The Art of Having
It felt like I planned this out, but once I get there, I realize it's a bigger job than I anticipated.
Six by two by six, that's. seventy-two cubic feet. By my clock, that's eighteen cubic feet per hour.
I'd better get moving.
The ground is fairly soft, as I'd hoped. By the time the second hour passes, I figure I've cleared at least thirty cubic feet. My rental car's headlights don't help much this deep, and I can't hold the flashlight while I dig, so I'm relying on the half-moon overhead to guide my shovel.
But the deeper I go, the thicker the soil feels. It's more compact, and rather damp, and my shoulders ache from the effort of lifting it above my chest. I hear a car door shut nearby, and stop to wipe the sweat off my brow. My ragged breaths almost drown out the faint words that float down from above me.
"You didn't think this through."
Time stands as still as I do.
Can't breathe, can't move, except to look up at his silhouette in the moonlight. He crouches down, resting one hand on the ground.
"What happens when you reach it? You can't exactly open a coffin you're standing on."
His face is in shadow, but just the sound of his voice, familiar as my own, sets my senses on overload. And I say the only thing I can think to say.
"Hey."
"Hey," he replies, and he's here, talking to me. His feet are on the California soil, and he's breathing in the cold night air, and talking to me. Something's wrong with my chest. It's so tight.
"Hi," I say inanely. "Hi."
"You okay?"
"My shoulders hurt. And I have some blisters on my fingers." And you had your face split open by a piece of your broken airplane, and nearly starved to death on a deserted island. Don't you have sympathy for my poor, poor blistered fingers?
"Hop out for a minute," he says, as if I'm in a cab and not in his grave.
I pull myself out of the hole, all gangly and awkward. Looking rather spry, he jumps down, picking up the shovel and getting to work. I shine my flashlight down on him, illuminating his work.
"What would you guess?" he calls up to me. "Seventy-two cubic feet or so, altogether?"
"Probably."
He's not judging me, which is nice. Most people would object to someone digging up their coffin in the middle of the night. Wrapping my free arm around my knees, I watch the dirt fly up and out of the hole.
His shoulders look different. Smaller, but stronger. And his hair is nearly white, and even my knees are trembling now. I've got to get him to talk again. At least his voice is the same.
"How'd you know I was here?" I venture.
"This cemetery has a full-time security guard on staff. He called me to say someone was digging next to my headstone. Had no idea whether you were breaking the law, because it's not technically grave desecration if there's no body down there."
He's shoveling faster than I was. At this rate, it won't be long.
"You're good at that."
He stops for a moment. "What?"
"I said you're good at that."
"I am." Smiling wryly, he scoops up another shovelful. "Had a lot of practice on the island."
In retrospect, I remember hearing about that on the Barbara Walters special. The Flight 118 survivors met with her a few weeks ago, regaling her with their incredible story. Everyone except Grissom.
I watch as he sinks lower and lower in the hole. Some illogical part of me is growing anxious as he slowly disappears from view, as if he might dig his way straight through onto another island. When his shovel strikes something solid, I stand up, training the flashlight beam on the uncovered wood surface.
"Cherry wood," he frowned, looking down at the coffin lid. "I'd think my mother would've known better."
As he clears dirt away from the sides of the coffin, I wonder about his earlier comment, that you can't open a grave you're standing on. But ever the enterprising problem-solver, he's shoveling a shallow niche into the wall of the grave. Sticking his feet into the niche, he bends over and unlatches the coffin.
"You ready?" he asks, as if I'm preparing to see his decaying body lying in there.
"Yeah."
With a low creak, the lid swings open. I swing the flashlight beam over the inside. Everything looks the same as the last time I saw it. It's a hodgepodge of sentimental items, wrapped gifts, and sealed letters.
He looks up at me. "Would you... feel comfortable coming down here?"
No, I'd feel comfortable running away, far away, where his keen gaze wouldn't catch my indecision. But I came here with a purpose. It's not supposed to be comfortable. So I clamber back down, trying not to step on a stack of CDs. Seemingly unworried, he plops down on the pile. I sit on the opposite end gingerly.
"Can I borrow the flashlight?" he asks, and I hand it to him. As he shines it over the pile, I catch sight of a crumpled piece of paper, tucked to one side. I wait until he's engrossed in reading a letter, then grab the paper, shoving it in the pocket of my jeans.
"From Warrick," he says, waving the letter.
"Ah. Have you seen him?"
"I've seen them all, yes." Shouldn't come as a surprise. It's been two months since his rescue.
"How are they?"
"Good, they're all good. You've seen Nick's beard?"
I nod, smiling. Nick grew the beard a few months after Grissom's plane went down. Said it was a tribute. A nice gesture, but it made him look like a dweeb.
