Free Liar's Bench by Kim Michele Richardson Page A

nudged me forward, through the iron gate, and toward the fresh grave and that final step to finality.
    ThommaLyn stood beside the casket, waiting for me to join her. I searched the faces of the mourners, hoping to see Bobby Marshall. My heart sank when I saw he hadn’t come. Then my eyes lit upon baby Genevieve, snug in Mrs. Whitlock’s arms.
    I stepped toward them. “Genevieve,” I whispered over and over, stroking her chubby little cheeks. “I’m here, baby girl. Sister will never leave you, I promise.” I kissed the baby’s head, dampening her soft hair with tears. Mrs. Whitlock smiled at me and I saw that she had kind eyes. Genevieve was safe, in steady arms. A lot steadier than mine. I took my place between ThommaLyn and Daddy.
    Pastor Dugin took a handkerchief out of his black robe and wiped the August sweat off his brow before giving the eulogy, pausing first to address me and Daddy, then the crowd. He read again from the Bible, the thrum of his voice matching the heightening buzz of the cicadas. Sorrow crept in, sinking deep inside and settling like a handprint in cement. I’d never dreamed my heart could hurt this much.
    Time crawled by. I brushed the tip of my shoe over a patch of dandelions and my thoughts drifted to Grammy Essie’s famous recipes—and how she’d be having a hissy right now, seeing all these flowers going to waste. We’d called her the Lion Keeper because there wasn’t a single part of the dandelion she wouldn’t put to good use. I’d spent many a Saturday afternoon helping her and Papaw make dandelion wine, dandelion jelly, and even roasted dandelion coffee. They’d shown me how to pluck all the petals and strip the hulls and leaves, releasing their earthy smells to filter through the house. The wine took about five months to cure, but when it was ready, the family would gather ’round the table and everyone, even me, would receive a mug of the sweet wine. I could almost taste the sugary sweetness, the two tablespoons that Grammy Essie allowed, measured out carefully and passed to me with a wink. “To summer’s sugar,” she’d say.
    I gazed across the road to the old Summers Homestead, its 300 acres stretching low and rising like a water snake. Daddy’s ancestors settled the land in 1792. My grandparents’ two-story farmhouse, its hardwood poplar milled right from the Summerses’ treed acres, was now ours. And what was once full of life was now full of nothing but dusty memories and ghosts of yesterday. Gone, all gone.
    I looked over to Mrs. Whitlock. From her hip, Genevieve jiggled a new rattle, smiling, lost in its novelty. I tried to draw strength from her sunshine.
    At long last, Pastor closed the burial with a blessing for Mama, pausing a moment for spiritual meditation. Then he rang the brass bell four times to signal Mama’s passing.
    I bowed my head and pulled from memory one of Grammy Essie’s favorite quotes, by Richard Crashaw, the one she’d taught me long ago, and the one I’d said for her when she crossed. I mouthed the farewell blessing to Mama:

    And when life’s sweet fable ends.
Soul and Body part like friends.
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay;
A kiss, a sigh, and so away.

    ThommaLyn hugged me before stepping aside. Mrs. Whitlock let me kiss a fussy Genevieve good-bye. I clung to her chubby little hands that had once clung to Mama until Mrs. Whitlock promised to bring her by soon. A line of pinched faces, wearing matching pinched shoes and their Sunday finest, came forward to offer their condolences to me and Daddy, some commenting on the beautiful service.
    I waited by the graveside, watching while the last of the mourners made their way out of the cemetery and across the road, walking the gravel path up to the Summers Homestead.
    I could see ThommaLyn helping the elders set up folding tables, others spreading quilts and blankets under the shade of elms in the