Can I put it off?
I could, I guess, but I’m not going to want to go tomorrow any more than I do today.
“No,” I say—talking to myself, and no shame about it—before I start the car. It rumbles to life with a few ominous-sounding clanks. “I need to get this over with.”
My drive takes me to the outskirts of town, to a medium-sized patch of land located smack dab between Autumn Grove and Sunshine Springs. It’s surrounded by a tall black fence that’s partially strangled by creeping vines, tendrils of green and brown and red that curl and suffocate the wrought iron. I’m not entirely sure the fence is necessary—why would people break into this graveyard? It’s not like there are any royal tombs to loot—but it is pretty, especially silhouetted against the gray skies.
I never had many opinions about graveyards until my mom died. Roland and I buried her body quietly, with no official funeral, in the cheapest plot we could find. After that I discovered that I actually like cemeteries. Autumn Grove’s cemetery is particularly beautiful this time of year. Yellows and oranges and browns dancing in the wind, a carpet of red leaves like blood staining the ground. It’s not bad, as far as resting places go.
My mother would probably approve, too. She wasn’t a warm woman, or a soft one, but she loved nature. I think she would like her little corner. I make my way there, walking slowly, not quite dragging my feet, but not making good time, either. This is the first time I’ve been back since her funeral, and I’m not sure I know what I’m doing here. Maybe I should have brought flowers. I wonder if Bonnie is still working at Bonnie’s Blooms, or if she’s retired and brought in someone else.
Even though I haven’t been here in six years, my feet seem to remember the path to my mom without having to engage my brain. They make lefts and rights on their own, crunching through the leaves and the grass until they’ve delivered me to my destination: a corner plot, marked by a small, simple headstone.
I stand and stare at that headstone for probably three full minutes before I finally approach.
I don’t believe in ghosts; not like you see them in the movies and horror stories. But now, settling myself in the cold grass in front of this tombstone, I can’t help but imagine my mother making this corner her own—a welcome mat and lights woven through the tree branches, rearranging plots when she gets bored of the layout, playing house in a way she never did when she was alive. It’s a nice image, though one that I will keep to myself forever. I think we all think about weird thingssometimes, but we’re never sure exactly how weird other people are, and we don’t want to give ourselves away for fear that we’re the strangest one in the room.
I sigh, letting myself slump a bit as I pick at the grass. The holes in the knees of my jeans are letting in more cold air than I’d like, but this is something I promised myself I’d do.
“Hi, Mama,” I say, staring at a mossy spot on the headstone. “I’m back.”
The weight of expectation sits heavily on my shoulders as I continue to look at the mossy spot. I’m grateful that it’s caught my attention; it gives me something to focus on while I try to organize my thoughts.
“I’m not sure exactly what I want to say, except…” My voice trails off as I pull more aggressively at the grass in front of me, blade by blade, chipped black nail polish and shaking hands. I clear my throat. “Except I guess…I’m angry. I’m trying not to be, but I am. But now that we’re living in the same town, it sort of feels like we’ll need to get along, I guess. So that’s why I’m here. To tell you that we need to get along.”
I’m rambling, and if anyone could hear me, they’d probably think I was a crazy woman, carrying on a one-sided conversation with a tombstone. But I’m not sure anyone can be judged by what they say to their deceased. We all keep the dead in our own ways; they never leave us. Not really. The parting of life from a body can never erase memories or teachings or likenesses.
I’m just one of the people that talks to her dead, I guess. I’m okay with it.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and go on, “In spite of everything, I’m doing pretty well. And I’m going to keep doing well. Everything you put me through—it hasn’t held me back.” I squeeze my eyes tightly to rid myself of the tears trying to fall.
I don’t know how it’s possible to misssomeone and resent them, to love them and hate them all at the same time. To be glad they’re gone and simultaneously wish they were still here. The human brain is little more than three pounds and can be held in two cupped hands, but the emotions it produces are so big, so nebulous and tangled. And sometimes those tangled emotions feel like thorny brambles that I’ve stumbled and fallen into, scraped knees and scarred palms that constantly remind me of the past.
