Roland kissed her on the forehead.
Once they were all in their red sweatshirts, Allison removed the shroud from the urns. Each of them chose one. They were pretty urns, leaded glass, and all different colors with lids to hide the contents. Walking from the house down to the beach as the last feeble rays of autumn sunlight faded and died was the hardest, longest walk Allison had ever taken. They set the urns down in the sand, took off their shoes and socks and removed the lids from the urns. Inside were white and gray ashes, and Allison studied them in wonder. All that was left of a man, his knowledge and his dreams, his nightmares and his hopes and his love for his children, looked like something you’d sweep out of the bottom of a cold fireplace.
They picked up their urns again. There was a pause, a long one, as all of them waited together for someone to say something. Allison feared they were waiting on her but she had no more to say.
Then Roland began to sing.
He sang in the way of the monks, in the ancient way of the Benedictines. He sang a Psalm to his father and to the ocean and to his Lord.
“Praise the Lord—
Praise the Lord from the Heavens;
Praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
Praise him all his host!
Praise the Lord from the earth,
You sea monsters and all deeps,
Fire and hail, snow and frost,
Stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Praise the Lord...”
In her weeks at The Dragon she’d never once heard Roland sing or pray. If his Psalm of praise wasn’t lovely enough to make her believe in gods and sea monsters, it was enough to make her believe in Roland.
In the holy quiet that fell after his Psalm, Roland finally took the first step into the ocean. Allison watched slippery silver water rush over his naked toes and his feet sink deep into brown sand.
They followed him.
The water was cool, not cold, but from the paleness of all their faces and the shaking of their bodies as they waded ankle-deep and then knee-deep and then hip-deep into the ocean, one might have thought they’d submerged themselves into ice water. In unison they tipped their urns and let the ashes fall into the sea. And when the urns were almost empty they dipped them into the waves to wash them clean.
Thora wept and Deacon’s eyes were bloodred from trying to hold back his tears. Roland looked deceptively calm. How Allison looked she didn’t know, but probably tired and probably cold and probably sad.
They turned and trudged out of the water quickly before a wave could catch them and knock them under. Deacon collapsed onto the beach. Thora sat at his side and then Roland at hers. Allison stood behind them, near them, and together they all watched the water scattering the mortal remains of their father.
“Once upon a time,” Deacon began and Allison couldn’t say if he was speaking to them or himself or maybe even his father. “A Roman glassmaker figured out how to make glass that could never break. Even if you dropped it on the ground, it would dent, not shatter. This Roman glassmaker knew the emperor Tiberius would want to see his amazing invention. He got an audience with the emperor and presented him with a vase made of this unbreakable glass. Tiberius immediately threw it on the ground. It didn’t break and the emperor was astonished. He asked the glassmaker if he’d shared the secret of unbreakable glass with anyone else. The glassmaker swore he didn’t. The emperor pulled out his sword right there and cut the glassmaker’s head off. You see, the emperor knew that if you could make glass that couldn’t break, that could be worked by metal and that was as plentiful as sand, all his gold and silver and other precious metals would be worthless. Tiberius knew there were some secrets too dangerous for the world to know.”
None of them spoke. And none of them asked Deacon what he meant. They didn’t have to. They knew. They knew what their father had done. And they knew the secret of how it was done was now safely buried in the Graveyard of the Pacific.
Thora kissed Deacon’s cheek and rested her head against his shoulder. Roland leaned back against Allison’s legs and Allison stroked his hair. The four them watched the water and listened to the wind and the waves. And with her family right there all around her, together, Allison knew one thing: they were all very, very lucky.
“Stay here,” Deacon said.
“What?” Allison said.
“Just stay. I’ll be right back. One more tribute to Dad.”
Deacon ran across the sand and into the house. He emerged a few minutes later with a slim box in his hand. He held it up and it rattled when he shook it.
“Sparklers,” he said. “And my phone. Picture time.”
“This is ridiculous,” Allison said. “It’s October.”
“Then they’re Halloween sparklers,” Deacon said. “Come on. It would make Dad happy.”
Deacon pulled a lighter out of his hoodie pouch as Thora distributed the sparklers. With a flick of his thumb, Deacon set a flame to blazing and the four of them brought the tips of their sparklers together until they were all brightly dancing in the twilight. The ocean breeze threatened to blow them out so they turned their backs to the beach and huddled together.
“Ready?” Deacon said as he held out his phone to take the picture.
“Not yet,” Roland said. “We have to do this right. And it won’t be easy. Allison doesn’t weigh sixty pounds anymore.”
“I weigh sixty-mumble,” Allison said. She held her sparkler in her right hand. Roland held his in his left. Then with his strong right arm he hoisted her up, holding her against him, her legs wrapped around his waist. It was so awkward, so ludicrous and precarious, she started to laugh at the absurd pose of a grown woman being held like a child on the hip of a grown man. And that was the picture the camera captured, her openmouthed laugh, Roland’s somewhat pained grin, Thora rolling her eyes at them in adoring disgust and Deacon sticking his tongue out because that’s what Deacon did.
Roland set her down hard and she ended up falling onto her back in the sand. She stuck her sparkler in the sand to put it out and lay back.
“What are you doing down there?” Roland asked.
“Making sand angels,” she said, waving her arms.
“That’s not a thing,” Roland said.
“It is now.” Allison wallowed in the sand a moment longer, to get Roland to smile for her just once. And what a smile it was. A kind and loving smile. A good man’s smile.
Roland held out a hand and she took it. He pulled her up and onto her feet.
“See?” she said, pointing at the shape her body had left in the sand.
“Goddamn,” Roland said. “It is a sand angel.”
“You shouldn’t swear like that. You’re still a monk, right?” Deacon asked.
“I am for now,” he said. “I’d have to tell them I was leaving if...”
“Are you?” Thora asked. “Please?”
Allison tensed. Roland glanced at her as if waiting for her to speak up and answer the question for him. But she couldn’t.
“We’ll see,” Roland said.
“What about you, sis?” Deacon asked. “You staying? Please?”
Allison glanced at Roland. He could no more answer the question than she could. She looked at Deacon and she looked at Thora. Up in her bedroom window, Brien sat perched looking down at his silly humans playing in what he must have thought of as the largest litter box in creation.
“We’ll see.”
They drifted back to the house and found a large white box on the porch. Roland took it inside and set it on the dining room table. It was addressed simply to “The Capellos” and they all gathered around as Roland opened it.
Inside were flowers. Dozens of flowers, all white. Roses, lilies, monte casino and carnations, but it was mostly one flower Allison didn’t recognize.
“What are those?” she asked.
Thora grinned. “Snapdragons. Very fitting.”
“Who are they from?” Deacon asked.
“I can guess,” Allison said.