"Feel free to look around," he says, motioning to the pile. "Mi coffin su coffin."
Sifting through the items at my feet, I reach past a collection of expired amusement park passes and pick up a thick old book.
"Look at that," he murmurs, gazing over at the book fondly.
"What is it?"
"A collection of famous quotations. I was rather shy as a child... always afraid of saying the wrong thing. So my mom bought me that book, ostensibly to show me how eloquent words can be, but it backfired when I started using those words instead of my own."
I let out a short laugh of disbelief. "You mean all those times you pulled a quote out of the air..."
"Not all those times," he corrects me, then raises an eyebrow. "Most of them, though."
The scar on his cheek looked angrier on TV. In person, it's not quite as dark, and his beard hides it pretty well. My fingers twitch involuntarily as I consider reaching forward to touch it. He catches my eye, and clears his throat.
"So tell me," he says, a bit too amiably. "What's Michael like?"
"Michael?"
He chuckles. "Daniel and Margaret O'Boyle of Revere, Massachusetts announce the engagement of their son, Michael, to Sara Sidle, daughter of the late Richard Sidle and Laura Sidle of Oakland, California. Boston Globe, four months ago. So I ask again, what's Michael like?"
"He's nice."
"What does he do?"
"He's a CSI."
"You don't say. What's his specialty?" I can tell by the tone of his voice, he already knows.
"If you're trying to prove that I missed you, I'm not going to dispute that."
"Did you think I was dead?"
"That's a morbid question."
"We're in a graveyard at 4 a.m., Sara. Anything I asked would be morbid."
"What are you going to do with the coffin?"
"Sell it on eBay. Do they still have eBay?"
"Yeah. I don't know."
"If they have eBay?"
"If I thought you were dead. I went back and forth."
"When you met Michael-"
"Mickey."
"When you met him, did you think at that point that I was dead?"
I pick up a box of chocolate-covered crickets from the pile. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty?"
"No," he says, his eyes widening. "No. I can't tell you how relieved I was to read about Michael. Mickey."
"Relieved?"
"I didn't want you to live in denial. On the island, I had this recurring nightmare where you were still buying me presents on the holidays... It was just a relief to know you'd continued living."
"Oh."
Sighing a little, he smiles at me. "You look... you look nice. The years have been good to you, Sara."
"The years have been a living hell, Grissom," I reply tightly.
He says nothing to this, just tilts his head in acknowledgement and continues to sift through the pile. There are several long letters than make him sigh, and as he reads each one I sneak glances at his face. His skin is tanned, his wrinkles deeper. But his eyes are just as sharp and kind as I remembered.
The moment reminds me of the days right after we lost him. At that point I was still in heavy denial, and I'd sit motionless in the break room, trying to keep time still, trying to somehow keep the plane in the air all the way to Tokyo. I was sure that I could control it all if I concentrated hard enough. And now here I am, trying to still the moon's journey across the sky so that I can have a little more time.
I used to spend hours figuring out what I would say to him, if I ever had the chance. Now as he picks up a plastic container, I can't remember a word of it.
"Is that Tupperware?"
He studies it carefully, turning it in his hands before smiling a little sadly. "Yes."
"What's in it?"
"My mother's marinara sauce."
I offer him a wry grin. "I'm thinking it's past its prime by now."
"She used to make it every Sunday night, when I was growing up. Spaghetti with meatballs and marinara. She'd set a big pot of sauce on the stove and let it simmer for hours, soaking in the flavor of the beef."
"Good?"
"Very. My dad and I looked forward to it all week long. When I turned six, he let me in on a little secret. Whenever Mom would make the sauce, he'd sneak out to his herb garden and pick a handful of fresh basil, some thyme and sage, and a little curry. Then he'd throw them into the pot when she wasn't looking, and that, he said, that was why the sauce tasted so good."
"Did you keep his secret?" I ask, trying and failing to imagine Grissom at six.
"I did," he says, looking somber. "We lost him three years later. And the Sunday after he died, my mom made her sauce like always."
"How did it taste?"
He nods, a little sadly. "It tasted the same."
The Tupperware container gets placed gently to the side, as he reaches for a velvet bag. It contains a rosary that he fingers fondly. There's something poking into my leg, so I pull it out. It's a photo album, filled with pictures of Grissom's family.
"Your mom buried this?"
Looking over at it, he hums a little. "I was the only family she had left. I suppose it pained her too much to see it."
One black and white photo near the front shows a couple on their wedding day, looking nervous and happy. "This your father?"
"Wedding photo? Crooked tie?"
"Yup."
"Yes, that's from my parents' wedding. There's a larger print of that photo, somewhere. It used to hang over the fireplace when I was growing up. I remember looking at it and wondering what my own wedding would be like."