How much of that past do I keep? How much do I let go? And how do I separate the two?
My mother was consumed by her past, though she never shared any of it with me. She would type away for hours at a time on her old laptop, writing stories she wouldn’t let me read; when I was older, she would promise.Maybe someday.Telling her truths, she called it. But she hid those truths from me.
Now that she’s dead, now that I have them in my possession, I don’t want them. And I try to forget about them until I can work up the nerve to throw them away.
“Anyway,” I say with another sigh. I finally stop tearing at the grass—at this point I’ve created a bald patch that the landscaper surely will not thank me for—and lift one hand to the headstone, running my fingers over the grooved letters proclaiming Nora Bean a beloved mother. The stone is cold and rough, but that suits Nora. She’s not a marble kind of woman. “I guess I just wanted to tell you that. That I’m doing my best to thrive, and that I’m trying to let go of the past.” I swallow again. “I’m not sure when I’ll come back, or even if I’ll come back at all,” I say frankly. “So behave yourself, all right?”
I can almost imagine my mother laughing at the request. She was a defiant personality; asking her to behave wouldn’t have done much. I was the same way in high school, but I like to think I grew out of it; I’m not sure she ever did.
I sigh, looking around at the weak sun trying to peekthrough the clouds overhead. I don’t know what to do now; I don't know where to go or who to be when I get there. Rooming with someone from my past is a development I didn’t see coming, and I’m not sure how to play it; I don’t want to expend energy and effort trying to be the person he remembers, because I’m not that girl anymore. But it’s also sort of scary being truly myself in front of someone that was so important to me at one time, no matter how simple my feelings for him were.
“You know what?” I mutter to myself, shifting where I sit and leaning sideways so that the headstone props up my weight. “I’m just going to stay here for a while.” I dig in my bag—being careful of my scones, of course—and pull out my headphones. They were cheap, and it shows; the plastic casing on the wires is starting to strip in some places, and the left earbud plays at about half the volume of the right. But they get the job done, so I’m fine with it. I put them in and connect them to my phone, going to my classical playlist and finding the song I’m looking for, heaving another sigh when the sound floods through me.
Danse Macabreby Camille Saint-Saëns is a strange, eerie little piece that for some reason I love. It fits my current mood and location, telling the story of Death as he plays his fiddle to call the dead forth from their graves on Halloween night, making them dance until morning, when they return to the ground.?*
The brisk wind pushes my hair this way and that, but I leave it be, inhaling the faintly musky, sweet-smelling scent of decaying leaves as the haunting violin line soars overhead. The reds and oranges and yellows and browns take flight in the wind, dancing much like I’ve always imagined the deceased to do as Death plays for them. Skeletons,animated figures of bone, doing their waltz around the graveyard by the light of the moon—a ballroom festive and dark.
And I imagine Nora Bean dancing along with them, her head tilted back as she laughs at the stars for daring to shine when she’s no longer around to see them. She loved the stars.
I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow thickly, taking a few deep breaths to steady myself. Then I pull out my headphones and shove them back into my bag. I give the headstone one last pat before standing up. I’ve been sitting in the same position long enough that my left foot has fallen asleep; I shake it out, feeling the cascade of pins and needles as I regain feeling. Then I hobble back to my car like an old woman, favoring that foot the whole way. Call me a wimp if you want; that nonsense hurts.
I wipe my eyes and get rid of the smudged mascara before driving away. I sniffle a bit, dabbing at my nose with my sleeve—which is gross, yes, but everyone does it, and snot washes out anyway. I don’t want to rub my nose too much or it will turn red, and then Aiden will know I’ve been crying.
Although maybe he’s one of those guys who stays holed up in his room all day. I could see that being the case. Sometimes I feel like staying in my room all day too.
