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“That’s All There Is To It” (Fiction)

The following short story was inspired by our recent trip to the historic cemetery (full of veterans going back to the Revolutionary War) here in my very own hometown. Please note that this is, however, FICTION – no people were harmed in any way during the devising, writing, or publication of this story. Of course, I don’t know what he might have been thinking about during the duration of our walk… Then again, hopefully I’m not quite an Olivia. Hopefully. 😉

***
That’s All There Is To ItUnder the Tree

“I got the map!” Olivia exclaimed. “My dad had a copy buried in the basement, and he gave it to me when I met my parents for dinner last night. Honestly, I don’t know how he can find anything down there, he has stuff piled everywhere… I think he should clean it out so he has some idea what he even has down there!”

“Excellent news,” Henry replied. “Ever since your cousin told us about the historic walking tour through the old cemetery, I’ve been dying to go…”

“I bet you will get some amazing pictures there. There are some really old gravestones, dating back to the 1700s! We used to go there when I was a little girl, on Girl Scouts outings and class trips. The teachers and scout leaders would bring charcoal and huge sheets of paper they got from the newspaper printers and we would make rubbings of the coolest ones and drink hot cocoa and apple cider. We used to ride our bikes through there too, and stop on hot summer days to sit under the huge old oak trees and lean against the cool stones. My parents’ house is just about a mile down the road from there, you know. I still can’t believe my dad had the map – I honestly had no idea where we would be able to find one, since budget cuts meant they closed down the old town museum and the library had to sell off some of the old collections. I think it’s a shame really, how things are allowed to fall apart like that. If it were up to me, that would never happen,” Olivia opined.

Olivia opined a lot.

“Well, we can probably go on Saturday,” Henry mused. “I don’t think we have anything else going on, and it’s supposed to be a nice day.”

“I heard it’s going to rain – buckets full – by late afternoon. I think it’s supposed to be nice early though, so as long as we go early we should be all right. We wouldn’t want to get stuck there in the rain. I think we should be ok if we go early though. And wear boots. When I was a little girl, we always wore boots because of the mud. That entire area floods, you know. So don’t forget to wear boots,” Olivia instructed.

Olivia instructed a lot too.

“Got it,” said Henry amicably, with the patience born of a thousand such conversations. “I will remember to wear boots.”
The Cross
All of this opining and instructing happened on Wednesday. On Thursday, Olivia called Henry to ask if he knew where his boots were, because she knew he had not worn them in a while and that he would not want to have to dig around trying to find them on Saturday morning because it was crucial that they be out-and-about early if they wanted to avoid the rain. And of course they wanted to avoid the rain. Then she asked him if he had found the good camera bag – the one that held the extra lens, of course, because they would want to take both close-ups and distance shots, because of course she thought that the contrast between them would make for an interesting photo montage. And she told him to make sure he had a coat with a hood, because if they did not get out-and-about early they could get caught in the rain, and she knew he didn’t have a raincoat because he didn’t like raincoats, and she didn’t want him to end up soaking wet and miserable because she wanted to walk through the entire cemetery and not have to leave half-way through because he was sick of being rained on. On Friday, she called him again to remind him of all of these things and to ask exactly what time he would pick her up because she did not want to have to get up early if they were not going to go there early, and to ask if they would go out to lunch – or maybe brunch, if they did get started early and it wasn’t too late – after their cemetery walk, and to make sure he packed extra batteries AND an extra digital storage card for the camera because she did not want to get there and start taking pictures only to have the camera die or to run out of storage space.

Henry greeted each additional “make sure you…” and “I think you should…”; each “I do not want…” and “I just want to remind you…”, with equanimity. Henry’s friends had often commented on his remarkable tolerance for Olivia’s opinions and instructions. Each time, Henry would simply smile a small, private, smile and say, “what can I do, she is who she is, and that’s all there is to it.”

