950’s.” Natalie laid down a death certificate for her mother,
Martina Louise Christophson.
“Meanwhile,” Natalie continued,
“my father was captured in North Korea and left in a camp until his
apparent release sometime around 1960, but nobody knew where he was. My brothers and I were separated and raised by various relatives and
adoptive parents. My father apparently was released and either did not
want his family or was so damaged that he forgot about us. In any
case, he remarried this woman lying here today.
However, he never bothered to be divorced before marrying Rene Christophson.
Natalie found the death certificate for her father, Richard
Christophson and laid it on top of the podium with her other paperwork.
“Then he died.”
Jerrold, who’d been standing to the side of seating benches spoke up.
“Ms., the woman being interred here today was your father’s legal wife,
and her name appeared in his will as being buried with him in this
veteran’s cemetery."
“But, don’t you get it? So was my
mother’s name. Yes, my father was apparently a bigamist, probably
through no fault of his own. But my mother is the one who deserves to
be buried with him. She went through fifteen years of hell with and for
him, all out of love.”
Natalie turned to the grievers in the
first row that was dedicated to the immediate family members. “I have
nothing against your mother. But my mother was Richard’s legal husband
and in the Federal Benefits for Veterans book, you will find that it’s
my mother’s right to be buried next to her husband as mandated by his
will.” Natalie added the benefits booklet to the stack of paperwork
she’d set before the minister, who now stood with his mouth open.
At first the silence was overwhelming. Then a bereaved woman in the
front row stood up with a tall man, turned to Natalie and said, “That is
the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. My father was not a
bigamist and you obviously have contrived to malign the name of a
wonderful human being. Now you get out of here and let us continue in
our grief. My mother died. Can’t you see that?”
“If your
mother is buried in the same crypt as my father then my attorney will
sue the Veteran’s Administration and I’ll go to the newspapers, the
television media and anybody else I can find. Everybody will know he
was a bigamist. Even though he was my father as well.”
Chaos reigned after that.
Jerrold was not responsible for the Natalie Christophson issue. The
Veteran’s Administration would have to hold the ashes of the second Mrs.
Christophson in an unmarked crypt until the matter was settled.
Jerrold was grateful this was not a decision he had to make himself--he
was uncomfortable with conflict, though he managed to get the people
who had come to the first funeral of the day under control. He told
them he’d hold the ashes until a decision was made about how the problem
could be legally solved.
VA did everything possible to
accommodate families. He returned to his office with only a few minutes
to spare before the next funeral and gave the paperwork provided by
Natalie to Cherrie to duplicate, write an explanation and send to
Washington, D.C.
“I admire how you are handling the problem
with the two Mrs. Christophsons,” his wife told him. She had waited in
the office for him during the first funeral and discussed the missing
urn box problem with Cherrie. It broke her heart to know the missing
box may be the end of the only job Jerrold had ever loved. It had made
him feel valuable. She realized then what a fine man he was and how he
didn’t deserve what was sure to occur.
Janet didn’t know what
they would do when Jerrold no longer had the job as funeral director.
His military retirement would cover their financial needs, but she knew
her husband would never overcome his humiliation, and dreaded what the
next few days would do to his fragile state of mind.
Natalie,
vindicated, made her way back to her Toyota, which she had left
unlocked in the seclusion of the cemetery since her purse had been with
her at the sham funeral. She saw a forgotten book she’d left on the car
seat as she sat inside and slung her purse off her shoulder and placed
it on the floorboard.
It wasn’t a book--it was a ceramic box,
and larger than most books. She looked around outside to see if
somebody was near her car, had mistakenly set the box inside. Could it
have been left there intentionally? She recalled disaster movies
involving car bombs, which at first frightened her. But this would be
the first designer bomb in the universe. She considered if some
admirer/stalker had left it for her. Nobody knew she was coming here.
Besides, there was a sticker note on its side. “Michael Stanley Smith,”
it said, with a bunch of numbers. It looked surprisingly like the box
holding the ashes of the sham woman trying to be buried with her
father. Rene Whoever.
Natalie watched the mourners of Rene
Whoever return to their cars parked along the only drive into the
cemetery. A woman in a gray suit with black edging walked with a
tissue held to her face. The woman who’d spoken up at the committal
shelter turned the opposite way up ahead. Her face was red, hair
disarrayed. Two teenagers were crying together as they walked, arms
wrapped around each other.
A dark cloud settled over Natalie.
She knew she’d added to the grief of the mourners. Three minutes
before, she’d felt vindicated. She’d been responsible for bringing
justice to her long lost mother that atoned for the years of abandonment
she and her four siblings had endured. But that had only lasted three
minutes and now she felt bad again, now for those people who’d lost
their mother, usurper that she was. Would it ever go away? She sat
with her head against the steering wheel. She was tired of hate.
The box in her car was obviously an error. If it was an urn, and it
certainly had to be one, somebody had made a terrible mistake. It could
be her father in that box, left through somebody’s stupidity in the
wrong car. This wasn’t the same as finding a lost wallet.
Her feet felt like cement as she started her car and drove up to the cemetery office
Cherrie was in the middle of filling out a form for an exhumation. She
looked up at the woman who stepped through the doorway. The woman was
small boned with black curls sprouting around her face, probably caused
by the mist outside. Cherrie’s second child’s hair had the same
reaction to humidity. “May I help you?”
