He was a gorgeous young man, healthy, foil of high spirits and gentle humor, and Susan had a sudden dreadful feeling she knew exactly who he was. Her mother had told her about their beloved cousin Todd, who’d died in a car accident when he was in his early twenties. The young man beside her drove fast and well, and his smile was foil of charm as he switched on the car radio and filled the air with music.
She leaned over and turned the sound down. “Todd,” she said again, her voice urgent.
“What, Lou?” He caught the seriousness of her voice, and he slowed the car a bit.
“Drive carefully.”
He grinned. “Don’t worry, cuz. I’m not going to crack us up the night before your wedding. Trust me. I can’t imagine why you’re so eager to many someone like old Neddie, but it’s your choice. I won’t do anything to stop you.”
“Oh, feel free,” she said airily.
“I wouldn’t want to interfere with fate.” He pulled up to a drive-in ice-cream stand with a flourish.
She remembered his grave in the family plot near her grandfather’s. He’d died in the early 1950s, his car going off a bridge in Princeton when he was an undergraduate. “I would,” she said firmly. “Too many people die in car accidents. Slow down.”
“I’m parked, Lou!”
“I mean in general,” she said. “Especially on bridges. Promise me.”
He grinned at her, a charming, youthful grin. “You’re nuts, you know that?”
“Promise me. As a wedding present.”
He shook his head with a rueful laugh. “I promise, Lou. I’ll drive like a parson.”
It was the best she could hope for. She could still see the marble headstone, one Abbott amidst so many other Abbotts, and then a sudden realization struck her.
Tallulah’s grave wasn’t in that large, dignified family plot Her parents were there, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents and even beyond. Susan had been there just last year, as Great-aunt Tessie had been interred.
But there was no stone marking Tallulah Abbott’s final resting place.
Without thinking she turned to Mary. “Where did they bury Tallulah?”
For a moment a shocked silence filled the car. Then Todd laughed. “Beneath Neddie, I expect But you’re going to have to wait a few decades.”
Susan managed an airy laugh, and the tension was broken. “Sorry, I must have been daydreaming. Thinking about death, I’m afraid.”
“You’re supposed to be thinking about the future,” Mary said sternly.
“Well, eventually that’ll be the future. Where do you want to be buried?”
“Ewwww,” Mary said with a grimace. “Listen, the family plot by St. Anne’s is big enough for every Abbott whoever lived. We’ll all be there.”
Except Tallulah.
“Let’s concentrate on what’s important,” one of boys in the back said. “Ice cream.”
“You’ll have chocolate, right, Lou?” Mary prompted her. “You’ve always been crazy about chocolate.”
Susan hated chocolate. Her mother had always insisted she had to be a changeling—no Abbott woman had ever failed to be a total chocoholic. Though in fact, that was exactly what she was at the moment A changeling.
“I think I’ll have black raspberry instead,” she said. “After all, I’m starting a new life tomorrow, I might as well begin now by trying new things.”
“Will wonders never cease? Tallulah Abbott turning down chocolate!” The older boy in the back, a young man named Wilson, collapsed in mock surprise.
Susan grinned at him. Wilson grew up to father one of her best friends, and he’d always been one of her favorite people. “Life is full of surprises, Wilson,” she said. “You couldn’t even begin to guess.”
The party was in full swing by the time they made it back to the Abbott mansion. Elda and Ridley had seen to everything—the catering trucks were parked off to one side, and several uniformed young men were parking the myriad of classic vehicles. Except they weren’t classic—most of them were brand spanking-new, the product of postwar production.
