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“No.”
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
“Then why are we leaving?”
She places her credit card on the small tray when the server brings it. “Pit stop.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It probably will be.”
She signs the receipt without explaining.
I follow my mother through the restaurant because I want to, which is a distinction I didn’t understand until recently. Curiosity gets me into the passenger seat. It keeps me there when she turns away from the highway leading home.
Twenty minutes later, she pulls through the stone entrance of a cemetery.
Every muscle in my body locks.
“Fuck no.”
Crystal parks beneath the shade of an old tree and turns off the engine.
“No.” I grip the door handle without opening it. “Absolutely fucking not.”
My mother lowers her sunglasses enough to look at me over the frames. “Tell me why.”
“I’ve made it almost fourteen years without coming here.”
“I know.”
“It’s ninety degrees, the humidity is criminal, and I’m wearing shoes that cost too much to sink into cemetery grass.” My breathing accelerates as I search for every practical reason this is a terrible idea. “More importantly, forcing me to face the thing I’m trying to let go of feels like exceptionally unfair play, Mom.”
“I’m not forcing you.”
“You drove me here without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“That is controlling.”
“Yes.”
Her immediate agreement stops me.
Crystal pushes her sunglasses back into place. “You said you accepted where the fear began.”
“I have.”
“Then tell him.”
My fingers tighten around the door handle. “Tell him what?”
“Whatever you have spent almost fourteen years refusing to say.” Her voice softens. “Give him the anger you carry over his death.”
“I’m not angry with Charlie.”
