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            A plain but pretty woman raised Mary Polly Ingersoll slides through the untouched, snow-dappled grass, leaving nary a trail. Her flowing white dress scarcely touches the patches of grass that struggle through the remnants of the last snowfall. Her graceful fingers trail across the heavy, granite gravestones of Mount Auburn cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

            Founded in 1831, the Mount Auburn cemetery was unique in its design and execution. Since there was a growing number of burials in Boston proper, it was decided to create a peaceful, tranquil and beautiful area where families could mourn their lost family members surrounded by a natural setting combined with tasteful works of art. Mount Auburn became the model for the rural cemetery movement.

            Today, Mount Auburn is almost a museum dedicated to two hundred years of changing attitudes and social mores about death and memorials as well as changing tastes in architecture and landscape design.

            The woman gazes over the perfectly manicured paths and carefully trimmed foliage as she moves softly and quietly towards the peak of the cemetery where the first head to head meeting of Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met as the Northern Army started its bloody and epic march towards Richmond. 29,000 men lost their lives in that battle and their lost ghosts still wander through the trees. A path winds in a swirl upwards towards Washington Tower where a balcony allows a view of the entire cemetery and a panoramic vista of the city of Boston. There are no other places with such a view. The woman’s dress pours up the staircase inside Washington Tower, past a stained glass window until a doorway leads her slight frame back out into the cooling winter air. The sun is vanishing behind the city bringing slowly settling darkness onto the region. She remembers a time before tonight when there were no gray structures filling the skyline. Once, it was all farmland or smaller communities. She sighs. So much has changed.

             With the flutter of soft, excited heartbeats, a brilliant red cardinal lands on the railing next to the pale, white woman. The male is a brilliant red while the female is a rich tan color with an orange beak. They feed and fly alone but are monogamous. Despite their solitary nature, the male and female cardinals sing to each other, making them easy to recognize by their duets. Native Americans believed that if a cardinal crossed your path, there was a romance in your near future. Some believe the cardinal can represent the spirit of a loved one lost to death and visiting the living to give them hope of the spiritual afterlife.

             The cardinal’s head rotates left, making him seem inquisitive. Then back straight up in the barest blink of an eye. It pecks twice on the railing, searching for a lost seed. Mary raises her hand to form a slight, flat, open hand. The cardinal looks up quickly, then left and right in search of potential predators. He hops along the railing, and then darts into the air towards the flattened hand. He hovers for a moment, then drops lightly into her hand.

             He flutters suddenly as he passes right through her ethereal hand, the fingers disappearing like smoke in a breeze. The cardinal flaps his wings and darts off into the growing darkness. In a second, he’s gone into the trees with a beautiful warble. An echoing response comes from a distance away, the cardinal’s mate returning his call.

             Mary listens to their calls, then looks out over the city. Cruel, ferric thunderclouds gather above and a light snow starts to drift down from above. She feels the cold moving in. A cold a living soul would not notice. The air turns acidic and angry. A storm is coming from the icy cold depths of the ocean sky. A storm is coming with the crackle of hatred and mythology.

 

            Leslie Diston Manheim stands in the car dealership on Christmas Eve, the excitement racing through his body like flames through a filthy, textile mill. The snow started late morning and was gathering quickly on the streets and rooftops. His Mercedes Benz already has a dusting of the white fluff, but the rest of it is still the same beautiful ebony it was when he drove it off the lot nine months ago. It’s a Mercedes SUV GLK class vehicle, perfect for the family that he had at the time. Today, however, he’s trading it in for an upgrade. Just like he did with his family.

            Gone is the shrewish wife who demanded so much and gave so little. Gone with her were the two children who absolutely had to go to the most expensive private schools in the country. They needed clothes and electronics and cell phones and money. It was exhausting and expensive.

            So Leslie decided it would be a better idea to leave and go with the new assistant. She’s a 32 year old who’s gone back to school to get her master’s degree in some meaningless major like philosophy or sustainability. Leslie is trading her education for her affections. He has no illusions about the future of this relationship, which is why he has also donated a substantial amount to the college fund with the unspoken codicil that he be compensated with the attractive women of the Alumni office. Last week alone, he “dated” three of them. Since the separation and the pending divorce, Leslie has a new lease on life. He’s living the dream, despite the lifetime of frustration based on having what many people consider a woman’s name.

            So now, on Christmas Eve, Leslie Diston Manheim has decided to reward himself. The wife and kids got exactly what they deserve, the amount the court deemed necessary.  A stop at an expensive jewelry store takes care of the women, including a cheaper pair of diamond earrings for the babysitter who should be 18 any day now. Nothing better than a little planning ahead, he thinks.

            “Mr. Manheim,” says a nebbishy forty something man in an expensive suit. “Your car is coming around out front now.”

 

            It is an icy cold dawn that greets the craggy rocks of Salem’s shore. The snow from the previous day has passed, leaving a veneer of grey-white across the rooftops and streets. The sun is an obscure, hidden source of grey light that seems to neither move nor brighten as the day progresses. Like the muted crash of symbols wrapped in towels combined with the single beat of a tremendous bass drum, the sea hurls itself against the shoreline. Broken, shattered fans of salt-steeped seawater rise up from the rocks like fingers trying to grasp the intangible clouds of fog that drift imperceptibly across the roiling sea and invade the warmer climate of the land.

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To be continued...

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