At last I can’t put it off any longer, and I’m forced to confront the burning nausea in my throat as I stalk toward the dock. I don’t make eye contact with anyone, and I barely look up at theemployee who mumbles something about having a good time on the island, or welcome home for those who live here.
My mother would be ashamed of my rudeness. She always?—
I force that thought to come to a stop, trying to sweep it away like I can push it under a mental rug. But being that I’m here on the island, it’s not going to work for long, I’d wager.
The wind hits me in the face, along with the once-familiar smell of salt air blowing off the ocean without being impeded by buildings or mixing with car fumes. It’s clean and sharp, and I can’t help but take a deep breath of air that used to smell like home.
But now? It just doesn’t. It smells foreign to me, and the realization sends a confusing flurry of emotions through me that nearly have me stumbling up the steps of the dock. Absently, I look around for a taxi, assuming that the Uber situation on the island is limited, at best. At worst, I could be sitting here waiting for a ride until it’s time for me to leave, like so many of the tourists already on their phones and scowling at the app.
Amateurs.
A small wave of smug pride eases the burn in my chest, and I walk toward an idling taxi sitting by the road, knocking on the window when I see the driver is on her phone. She glances at me, and it takes her a moment to put on the fake customer service smile and tell the person on the other end that she needs to go.
“You need a ride, hon?” the middle-aged woman asks, rolling down the window to blast me with a wave of warm, nicotine-scented air.
“Yeah. To Sunnyside Cemetery, if we could?” I keep my voice level as I get in the back of the taxi, hating that it really reeks of the cigarettes she probably chain-smokes throughout the day. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to mind when I crack the window, andI stop myself from gasping for air like a hooked fish, though it’s a close call.
“You have loved ones buried there?” She fiddles with the meter for a moment, cursing under her breath with a string of insults that almost make me smile. “Family? I’ve never seen you around here before. Come to visit someone from the family tree?”
God, she’s talkative. I keep a smile plastered on my face, but I wish she was a stereotypical cab driver without a conversational bone in their body. I’d even take old country music blaring through her speakers over this, if it would get me through this ride without playing twenty questions.
“Some distant relatives,” I say, trying to be vague. While I know that my maternal grandparents are also buried there, I doubt their names would help my cause any. If she’s like most people on the small island, she’ll know the last name, know their daughter, and know exactly who I mean.
My family wasn’t exactly huge, and it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who I am. “I’m not even sure they’re buried there,” I go on, trying to create a lie for myself. “But I was reading about the cemetery, and I found some notes about there being some really impressive historical burial sites?”
She nods enthusiastically like I’ve touched on her special interest. “Ebey Graveyard. That’s where you want to look,” she informs me. With a jerk of the steering wheel, we’re on the highway, and I have to clutch the car door in order not to go flying, though my stomach somersaults in offense. “It was ruled historical, and the monuments there are old as dirt. People used to do rubbings a lot on the headstones, but that can be pretty damaging.”
“Oh, yeah?” I’m not really interested in the details of gravestone rubbing, or how it’s no longer allowed. I’m not goingto Sunnyside to look at graves or read about the pioneers who died after coming to the island.
I was interested once. Long, long ago, my dad took me on picnics to the cemetery, with paper and crayons to discover the details long ago faded from the stone.
But that was then, and this is now.
Luckily, I’m able to continue steering the driver away from any notion that I have family there, even with my earlier slip-up. We spend the hour drive with her talking, telling me about the cemetery before somehow going off on a tangent on local wildlife and how she doesn’t like what the Whidbey Board is doing with the local hiking trails.
But with the way I’m zoning in and out while trying to look like I’m paying attention, how the hell would I know? Most of what comes out of her mouth hits me as white noise, as the sound of my breathing and the fight to suppress old memories take precedence in my head.
Finally, the tall pines part, and I see the whitewashed fence I’m pretty sure has lined Sunnyside Cemetery since before I was born. Like sunlight splitting the clouds, it feels like a beacon of hope, and I nearly jump out of the moving car before she’s slowed to a stop at the entrance.
“Will you need a ride somewhere else, hon?” the woman asks with possibly genuine concern as she hands me her phone to swipe my credit card. I do so, giving her a generous tip so she doesn’t have anything other than fond memories of me. Not that I’ve given her reason to think anything at all, but for some reason, the idea of slipping up and letting it be known who I am here feels dangerous.
Whidbey Island is small, and I very much doubt they’ll look kindly on me after what I did. I’m informed enough to know the papers blamed me for Dad’s death too, along with Mom’s and Derek Prescott’s. Which I suppose is reasonable, even if it leavesa bad taste in my mouth and a scent in my nose like the burned hair I smelled emanating from his charred corpse in the tub that night.
Ineverwould’ve hurt my father.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, distracted as I shove my card back into the slot in my phone case. “I need to catch the afternoon ferry going back to Seattle. So I thought I’d hang out here for maybe an hour, then go back to the coast and get some food.” I keep my voice casual as I say it, and the taxi driver nods sagely.
“If I don’t have any fares in the area, I’ll swing back around.” The offer is a kind one, though I can’t decide how I feel about it. “The newer parts of the cemetery are that way.” She points one chubby finger tipped with a fake red nail toward one corner of the sloping cemetery. “That’s where you’ll find the Morwen graves, too.”
Her words make me stumble, and I nearly fall as I get out of the taxi. My whole body seems to lurch, and I whirl around, eyes wide. “The, what?” I ask, completely caught off guard for the first time in a long time.
“Oh, come on.” She waves a hand. “I’m not stupid. Ever since then, kids have been coming up here to look at their graves like they’re a tourist attraction. You don’t have to lie to me.” She gives me a secretive smile, as if she’s in on my intentions.
Though she’s a bit closer to the truth than I’d like her to be, and all I can do is stare at her. “So if you’re looking for old Anna and Rick, that’s where you’ll find them.” I hate her smugness and the way she sounds like she knows more than she’s letting on. An irrational frustration burns up my throat, and it’s a chore to smile at her instead of ripping her head off.
Literally.
“That’s not really why I’m here,” I lie, with a falsely apologetic laugh. “But I’ll check it out. I’ll pay my respects. Thank you again.” With that I close the back door of the taxi,and when I glance back after a few steps toward the cemetery gates, I see that the taxi driver is back to smoking a cigarette and scrolling her phone, probably to find where she might get her next fare.
