“Stop!”
“No.”
“Hoyt!”
“I’m not stopping.”
My stomach hurt from laughing so hard.
“Fine, fine, I give up.”
Hoyt stopped and pointed at his cheek, and I gave him a little peck.
“I always hated you tickling me when I was little, and I still do,” I said.
“You love it.”
“What I liked was you playing with me.”
“Not me.”
“Liar.”
We both lay back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Today’s her birthday,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I’m going to the cemetery. You want to come with?”
I grew tense. I hadn’t been back there since I’d learned the truth about her death from my father. I had tried, but I’d never managed to make it past the gate.
“Sure.”
I don’t know where I found the strength to do it. Maybe I was just resisting giving up completely and saw it as a challenge I could face.
“We should tell Hayley, too,” I said.
“I already called her, but she wouldn’t pick up. It’s always a hard day for her. She usually struggles to get through it.”
Guilt ate into my heart. A guilt inseparable from my father’s words, attacking my weaknesses, making me feel insignificant, blaming me for tearing the family apart. I was playing a dangerous game, thinking that going there with Hoyt and Hayley might help, but I had no other choice. The bitter memories were chasing me like ghosts, and I was afraid they would catch up to me.
Hoyt patted me on the leg and got up.
“See you downstairs, okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
Hoyt drummed his fingers on the wheel. I realized he was anxious, but it was getting on my nerves. We had been stuck in the lot for a while, in a long line of cars at a standstill behind a bus full of tourists that had gotten stuck between two other vehicles.
“I don’t get it,” my brother grumbled. “Why the hell would tourists come waste their time at a cemetery instead of going to a museum? It’s weird.”
I shrugged. I liked to visit cemeteries. At least, I used to.
“I mean, these places are kind of like museums,” I responded, to his evident skepticism. “Think about it, there are mausoleums here that are hundreds of years old, sculptures from the Victorian era, famous people with elaborate tombs that are basically works of art… You can see why people are interested.”
“There are no dead people in museums.”