“Yes. I found this on the seat in my car. I think somebody mistakenly left it there.”
It was not unusual for urns to be carried into the office. But her
heart leapt when she saw the box. Could it be the one? She practically
ran to the counter. She read out loud, “Michael Stanley Smith.” Tears
sprung in her eyes.
Natalie back pedaled to the door, frightened.
On Jerrold’s return from walking Janet to her car, he opened the office
door into Natalie, bumping her with the knob. “Oh, sorry. I thought
you’d gone. We’ll follow through on your request...”
“Well, I
came back to give you this box I found in my car.” Natalie reopened the
closed door as she pointed at Cherrie standing behind the urn with a
huge teary smile on her face.
“Is that what I hope it is?” He
said, and hurried over to the counter. “Oh, thank God, it is.” His
mind turned liquid with relief. He looked back at Natalie, standing
with a question mark on her face. “You have no idea how important this
is.” He knew he should capture the box for fingerprints, call the FBI
to question Natalie about the possibility of her taking the box. He
quickly weighed that against the publicity the cemetery didn’t need,
that VA couldn’t sustain. It seemed like there was no way to make some
people happy. The exhumation in progress today was at the request of a
woman who had moved her departed husband three times already to improve
his “view.” The media had seen fit to deplore the VA’s tactics for
mistreating the deceased’s ashes on the third move.
If he
called in the authorities, the jobs of all the employees would be at
stake, along with an investigation that may run for years. If he did
not call them and the issue came up again, the jobs of all the employees
would still be at stake. “Would you please give me your phone number
and let me verify your address with your driver’s license?” he said to
Natalie. “I am quite sure we will be able to rectify the issue with
your mother’s burial site. Do the papers you have left us include where
she is buried at this time?"
When Harold came by with a donut
he’d brought for Cherrie, she shared the news of the found Michael
Stanley Smith urn, which Jerrold had returned to its proper place in the
columbarium wall. He asked Cherrie if he could take her and her
children to Mission Bay park on next Saturday afternoon. He had some
toy sailboats the children might enjoy sailing around the bay. If
Michael Stanley Smith had not gone missing, he would never have had the
opportunity to ask Cherrie this question.
Jerrold went home for
lunch. He hadn’t done that in forty five years. He wanted to share
the returned urn news with Janet, euphoric, relieved, restored. Still
shaky though. He hoped he hadn’t made the wrong decision by not
contacting Washington DC.
As they talked about it, she thought how fortunate that Michael Stanley Smith had gone missing
long enough for her to realize what a fine man she’d married.
“Sometimes you just have to do what’s practical instead of the letter of
the law,” she told him. She recalled a magazine she’d read with an
advertisement for hang gliding lessons and rides. Jerrold’s birthday
was next month.
Vincent had looked under every shrub along the
northwest fenceline from the kiosk to the wilderness area which was
inaccessible by car. He saw Harold approach by foot across the grass
between the headstones. Suspicion, on a low setting inside him raised
to medium heat.
“Vince, they’ve found the missing urn box inside a woman’s car.” He still couldn’t get his head around it.
“Why’d she take it?” Vince snarled.
Harold didn’t seem to notice Vince’s reaction. “Nobody knows. The
woman said she found on the front seat of her car and took it to the
office. I wanted to catch you before you turned over every leaf on the
peninsula. I know how thorough you are.”
Could this be a compliment? “Where were you when it showed up?”
On the other side of the columbarium complex, looking for it. I didn’t want to interfere with the funeral.
“When are the authorities going to show up?” So we can all get fired.
“Well, that’s the thing. Jerrold and I don’t want to lose our jobs,
and don’t want you to lose yours either. You’re too valuable to this
place.”
Suddenly glad he hadn’t raised his speculation about
Harold taking the ashes, Vince didn’t remember the last time gratitude
had been in his mind. Harold could be a good guy sometimes. Vince
wondered if he’d feel this way about Harold if Michael Stanley Smith
hadn’t gone missing. Or been found. Maybe he wouldn’t have to start
job hunting again after all. Maybe he wouldn’t have to endure being
under suspicion of taking the ashes out of the wall. He knew people
would think he’d done it.
Jose finally understood what Vince
had told them. The urn had been found so his job was safe. He still
had peace in his life to look forward to. While he was looking for the
box, he’d decided to take his relatives with him and go to the night
school where they could all learn to speak English. His relatives would
be able to find jobs if they could speak this language. His own
English was not very good. But they all could not continue to live
together in this country. They needed peace. The loss of the urn and
possibly his job helped him make up his mind about this.
Mitchie was Alejandro’s hero. He wanted to be just like him when he
grew up. He would do anything Mitchie told him to. So when Mitchie told
him the urn had been found and it was all because of such a thorough
search, Alejandro was proud of himself.
He hadn’t felt proud of
anything in a long long time. If Mitchie hadn’t told them to search
hard for the urn, it never would have been found, even if none of them
had actually found it. Mitchie said that sometimes the harder you work
the luckier you get. And the luck could come from a direction you never
considered. Perhaps from the vanished urn of Michael Stanley Smith.
THE END
Please come out and see me this Thursday at 1:30pm at the Bowen Center
for the Arts in Dawsonville. I will be reading from my newest book,
Chattahoochee Dead. I will also be available for book signings.
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