28 - someone watching

Babs quietly sobbed as did some other relatives. Wind rustled the leaves of the big oak which grew nearby.

Abby felt nothing except sick unease. He could vomit, as he had done this morning after the visit by Pruett the police detective, but he could not cry. He looked up.

April stood with her parents. She was wearing a white dress which was so bright in the sun it hurt his eyes. Seeing him she lifted her hand in a little hesitant wave. He smiled and nodded.

Directly across from line of the folding chairs where he, Babs and Stephen sat were the flower-shrouded coffins of his parents.

He could smell the flowers. They made him even sicker.

Beyond the coffins was a mound of rust red dirt covered with a green blanket that was supposed to resemble grass.

Beyond the dirt was a hill.

Beyond the hill at the edge of the cemetery was a row of pine trees and beyond that train tracks.

Beyond the tracks were the remains of an old lumber plant.

Beyond the plant, across the street, was a row of run down houses.

Beyond the houses were deep woods that went unbroken all the way to the river and beyond that the horizon where mountains lay like blue sleeping dogs.

Someone was watching.

Lutz stood and raised his bony hands. The service was over.