Saturday dawned, sunny and pleasant, albeit with suspicious-looking clouds hovering on the edges of the morning sky. Henry drove up to Olivia’s house promptly on time, as instructed. He wore his boots and an old hooded sweatshirt, as instructed. He had the good camera bag, multiple lenses, extra batteries, and an extra storage card, as instructed. As Olivia got into the car, he told her he had not made reservations for lunch or brunch, as he was not sure when exactly they would make it out of the cemetery. This last item was decidedly not following instructions, and Olivia was just opening her mouth to point this out when Henry smoothly added, “but Alexander’s doesn’t require reservations and is usually not too busy this time of year, so reservations should not be an issue.” And with that, Olivia snapped her mouth shut and shot a quick, puzzled look in Henry’s direction. Henry never failed to follow her instructions. And while his response was spot-on and the outcome was perfectly consistent with those instructions, this departure from protocol momentarily threw her for a loop.

At that moment, the car pulled onto the street across from the cemetery and Henry glided to a stop in a parking space directly across from the entrance gates. “Well,” Olivia thought to herself as the car engine ticked to a stop, “I am nothing if not flexible…” And with that, she pasted a determined smile on her face as she looked up at Henry, who was holding her door open as per usual, and climbed out of the car.
Mother

The couple strolled, arm-in-arm, through the cemetery gates. Olivia kept firm control of the map, of course, steering Henry toward this plot or that monument in accordance with her own interests and perspectives. “We have to start with the Endicott family, they are the most famous people buried here and were the first family in town back in their day. I think their family plot is scandalously overrun; no one has any pride in anything anymore. If I were in charge, there would be a town ordinance requiring that historical monuments like this be better maintained. I mean honestly, what good are historical landmarks if they are left to just fall into ruin like this?” Followed by, “That lamb over there must be the marker of a child’s grave. How sad that is, that children died so young back then. I think it’s a crying shame that so many children died unnecessarily as a result of poor nutrition and sanitation. Really, I can’t imagine being a mother and not knowing that you should feed your child vegetables and make sure he washes his hands – can you even imagine how ridiculous that would be?”

As they continued to meander through the cemetery, loosely following the map and tightly following Olivia’s own internal directions, her monologue continued: “No, dear, we don’t need to go over there. It’s too dark to take good pictures, there won’t be any contrast, and anyway there are a thousand monuments that are toppled over like that, so why would you want to go into that dark and decrepit spot anyway?” And, “I don’t think you should use that lens now. The picture will be much nicer if you zoom in a little and don’t have all those other headstones in the background. I mean really, Henry, you don’t want to have to spend all day tomorrow editing these pictures, do you?” She informed Henry that she did not like the current crop of Matthews children and therefore that they should not waste any time photographing the graves of earlier versions either: “Selfish, mean-spirited, highly irritating people are unlikely to have interesting ancestors. Really Henry, there has never been an ounce of brains among the lot of them; I cannot imagine there is anything worth noting on their predecessors’ tombstones.”

And so it went on for two hours.
Grave Outline
As they walked, the sky grew grayer and the wind began to pick up. It would indeed rain that afternoon. Henry and Olivia neared the back of the cemetery, where the oldest graves were located, just as the first faint rumblings of thunder could be heard in the distance. “I told you it was going to rain,” Olivia proclaimed triumphantly. “Aren’t you glad I made you wear a hood and boots, that we started early, and that I made you bring all the extra camera bits so that we could take all of our pictures and then leave? Really though, you should have made a reservation. I told you it would rain by the afternoon, and you should have known we would have been able to make it through here in a couple of hours. You had, after all, seen the map. I know Alexander’s usually isn’t crowded, but what if it is today because of the rain? I mean, other people may have had the same idea as you and also assumed they could get away with not making a reservation, and if everyone thinks that then there won’t be any room and we will have to wait and I don’t want to get home too late and…”

With that, Olivia’s voice petered off. “Why is there fresh dirt here? Is that an open grave? I don’t understand – they don’t bury people in this cemetery anymore, they haven’t in almost 100 years. Why are we walking over there when there’s no headstone and nothing to see? Really Henry, it’s getting darker and it’s going to rain and I told you I didn’t want to get caught in the rain. You’re squeezing my hand Henry; stop pulling. If we don’t leave now we won’t make it to the car before it starts to rain. Why is there a shovel on the ground? Why are you putting gloves on? Honestly, this is not funny Henry. I want to know what is going on right this minute. Why are you doing this to me?!”

“What can I do?” Henry asked quietly, while smiling a small, private smile. “You are who you are, and that’s all there is to it.”
Dead End

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