***
GRAHAM
***

When Grandmother died, Graham was ten. All the kids at school mandatorily signed a condolence card, which they handed to him when he returned from his absence. It was supposed to say kind things, offer sympathies and such. He knew because he had signed some for other students before.

His card had no such kindnesses. Most of the card was filled with half-hearted and haphazard signatures, many in print - like they hadn’t even bothered to sign their names in script. The only notes were outright mean. “I’m glad your dirty grandma is dead.” “Sorry your granny died. Did she at least taste yummy like your mom?” “Gravediggers should go back to where they came from.” “There’s a reason you don’t have parents, and even your grandparents know it, too.”

Only his teacher wrote a note that was not unkind, but it was not heartfelt, either. She wrote, “Graham, sorry for your loss. It will not be easy, but it will not feel like this forever. You can speak to the guidance counselor whenever you need to.”

Grandpa insisted on disobeying customs. There would be no cremation, and Maricella would rest in her birthplace beside her Gravedigger ancestors. He would be a pallbearer, and Graham would help dig Grandmother’s grave.

He knelt down beside Graham and sat his hand on his shoulder. He said, “Your Grandmother was a Gravedigger, and we are her family. So we are Gravediggers, too, and we will honor her like one. I will not send her away alone to be traded like livestock.”

Graham doesn’t remember much of the funeral. He knew his extended absence from school was unheard of. Most students took off a day or two, but Grandpa let him take a week off while they dealt with the preparations. When he returned, the other kids gave him a wide berth for months.

He remembers that Grandpa dug wildly through the box of Mom’s things and pulled a letter scrawled in a script Graham couldn’t read. He dialed a phone number Graham didn’t recognize on his old rotary phone and spoke for hours to a man Graham had never heard. He cried and yelled on that phone call.

Graham remembers that the sky was bright and clear as he looked over the big hole he dug with kids he did not know, kids who stood five feet away from him and looked at him with the same wary gazes as his classmates.

There was one kid, he looked like he was six or seven, scrawny and wide-eyed, with shaggy hair and too-big clothes. He was in charge of pulling on the rope for the bell that clanged while Grandpa and the others carried Grandmother’s coffin down the long, straight path from the funeral home. That kid, he didn’t shy away from Graham. He looked curiously at him as he tugged on the rope with small hands in gloves two sizes too big.

When they lowered her casket into the hole that Graham felt he’d dug alone, he hiccupped as tears threatened to take over. He felt the fear creep in, the fear that maybe his classmates were right, maybe he brought death along with him everywhere he went. Maybe he’d kill Grandpa, too. Maybe even Gravediggers were afraid of him.

That scrawny boy gave the bell one resounding, final toll, before slinking carefully over to Graham and setting a small, gloved hand on his as it gripped the shovel with white knuckles.

“It’s okay,” the boy said. “People die - everybody does one day - and it’s okay. Death isn’t bad, and it’s not scary. It only hurts because of all the love. And love is always a good thing.” A grown-up Gravedigger spotted him, and hurried over to whisk him away before Graham responded. He didn't know if he could have responded at all, honestly. By then, the tears had overcome him, and Grandpa was there to wrap his strong arms over his shoulders. Grandpa was crying, too, but he was smiling, and Graham knew that boy must have been right.

When Graham looked back on it, he knew that those words had to have been something the boy himself was told and then regurgitated. But still they eased his scared and lonely heart.

***
PRESENT DAY
***

Graham flies out of bed, throwing on whatever clothes are draped over his chair that he meant to put in the laundry but was too exhausted to. His mind is both empty and painfully, overwhelmingly full. Nothing but thoughts of Grandpa swirl around, everything and nothing all at once. I should have called him more. I should have stayed home. I should have brought him with me. I should have sent him flowers. I should have said, ‘I love you,’ more often.

He grabs his phone and call’s Grandpa’s number again. It rings and rings, and goes to voicemail.

“Hello! You’ve reached Armando Torres,” Grandpa’s pre-recorded greeting chimes.

“And Gwaham and Gwandmudder Mawishewwah!” a young Graham’s voice pipes in. He was five or six when he insisted on helping Grandpa record the voicemail message. Grandpa obliged easily.

Grandpa continues, “We’re not in right now so -”

“Weave us a message, pwease!” young Graham says.

“Just remember to give a callback number. We’ll get back to you soon.” The tone beeps, and Graham hangs up and calls again. He knows that message is being saved on the external answering machine Grandmother asked the neighbors to install, years after voicemail came pre-installed on phones.

