The mourners weren’t headed to the Owens family cemetery, a small patch of land most people avoided, especially on dark nights, for Jet had decided to be buried in the town cemetery, beside Levi Willard, her first sweetheart, the Reverend’s only son. Franny and Jet had seen to the arrangements together, choosing a white marble headstone. Beneath Jet’s chiseled name and the date of her birth and death was a quotation that had been her favorite, written by the poet she most admired.
Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality.
Unbeknownst to Jet, Franny had added another line beneath her sister’s name.
Beloved by all.
It was easy to praise Jet, and many in the gathering came forward to do so on this sorrowful day. The crowd was far larger than anyone in the family had expected. The Owens cousins from Maine were in attendance, along with family members from Boston, and a few distant cousins from New York, who were sulky and standoffish, the men known to be rakish heartbreakers, the women doctors and nurses. The town doctor, who had taken over Dr. Haylin Walker’s practice, and was himself now poised to retire, recalled the packets of tea Jet left on his doorstep each New Year’s Day, a blend that gave him courage. The postman stood up to confide that Miss Owens always tipped him a hundred dollars on Midsummer’s Eve, reciting an incantation that she vowed would ensure he would be safe in every storm. Even the children who gathered around Jet during the library’s story hour were in attendance; boys and girls held books in their hands and had tears running down their solemn faces, and several carried collections of fairy tales to set beside the gravesite, favoring Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book.
Jet had passed away on March 21, the date some people believe to be the unluckiest day of the year, Franny’s birthday, a day that had always proved inauspicious for her, now more than ever. Still, March had been Jet’s favorite month, and another Emily Dickinson poem had been read at the graveside, the verses shared by Antonia and Kylie, who spoke in hushed voices.
Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—
At the edge of the crowd, Rafael Correa stood alone without introducing himself. He had never encountered anyone in the Owens family, though he had been involved with Jet for more than sixty years. Rafael didn’t mind that she was laid to rest beside Levi, who’d been little more than a boy when he’d met his sad fate. On a night of too much champagne, Jet had slipped, allowing that Rafael was her true love, then in a panic that she might have activated the curse, she had mixed up a concoction of vinegar and lemon juice, which she drank down in gulps to cleanse her confession. Rafael had listened in disbelief when she first told him that her family had been cursed; all the same, he’d agreed to do his best to trick the hex, a lifetime of love kept secret.
Rafael wept during the service, and came to help shovel the crumbling earth over the simple pine box. Everyone noticed him when he returned to his place at the rear of the gathering. Gillian gazed behind her to study the stranger who stood beside a stone angel that honored local boys who had fought in the Civil War. “Who do you think he is?” she asked her aunt Franny.
Franny looked over her shoulder. She knew about Rafael, of course. Jet had been quite good at keeping secrets, but once, long ago, Franny followed her sister to the Plaza Hotel, although she’d never seen Rafael before. He was handsome, even at his age, and he was grieving as a husband would. “A man in love with Jet,” she told Gillian.
Sally shushed the two of them. “Must you?” she said.