"How come you never got married?" It's not a question I'd normally dare to ask him, but nothing about this situation is normal.
He fiddles with the rosary for a moment, then puts it on top of a stack of books. "It just never happened."
"Why not?"
"Why Mickey?" he asks suddenly. "What made him 'the one' for you? I'm assuming it wasn't just because he's an entomologist. What about him sparked your interest?"
There's nothing I'd like to talk about less, but if I answer his questions, I get to keep sitting here with him. If I answer his questions, he'll stay with me.
"Mickey just had a way about him. Something safe, familiar." I scratch at a clump of dirt on my knee. "What's worse, meeting a stranger for the first time and feeling like you know him, or knowing someone forever and feeling like strangers?"
When I look up, he's reconstructed the blank face he mastered so many years ago. "Do you want me to leave?"
"I never wanted you to leave," I mumble, and just like that, his expression is vulnerable and open again.
"Sara..." I'm sure I know what he's about to say, but he surprises me. "What did you pull out before?"
"What?"
"You grabbed a piece of paper and put it in your pocket," he says, cocking his head. "I'm not sure Emily Post has had this come up before, but I'll bet she'd agree that anything in my coffin should belong to me."
My lips part to deny the existence of the paper, but no sound comes out. Finally I pull the wad out of my pocket.
"May I see it?" he asks.
"It's something I wrote, Grissom. The day of your funeral."
He just nods, extending his hand, and my anxiety doubles.
"It was a lie. You shouldn't - it was a lie. Please don't read it."
But he's taking it out of my grasp gently, uncrumpling it as though it is a most precious gift.
Even in the dim light, I can see my block printing: I may have loved you.
"It's a nice lie," he says softly. "If you don't mind, I'd like to keep this."
"I'm not one to argue with Emily Post," I reply, feeling sick.
He tucks the note in his pocket, then folds his arms across his knees. We're silent for a long time. The air is damp, and when I shiver, he starts to take off his jacket.
"You were supposed to come back," I blurt out.
He stills. "What?"
"You said you were coming back. We were supposed to go out and talk, you..." I'm rambling now, really rambling. "You said you'd be back on the fifteenth, and... you said-"
"I know."
"The fifteenth."
"Well, technically I did come back on the-"
"Wrong month, Grissom. Wrong year."
"Yeah." He doesn't apologize, and for that I'm grateful.
The dawn is breaking, as rays of light scatter down into the grave. A glint catches my eye, and I reach over to pluck a small hourglass from under a butterfly drawing. The sand trickles down, each grain reflecting a flicker of light.
"I should probably get going," he says, and my heart starts beating wildly in my chest. He's leaving me again. He's going to crawl out of here and be out of my life completely, and I'll be the stranded one.
We both clamber to our feet, avoiding eye contact.
"Here, I'll give you a boost," he murmurs. He steps over to my side, crunching on the pile carelessly. When his hand brushes the side of my waist, I can't help it. The sob escapes my chest, sounding loud and foreign in the early morning air. "Sara?"
"Don't move your hand." It's the same spot he touched years ago, and I'm leaning into him without thinking. The kiss is clumsy and my foot keeps slipping on a loose CD, but he's warm and solid and real, and even when he tries to pull back I keep leaning forward to kiss him harder. Groaning softly, he turns us so that my back is against the uneven dirt wall. Pushes me into the damp soil with the force of his kiss, the slide of his lips, the firm hand still clutching my waist.
I wind my left hand around the side of his neck, finding his throbbing pulse with my fingers as he kisses me more deeply. His fingers skirt up my arm, trailing their way to clasp my hand, when he pulls back suddenly. "Where's-" he pants, "Where's the ring?"
My brain is hazy from the feel and smell and taste of him, and I just stare at him stupidly.
"Where's your engagement ring, Sara?"
I could tell him about the moment I saw him on that TV screen, looking lost and found all at once. I could tell him about the past two months, the strain between me and Mickey growing more pronounced every day. I could tell him about yesterday, when we made it official and I returned his grandmother's ring. But instead I pull him in close again, snuggling my chin in the crook of his neck. "He wasn't you," I whisper.
His sigh of relief tickles my hair as he wraps his arms around me, stroking my back tightly. Part of me wishes we could stay here. Right here nothing matters but us, and out there are the complications. The sun is rising far too quickly in the sky.
"Sara?"
"Mm?"
"Which part was a lie?"
"What?"
"I may have loved you. Which part was a lie?"
My heart stops beating abruptly, like a plane engine dying in midair. "The may have part."
"Good," he says softly, his touch growing more reverent than desperate. "Good."
THE END