Bodark Creek - 63. Chapter 63

When Del died, it was a shock. He was only sixty-nine. That seems like a pretty good age, and he certainly had a very good life. He did everything just about the way he wanted. But Martin lived until he was almost eighty, and everyone in my family teased me that I might go on forever. And Del wasn’t even thinking about retiring.

“I haven’t gotten bored with the insurance business yet,” he said. “And I’m not ready just to sit around and ride my horses. So I don’t see any big changes coming.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to divorce me?” Susan joked. “There are plenty of younger women.”

“Nah,” Del told her, grinning. “You’re more important than anything.”

He died of a heart attack. It was the weak Bronner heart. He was working in one of our barns, moving some hay bales with one of the high school boys. “He just collapsed,” Ramon told us. “I was on the fork lift, and he was telling me where to move things around. I looked away for a second, and when I turned back, he was on the ground.”

“Did he say anything?” Susan asked.

“He was already gone when I got to him.”

“Del never did waste time,” Neal tried to joke. But no one was listening.

Del’s heart hadn’t been giving him problems, though his arthritis was. “You can’t think a man’s body’s gonna last as long as he’d like,” he explained. “I was in the supermarket the other day, and they have one of those new security cameras. And I happened to glance up at myself on the TV screen. Well, between the florescent lights and the terrible camera, I looked like a very old man.”

“You are an old man,” Neal told him, laughing. “We both are.”

“I’m not old,” Joann insisted. “I’m doing fine.”

“You’ll be sixty-one on your next birthday,” Neal kidded. “And if you didn’t keep dyeing your hair, you’d come close to looking that.”

“I only rinse it ‘cause Mama doesn’t like the red,” Joann claimed. And that was true. The older Joann got, the brighter her hair seemed to be. If she didn’t do something, she looked like one of those loose Texas women.

Though I wouldn’t have cared. Del’s dying made me sad enough to forget everything else. I kept thinking about him as a little boy. I could see him crawling, and laughing, and then walking, and learning to talk. And I remembered how Martin would put Del on his shoulders and carry him all over the house. But mostly I remembered how important Del was to me in that first year, when there only seemed to be the two of us.

I kept coming back to that time, and one morning I woke up thinking I had to get Del fed and dressed before Martin wanted his breakfast. “What’s the matter, Mama?” Joann asked when she came into my room.

“Nothing,” I told her. “I just didn’t wake up where I thought I’d be.”

“Do you want to see the doctor?” she asked. Joann always thought the doctor could fix anything.

No, I wanted to see some people I couldn’t anymore. But I didn’t tell Joann that because she’d worry.

After Del’s funeral, I started going to the cemetery more than before. I used to go out there for people’s birthdays, or their anniversaries, or on the day they died. But after Del’s funeral, we started going every Sunday. First, we’d go to church, and then, before Joann drove us to Neal’s for dinner, we’d visit everyone I missed.

The end of town near the cemetery wasn’t as built up as other parts, though the cemetery kept getting bigger. Mama and Daddy were buried in the old section, near the front fence as you drove in. Rosalind and Dock and Albie were with them. But my brothers and their families were a little further away. And when Martin died, as much as I wanted us all together, I knew there wasn’t room. So we bought a space in the new area, and after we visited Mama and Daddy, Joann and I would always go there.

It was peaceful in the cemetery, but it didn’t make me miss people any less. And when I got home, I’d get out the photo albums or look at all the pictures we had framed.

“I think those are your favorite books,” Joann told me. “You’re always looking at them.”

“Do I do that too much?” I asked. It was something else she didn’t need to worry about.

“No,” she admitted. “I hope someone looks at my pictures as much someday.”

Del’s death worried her, too, though not as much as it bothered Neal. “Del was always bigger than I was,” Neal said. “Taller, but he carried less weight. And he smoked less and didn’t like his beer as much. And now that I’ve lost the insurance policy I thought you and Daddy gave me, I suppose I should start living more carefully.”

“It’s a little late to change,” his wife Marie joked.

