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Jar of Hearts

Bob Strother

    Frances sat next to the aisle in the first pew, the place traditionally reserved for the bereaved spouse. Earl rested a few feet in front of her, his burnished bronze casket flanked by a dozen sprays of flowers and soon to be draped with the American flag, a testament to his military service in Viet Nam. She would have preferred one of the chairs behind the pulpit, where the assistant pastor or choir director sat on Sundays—where she could see anyone who might drift in after the service started. But that would have been quite a break with convention, one she couldn’t easily justify. So she’d have to hope for a chance to spot the late-arrivals during the recessional.
    She felt an arm slide over her shoulders and turned to give her son a reassuring smile. I’m holding up okay, it said. She reached out and grasped his other hand and squeezed it for a second. Next to Josh sat his wife and their two boys—Frances’ precious grandbabies—but at ages eighteen and twenty, she supposed they weren’t really babies anymore, except to her. They’d been proud of their grandpa, and he’d been good to them, taking them to the Braves’ games, playing catch in the backyard.
    It was early yet, prelude music playing in the background—Andrea Bocelli’s dulcet tenor arias soaring up toward the cathedral ceiling like sparks from a fire. Frances took the time to close her eyes. The fragrance of roses filled her nostrils. She remembered the sweet smell of the pink ones Earl had brought her for their fiftieth anniversary, how she’d pressed one of the blossoms into a photo album chronicling the event. How happy they’d been. All those moments, she thought, lost in time like tears in rain.
    The sound of muted footsteps reached Frances’ ears, and she looked up as somber-faced men from the funeral home closed the casket for a final time. She straightened her back and took a deep breath. The funeral began with Pastor Dekes extolling Earl’s contributions to the church, recounting his service first as a deacon, then, in more recent years, as an elder. He was followed by a number of Earl’s friends offering brief recollections of past times together, and finally, a song—“Precious Memories”—performed flawlessly by Frances’ best friend, Ruth Matthews.
    As Frances and her family followed the casket out through the church, her gaze swept the pews, noting a few attendees she didn’t know. Others seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place them out of context.
    During the ride to the cemetery, she sat between her two grandchildren who swapped stories about their grandfather. Frances sometimes nodded or murmured agreement, but mostly remained quiet. The graveside service was brief, but well attended, and again Frances’ eyes searched the periphery of the milling crowd for interlopers, but found no new faces.
    Ruth approached, teetering awkwardly across the uneven ground in heels that were too high. “Oh, Fran,” she said. “I hope the song I selected was all right. I didn’t want to bother you with such details before the funeral.” She dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue. “I know you had your hands full, so I asked Josh, and he said it would be good, something Earl would have appreciated.”
    “It was most appropriate,” Frances said. “After all, if anyone knew Earl as well as me, it was you.”
    A change flitted across Ruth’s face, an expression so subtle only a best friend might register it. Then it was gone and Ruth said, “If there’s anything I can do, anything at all...”
    “Your song was enough, dear. I’ll treasure it always.”

.....

    At home that evening, after family and friends had finally departed, after the hams and fried chicken and casseroles were stuffed neatly away in the refrigerator and the downstairs lights switched off, Frances trudged up the stairs to the bedroom she and Earl had shared for more than five decades. Outside the window, last vestiges of the day’s sun embered the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the north. There are all sorts of sunsets, she thought, on all sorts of things, relationships, too.
    Frances slipped out of her funeral dress and into a thin cotton housecoat. She went into the bathroom and washed her face, removed the pins from her hair and let it fall to her shoulders. Her face in the mirror, while etched with the lines of age, was still taut, her features distinct. Not too bad for seventy—but maybe not good enough.
    Back in the bedroom, Frances opened the closet and pulled out the glass jar she’d found a few days before while searching for Earl’s burial policy. It had been on a high shelf—she had risked life and limb climbing up there on a three-step ladder—hidden behind stacks of old Newsweek magazines. One foot high and wide, it had rounded corners and a circular metal top. The name Tom’s was emblazoned across the front in red script letters. It reminded her of ones she’d seen years ago in grocery stores and gas stations, filled with peanut butter, cheese, and malt crackers. But not this one; this one held a different sort of treasure. Under a mélange of old property tax receipts and outdated automobile insurance notices, she’d found a bundle of wallet-size photographs held together with a rubber band.
    She loosened the twist-off top for the second time, spilled the photos onto the bed, and turned each one face up. Frances recognized some: time-faded shots of girls from the high school she and Earl attended, others of more recent vintage. Most she didn’t know, although she believed one to be a realtor lady whose face once decorated billboards all over town, another possibly a cashier from the Winn-Dixie. They were dated on the back, dates ranging from Earl’s sophomore year in high school up until 2008. Some were single dates, but many spanned weeks, and a few, months.
    Frances selected one of the prints and held it up to the light: long blonde hair, big cobalt-blue eyes, and smooth skin honeyed by the sun—herself, fifty-three years ago. The date on the back read June 3, 1959— the evening of her and Earl’s high school graduation, the night she’d lost her virginity in the backseat of a ’51 Ford. Earl had left the date open-ended, she supposed, because their lovemaking had never really ended, continuing right up until a few days before his death.
    She turned each photograph over to the dated side and placed them in chronological order. Her husband, who vowed to remain forever faithful all those long years ago, had cheated on her with at least eighteen different women. Earl’s girls—his sweethearts. He’d always been a charmer. She’d have to give him that. She’d certainly fallen for it.
    Then, in what she considered a sad and useless bit of speculation, she wondered how he’d managed to get photographs of all his conquests, particularly the one-night-stands. On the other hand, maybe he hadn’t gotten them all. Maybe there were even more conquests somewhere out there in cheating land. Remembering an adage she’d read somewhere, Frances shook her head and muttered, “Ignorance is not bliss; it’s just easier.”
    Frances replaced the rubber band and dropped the bundle back into the jar. It made a hollow thud—like a clod of earth falling on a coffin lid. That thought took her back to earlier in the day, to the funeral and graveside service. Her quest to identify Earl’s former lovers had proven virtually fruitless. Most had probably moved on long ago; perhaps a few had died.
    She dropped the last photo back into the jar—the one of Ruth, in her younger days, with the date beginning years ago and left open-ended as well. “Precious memories,” Francis said, “oh, how they must linger for you, too, dear.”
    Frances had inadvertently discovered a truth, one she hadn’t wanted, one that would not set her free, but rather, hold her captive for the rest of her life. One she could neither forgive nor forget. After a while, she rose slowly from the bed and walked to the window where the darkening sky had thickened but offered no stars, only a moon pale as bone.

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