I had just finished delivering Dad’s eulogy at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery when the gravedigger’s calloused hand closed around my arm. The words I had barely managed to speak without breaking down were still caught in my throat, and now this.
“Ma’am.”
His voice was low, urgent, rough as gravel.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Not now.”
I tried to pull away, my eyes scanning the dispersing crowd for my mother. She was already at the car, leaning heavily on my aunt Susan’s arm. The other mourners were drifting toward the parking lot, dark figures moving under a gray October sky.
“Please,” I said, “I really can’t.”
He looked at me with a face weathered by sun and work and too many burials.