“Sounds like you’re already reading my will.”

Marie just laughed. “Hardly,” she said. “But I don’t want you suddenly changing your ways and giving yourself a jolt.”

“Don’t worry,” Neal promised. “If it makes you happy, for the next twenty years, I’ll drink a six-pack every day and smoke a carton of cigarettes.”

That made everyone laugh, but the truth was no one could enjoy it. We couldn’t deny that Del had a good life, but we all wished it had lasted longer

“I can’t believe Dad’ll never see my children,” Lisa told me at the funeral. “If I thought that could happen, I would’ve started sooner.”

“Guess I’m gonna be a dad soon,” her husband Allan sighed. “Hope I’m ready.”

“You got that right,” my grandson Bryan put in. He and his brother Brandon were both on the edge of getting married. They reminded me of Del and Neal at that age. They both had steady girlfriends, and their mother, Marie, didn’t even blink when one of the girls turned up in the morning at the breakfast table.

“What can you do?” Marie asked. “I’m just glad they’re not all out drinking.”

All of my grandchildren were at Del’s funeral because they mainly lived in town. But a lot of the cousins came in from other places because everyone liked Del. Even Neal’s son Danny drove in, and it was the first time anyone could remember him being home since Valerie took him away.

“It’s different than I thought,” he said. “Bigger. More spread out.”

“What could you remember?” Neal almost accused him. “You weren’t even three.”

Danny said nothing to that. He just looked at Neal like he wished his father would go away. And it pretty much went on like that every time the two of them were together. Though when Danny came by to see Joann and me, he was a gentleman.

“Braden and I just don’t get along,” he said, still calling his father by his last name. “I’m always happy to see him, and he seems happy to see me. Then he says something that gets me so teed off, I want to be somewhere else. And I’ve never been good at hiding that.”

“It’s a shame, really,” I told Danny. “Because your daddy’s the nicest man.”

“I know,” he admitted. “Even Mom says that. She still feels guilty about the way she left.”

“She’s never mentioned that.”

Danny shrugged. “But she’s had a good, happy marriage. And I’ve always thought of my step-dad as my real father. I guess Mom and Braden were just too young.”

Part of the reason Neal was always upset with Danny was because his son had changed his last name. It couldn’t happen when he was young, because Neal would never give permission. But as soon as Danny turned twenty-one, he changed his last name to his step-father’s.

“It was kind of a present,” he said. “A way of saying thanks. Besides, there was already one Daniel Braden in the family. I didn’t need to be the other.”

“Did you know a cousin of yours did that, too? Changed his last name. My brother Dougie’s adopted son.”

“Yep, Mom told me that when I was a kid. Maybe it’s what put it into my head.”

“I don’t think she was causing trouble.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“I’ll still never forgive him for that,” Neal said at the time. And he never seemed to forgive Danny anything. It was the hardest I ever saw my son, and it just didn’t need to be that way. But he never seemed to forget the afternoon that Valerie left.

When Danny was visiting, he told us of his own plans and showed us pictures of his fiancee. Then he promised we’d all be invited to the wedding.

“When’s that?” Joann asked.

“Soon, I hope. I’ve been waiting for two years. But Laurel wants to finish her Ph.D. first. She’s seen too many of our friends get distracted by children.”

“Children aren’t bad,” Joann pointed out.

“Oh, we’ll have them,” Danny assured us. “No question there. I come from too large a family to let it start petering out. And we won’t wait long. But I love Laurel too much to ever push her into anything.”

I had to warn Danny that I might not be at his wedding. And I had to admit I rarely got out of town.

“I’ll just have to visit you again,” he decided. “And I’ll bring Laurel. Maybe our kids, too.”

“You’re kind of betting I’ll be here.”

“I’d never bet against that.”

Danny left without seeing Neal again. “He phoned to say goodbye,” Neal allowed. “But he wasn’t even man enough to come and shake my hand.”

“Maybe he was afraid you’d break it,” I wanted to say. But I loved Neal too much, and there was nothing gained by saying anything mean.