is some scripty writing that is impossible to make out.
“This is my great-great-grandpere,” Mother says, but I think there might be one or two more greats in there. “He built Sutton Hall in 1830.” A slight breeze stirs tendrils of Spanish moss and picks up strands of her hair. She points at the engraving. “It says, ‘Beloved father, husband, and patriot. He will live on in our hearts.’ ”
Since I can’t make out all the letters, I’m fairly positive she can’t either. Incredibly, though, I bet that is exactly what it says.
“ ‘Helen Davis Sutton,’ ” she reads the epithet on the next tomb over. The stone is so pocked I can barely make out the date of her death, 1890, but it doesn’t stop Mom. “ ‘Niece of President Jefferson Davis. Beloved wife, mother, and daughter of the Confederacy. She is gone but never forgotten.’ ”
President? I look at Mom and wonder if it really said that at one time, or if she just straight made it up like she does answers to her game show questions.
We find my great-grandparents, and Mother stops to put her hand on the smooth white marble of George Bernard Sutton and Rose Oliver Sutton.
“Maw Maw Rose. I love and miss you, goodness knows.”
We continue on, making our way past rows of single and large family mausoleums, all inscribed with different names and dates, but each heavily adorned with angel statues. Live oaks have uprooted the ground, tilting stone crosses and knocking several angels off their pedestals. The bright morning sun shines down on white vaults and bounces off marble mausoleums entombing generations of Sutton relatives, and I am surprised by the genuine feeling that settles in my soul. As creepy as I find this fenced-off plot of earth, it holds the remains of one family. My family.
“Isn’t that sad?” Mom asks as she points to tombs of red brick, crumbling past the point of identification.
It’s a rhetorical question, but I answer anyway. “Yes.” Some of the markers indicate a long life, while others memorialize infants or young men taken in wars dating as far back as 1843. Whole families were taken by floods, smallpox, cholera.
“That must be Jasper.” Mom heads to a shiny new vault a few rows away.
I walk with her to a spot where the earth looks more recently disturbed. My bucket starts to weigh on me, and I switch hands with a clank.
“Remember when you dressed like a vampire?”
I wonder what sparked the random memory. “I was always a vampire for Halloween because of my widow’s peak.” Most of Mom’s memories are connected, in one way or another, to the men revolving in and out of our lives at that time. I wait for an old-boyfriend connection, but it doesn’t come.
Mom looks up at my forehead. “Oh yeah.”
We make it to the grave where a wreath of long-dead flowers is staked in the ground. The black marble stone simply bears Jasper’s name and the dates of his birth and death.
“Here lies Jasper Sutton, he loved his bird but hated mutton.”
I look at Mom with her lavender lips and laugh. It’s been so long since I’ve heard Mom make up little rhymes, I’ve forgotten that she used to do it all the time. You could say she was the OG rapper of her time.
She smiles at me. “Does it say that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
She points to the gravestone next to Jasper. “Who is that?”
“Jedediah Sutton.”
“Jasper’s twin.” Mom looks over her shoulder before she whispers, “Those boys were gay as a box of sprinkles.”
Which explains why the uncles never married or had children.
“But we don’t talk about that.”
“It’s not a crime to be gay.” Not like marrying a first cousin.
“Who’s that?” Mom points to another ledger stone.
I scrunch up my eyes and read, “ ‘Donald Aiken.’ Died in 1922.”
She cocks her head in contemplation. “Here lies Donny Aiken. He said he was sick, but folks thought he was fakin’.”
I laugh and join in. “It says, ‘Here lies Donny Aiken, he hated peas but loved his bacon.’ ”
Mom winces. “That wasn’t any good.”
So much for joining in.
“Momma’s over there.” She points to the far corner of the cemetery, where the Spanish moss is thickest.
I was a sophomore in college when my grandmother died. She passed during finals week, and I didn’t attend her funeral. I know I should have felt bad about that, but I didn’t really. Truthfully, I felt bad for not feeling bad.
Whenever we visited Grandmother Lily in Tennessee, she always acted so happy to see us. She’d hug