He dials once more, hoping someone will answer. No one does.

***

I tremble as I race back through God’s Blind. If I hurry, I can make it back in six minutes. It’s the dead of night, but we have work to do, so many people are awake now. They don’t know I followed them to Graham’s house, when they went for the body, but they will certainly notice my absence by dawn, when I am supposed to be attending the work with them. I am clutching Uncle Daniel’s clamshell phone in wavering hands when it rings. Graham.

“Hi, Inch. Are you still at Grandpa’s?” His voice is thick with grief.

“No, I’m going to get in trouble if they find out I went. I’m headed back to the Grave right now. I’m in God’s Blind. It’s not long before I lose signal.” I stop walking, anyway. I don’t want to lose service right now. Raildusk Grave is lucky; because Marina Torres kept contact with her brother, our Grave has access to a desktop computer, located in a small hutch at the edge of God’s Blind. We also have one cell phone - Uncle Daniel’s, which I have in my hands right now.

Selfishly, I wish Uncle would give me his phone, as he stopped using it when he could no longer call Marina. I think first Maricella, and then Armando, kept the bill running even after. But if I had Uncle’s phone, I could call Graham all the time.

“Can I ask something big of you?” he says. “Something huge?”

I know I should say no, but I’ve always had trouble saying no to Graham. Besides, I think I have already crossed the point of no return breaking into Old Uncle Torres’s house and using his landline.

“Anything,” I say. And I mean it, terribly so.

“Go back to his house and wait for me there. I don’t want to be alone. I called a ride back already, so I should be home in about two-and-a-half hours.”

“They’re going to return for the arrangements at daybreak, probably around 6 am,” I say. “My family. We’ve already come once to retrieve his body.”

“I’ll see you soon, Inch,” Graham says softly, and the line clicks dead.

Uncle Daniel will come. Though he has never forgiven him, Armando is his father, and he will lead the service and delegate the funerary duties. Uncle says this will be his last before he retires, and I take over. As it stands, I’m now the oldest of the cousins at Raildusk Grave. The Gravediggers aren’t having many kids anymore, and it will fall on me to apprentice the few young ones as they grow.

When Graham’s neighbor called the Grave’s office landline and let us know Armando hadn’t come out to his garden that evening, I think Uncle knew. He threw a vase when he hung up. He called some of the neighbors, and they crossed God’s Blind to go pick him up.

I think he’s horrified at the possibility of having to burn Armando’s body to ash and send it away to Society. I think he wishes for Armando to be laid beside Maricella. I think he hates that there’s no one left but me.

Uncle loves me, but he hates Gravediggers. He loves me, but he thinks I catalyzed the slow dissolution of my family - first my sister, then my mother, then the love of his life, my father. He loves me, but he does not understand my pride in our heritage. He loves me, but he resents his father and sister, who did not live lives of isolation in the Grave. Uncle loves me, but he is tired, oh so tired.

I return, more slowly this time, to the edge of God’s Blind and the gate to the Torres’s garden. It creaks lightly as I swing it open, and tiptoe across the path to the back door. I fish the key out from the potted plant on the stoop, and slide it into the lock, twisting the familiar handle and creeping inside one more time.

I sit at the kitchen table and wait.

xxx
GRAVEDIGGERS - COMMUNICATION
xxx

When a Society member dies, the first to be notified and those responsible for conducting death services are the next-of-kin. These are usually spouses or adult children. The next to be notified are the Gravediggers. Arrangements are made to collect the body and initiate funerary rites. When a Society-Gravedigger dies, their biological clan kin are contacted first.

If the deceased is a Society-citizen with direct Gravedigger lineage, it is a matter between the immediate Gravedigger kin and Society-citizen next-of-kin to agree upon what funerary services will be performed, as they bear equal rights to the decision. However, law favors Society-citizens.

Typically, phone calls are made or letters are sent. It can sometimes take up to a day to reach a Grave, if they don’t have access to a phone, though most Graves at least have a landline. 

Gravedigger branches often have trouble keeping up with the times. Society-citizens don’t often want to do business with the clan, not wanting to run the risk of entering a Grave to do such frivolous work as installing cable lines or setting up modems or negotiating data plans.

The best method of modernization is through connections to a former ward with a relevant Society job. However, it is hard for a Society-Gravedigger to get public-facing jobs in Society.

Paper mail is traditionally the most consistent contact method between Society and a Grave. Letters are written on special paper - supposedly blessed to remove traces of Gravedigger soil, and the couriers who take routes for the clan are often former wards conscripted by the postal system.

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