We follow the hearse to Bellefontaine Cemetery. Past the gates, the hearse travels down a long path past the mausoleums, some the size of houses, some like sheds of stone. Finn was the only one in class to get the extra credit question on the American Literature final, What icon of the Beat Generation is buried in St. Louis’s own Bellefontaine Cemetery? He shrugged when I asked him how he remembered, and we never imagined he’d soon have something in common with Burroughs.
We pull up to a newer, more open part of the cemetery. No grand mausoleums here, simply headstones standing tall, for now.
We line up as a team again and lift him with more grace than before. This time, I try to cherish the weight of him on my shoulder. I lean my cheek where I hope is close to his.
And then on a quiet count to three, we set Finn down forever.
There is crying again but no more laughing.
In the row of chairs by the grave, the man who was supposed to be Finn’s father sits, leaning forward with his head in his hands, and does not look up even once. Sylvie, seated next to him again, sits ramrod straight, like her purpose is to be a wall between him and Angelina. Perhaps it is.
I knew the poem about an athlete dying young was coming. I hadn’t known how different it would sound as Coach read it here, by Finn’s grave.
His final resting place. His final everything.
They’re about to do it.
There’s a mechanical hum as his coffin is lowered down.
It’s not really him, yet it is him, and they’re putting him away forever. I want to beg someone to stop this, to let me keep him, please.
But it’s done. Finn, my friend, is in a hole in the earth. For the rest of my life, no matter how long I live, I will always know exactly where he is, because he’s never going to move again.
People are lining up to throw a handful of dirt in the hole before they leave him, but I can’t do this last thing for him, so I stand there and watch.
As the grave begins to slowly fill with dirt, I think of Autumn coming later, after the rest of us have gone, to be with him.
six
I watch as the line of people who have waited to talk to Angelina slowly winds down. Alexis met my eyes before she left, but we never spoke. When Coach was leaving, I told him there was something I needed to do, that I’d get a ride home from someone else. I don’t know what I’m waiting for though. I don’t need to say anything to her or Autumn’s mom, and my duties are finished. Finn is in his grave.
I take off my jacket and tie, unbutton my collar.
Compared to the August heat, the metal of his coffin had felt so cool against my cheek.
I wonder how Angelina does it, comforting these people, mostly kids from school but a few adults too. They are waiting to shake her hand or give her a hug or share some sentiment, and her child is not fully buried a few feet away.
Autumn’s mother stands protectively by her. I figure if Angelina wasn’t getting anything out of talking to these people, she’d take her friend home.
“Are you waiting to talk to her?” Sylvie asks.
I jump because I had no idea that she was nearby, much less standing behind me. I’d wandered away a bit, and Sylvie and I are on a small slope among some graves from the 1970s.
“No,” I say. “I wasn’t ready to go. Are you?”
“No,” she says. There’s a bruise near her temple and a scratch along her cheek. Otherwise, she is outwardly, physically unmarked from the crash. Her blond hair is pulled back and up in a way that I’m sure has a special name. Her trim black suit probably has a French name on the label.
“I thought about texting or something,” I say by way of apology, but Sylvie shrugs.
“Nothing was your fault,” she says.
“Still, I could have said something.” I’m not sure if we’re talking about the crash or Autumn.
“You don’t have to pretend that we were more than friends of convenience, Jack. I’m tired of people pretending to care more about me than they do.”
“Geez, Sylv,” I say. It’s not that I think she and I would have naturally gravitated toward each other, but in the past four years, I’d come to think of us as comrades of sorts.
“Sorry,” she says, which is more than what I said to her, but I decide to call her out on what was truly shitty in what she said.
“Finn didn’t pretend anything about his feelings for you,” I say. “He lied about his feelings for Autumn, but he loved you.”
“Just not enough?”
“I—” I’m regretting not letting this go. “I don’t think it was about ‘enough,’ Sylv.”