Until the Darkness Goes

Holy Redeemer

The hot Santa Ana winds were blowing the dry brush around the entrance to Holy Redeemer Cemetery. It was a seedy place in a seedy part of the L.A. town of Inglewood. The heavy wrought-iron gate was cracked open just enough for an adult to slide through. Molly glanced around for some kind of attendant, and spied a small stone-looking cottage more appropriate to Scotland than Inglewood.

“Come on Nuge.” She gently pulled his hand as she easily passed through the opening. Esther, right behind her, was screwing her neck every which way, unaccustomed as she was to a Christian, and Catholic at that, cemetery. Molly wondered what her mother expected, the pope or a bishop in full white and red regalia? Javier was just behind her mother and moved the massive gate open for his easier passage.

Molly was grateful for the second time today. That there might be someone who could direct them to the plot, and when she accepted Javier’s offer to drive them once he knew they were set on visiting the grave. Otherwise we’d still be stuck on the damn freeway taking two buses from Long Beach to LA. She envisioned the tired, hungry and bored boy and the equally tired and frazzled older woman whose fuse, she knew, was remarkably short. She looked at Esther, who removed her light cardigan, the winds stoking, and though dry, were nearing 90. It struck her to see the pale and thin arms of her mother. Always throughout the last few weeks, she pitted her memory of the robust mother in her late forties with this woman reaching toward elderly.

“Go see if there’s a man in there.” Esther was gesticulating toward the building with her remarks thrown over her shoulder in Javier’s direction. And Javier dutifully trotted off and peeked in one of the cottage windows when the door did not open.

“For Christ’s sake, Mom. Stop treating him like he’s your goddamned lackey.”

Esther had a fixed surprise to her brows. “What’s lackey? She fussed with the absurd ruffle on her cream-colored blouse.

“Servant, Mom. Servant.”

Molly looked at Javier, just out of earshot. He was calm, polite, even warm toward Esther, reminding Molly, “Querida, she is your mother.”

“I just meant he should be the one to look for the attendant. He’s the man here.”

Molly groaned. Between the two of them all she got these days was a lesson in who was who.

Javier turned at the sound of a person walking down the hill, a man in what Molly thought of as landscaper’s clothes, already bleached from the sun, hanging loosely and soft from countless washings.

Molly, Nugent and her mother came up to Javier as he inquired, “We are looking for Stella Morris.” The name of her baby spoken stung her heart the way the hard, hot winds were stinging her skin. Now it became too real for her. Again. She stifled a desire to scream out, she felt her heart pound against what Esther referred to as her skinny breast. She could not trust herself to speak. Mercifully she felt her mother’s hand clench her own. It was the right touch, this hard, tight hold Esther used. It was what she needed, to stay standing. She knew her feelings were opening up, and hoped the pain would abate, get easier, this day. As long as Esther or Javier became her legs, her core, held her up.

The man looked sandy, his hair bleached out years ago from the constant sun and salt air. He pointed to a directory, a book left on a podium for people such as them, to peruse and research to find the name and the location of the person they needed to find.

Because it was something to do, Molly almost rushed to it, quickly reading down the list of names. Manera, McMahon, Moriarity, Morris. Molly found a stack of notepaper and cheap little pencils meant to jot down the location. She wrote down a long number beginning with a letter, J577990434 and consulted the map next to the book, tracing down the list to the Js and then over to areas that started with 5 until she located the plot. Javier looked at the map and then the terrain to gauge where the two most resembled one another. He took Molly’s hand and led her and the others toward a long dirt path leading uphill and away from the front of the cemetery. Molly tried to remember all of this, did she really walk up this way on that day? They must have driven up some other road, a hearse could never fit up this path. Yet the tread of tires pressed into the fresh reddened, dusty path belied the presence of cars, maybe a funeral at a gravesite, now. She hoped not, I don’t want to live someone else’s sorrow. She looked back to see how Esther and Nugent were faring. The boy’s eyes told her he knew what this was all about.

“Here, you’ll fall.” Esther took his hand and was walking at a pace to match his. The boy seemed fine with the arrangement.

“How far Molly?” Esther was out of breath already. She started to trail and the boy was moving in front of her. Javier slowed his pace to match theirs as they all struggled a little up the hill to a Cyprus tree, its branches swept out in large, grand gestures as though pointing at something in the distance. Molly remembered the tree and approached it now more slowly, feeling the sweat under her arms drying from the unceasing hot wind blowing and kicking up dust.

“Here. She’s here.” She gestured to a small stone, a pure white, her name inscribed:

Stella Morris

Born April 15, 1993

Died June 11, 1993

The Angel has gone home

May her soul rest in everlasting peace

Molly legs were as though she was given an epidural; there was a general numbness, yet they functioned. She dropped to her knees to hide her face from all of them, wishing now she could be alone with her baby. Her face was wet again like it was for days after Stella died, when in her unconscious grief, she had no sense of her unremitting crying. This time her feelings were keener.

“Baby, baby. Stella.” She whispered and found she was rocking back and forth, back and forth, almost as though she were holding her baby once again. Javier’s strong and warm hand rested on her shoulder, and he knelt next to her. She watched as he made the sign of the cross and prayed, his lips moving silently.

“I’m okay.” She stood up and to one side, looking out at the freeway that divided the cemetery from the next town, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She became aware of Nugent and looked down into his face. “I’m sorry. I must be scaring you. This was my little girl, here. Her name was Stella.”

Nugent held her hand and patted it with his free one. “It’s okay. I know who she is. Javier told me.”

Molly looked around for Esther who was standing just behind Javier. Her eyes were fixed on the gravestone, and for a moment Molly didn’t care that the inscription had a very Catholic sounding note to it. She didn’t care that she was buried in a Catholic cemetery. But then she did care and so moved closer to her mother. “Mom, for Stella, she doesn’t care where she is. You know that.” She whispered so that only Esther could hear.

Esther’s face was flushed from the walk up the hill. Her breathing was coming fast and Molly worried that it might have been too much. Is her heart strong enough?

“It’s peaceful up here. That’s good.” Esther spoke as she looked down on the ground, searching for something. She bent down and picked something up and walked toward the very white headstone and placed three small dark stones on the small ridge, and then stood back and spoke to Javier. “It’s how we do it. To let people know we were here, that we care.” And then she walked away, to a bench and sat down.