Clouds by Robin Jones Gunn

Author:Robin Jones Gunn [Gunn, Robin Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82466-0
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2012-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The three of them walked across the vacant street in the little farming town and entered the graveyard. Shelly was amazed to see that it was more of a garden than a cemetery. The sites were all large plots with granite- and marble-carved headstones. Each of the plots was well tended. Many had fresh flowers placed on them or small bushes planted beside the headstones. Some were lined with pansies, which were still blooming even in the autumn chill.

“What name are we looking for?” Elena asked.

“Rudi,” Shelly said. “C. C. Rudi. The only date I have is October 5, 1827. I don’t know if that’s when he was born or when he died.”

“How bizarre,” Elena exclaimed, zipping up her red jacket and sticking her hands in her pockets.

“What’s bizarre?” Shelly asked, looking around.

“October fifth. That’s today.”

Shelly felt a shiver up her spine. She pulled the scarf from her coat pocket and wrapped it around her neck. “You’re right,” she said in a hushed voice. “It is.”

“We should probably split up,” Elena said, looking around at the large space they had to cover. “There are rows and rows to check, and I’m sure they’re not alphabetical.” She giggled at her own joke.

Shelly didn’t find it funny. Apparently Jonathan didn’t either.

“I’ll start to look around here,” Elena said quickly.

“Okay,” Jonathan agreed. “Then I’ll go to the left, and you go right, Shelly Bean.”

All three of them stopped. Shelly and Elena both looked at Jonathan. It was silent for a moment as the crimson crept up his face. Shelly wondered if it was her imagination, or was he having the same memory flashback?

They were kids, playing football in the school yard. Shelly was on Jonathan’s team, and he was counting on her to make the final touchdown. She went left, and the quarterback threw the ball to her, but she couldn’t quite wrap her hands around it. The ball pirouetted on her fingertips as she fumbled it. It was one of those twilight-zone moments when everything turns into slow motion. She had the ball for one fleeting second in her palm, and then it slipped out, and she crossed the goal line empty-handed.

“Shelly Bean,” Elena repeated joyously. “That’s a cute nickname.”

It wasn’t really a nickname. It was Jonathan’s childhood name for her. No one ever called her that except Jonathan, and he had finally stopped in junior high when, for a stretch of about five months, Shelly was nearly four inches taller than Jonathan and she outweighed him by about ten pounds. She threatened to give him a bloody nose if he ever called her “Shelly Bean” again. He had taken the threat seriously and immediately stopped. She hadn’t heard him use that term in more than ten years.

“Let’s meet back here in about five minutes,” Jonathan suggested, brushing over the nickname slip as if it hadn’t happened. He took off to the left. Shelly went to the right.

Up and down the rows she reverently moved, checking the names and dates as she went.

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