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TWENTY-SIX
NATALIE
It took us twenty minutes to get to Forest Lawn Cemetery. Actually, twenty-five because I made a quick stop to pick up flowers. Fresh, exquisite pink peonies that I’d asked to be arranged in a bouquet with a beautiful white bow. Anabel’s favorite, and mine too.
The trek up the verdant, hilly lawn to Anabel’s gravesite was challenging in my high heels. Stupid me. I should have worn sneakers like Tanya. Several times, I almost twisted my ankle and, midway, I held onto her arm to steady myself, cradling the flowers in my free arm. I was grateful she was with me, for both physical and moral support.
We passed numerous tombstones, many displaying bundles of multicolored flowers. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who had come to pay respects to a loved one. They say misery loves company, but the sight of other mourners did not make me feel any better. With each painful step, my heart grew heavier.
Thirty long, excruciating minutes later, we reached the gravesite. Even with all the spinning classes I took, I was breathless. And sweaty.
“Wow, I must not be in as good shape as I thought.” I heaved a deep breath while Tanya didn’t seem one bit fazed by the challenging climb.
“That wasn’t easy,” she replied with a laugh. “You shouldn’t compare yourself to an eighteen-year-old.”
She was eighteen? I thought she was seventeen. Maybe I’d missed her birthday. I remembered her application had listed her age, but I didn’t recall her birth date.
She stared at the tombstone. “Is this where Anabel’s buried?”
“Y-yes.” My voice was already cracking.
“It’s a beautiful resting place.”
I looked it over. It really was. The view was breathtaking, offering a panorama of the San Gabriel Mountains, and the secluded site had been kept immaculate. Matt and I paid one of the groundskeepers extra to make sure it never got overgrown or grungy. Anabel had been a beautiful soul who deserved to sleep in peace and beauty. Only not here. She was way too young to die. Heaven had gained an angel; I’d lost a daughter.
The bright high noon sun was glaring in my eyes as tears gathered behind my lids. I pulled out my dark sunglasses from my bag and put them on. My shades could go only so far to mask my grief and sorrow. My vision already blurred, I, too, stared at the tombstone. It was so plain and simple, it was elegant. Matt’s parents had wanted us to inter her in their family crypt located outside San Francisco. Matt had agreed with them, but I’d thrown a tantrum. Several shattered plates later, he’d acquiesced, and I, on the verge of a breakdown, had gotten my way. I wanted my daughter close to me. One day, I would be buried here too, and we’d be at last reunited.
A tear escaping, I set the flowers down in front of the tombstone, hoping they wouldn’t wilt in the heat, and then stepped back. Beneath the years she had lived was her epitaph. My watering eyes stayed on it:
Anabel Elizabeth Merritt
An extraordinary daughter, sister, and friend.
Let the sunshine in.
I was glad Tanya didn’t ask me about the last line of her epitaph. It was the name of a song from the musical Hair. The last high school production Anabel had performed in. Recreating the role Diane Keaton had originated on Broadway, she’d been sensational.
I pushed the bittersweet memory away and fanned myself. The temperature was rising. It was extraordinarily warm for a mid-November day in Los Angeles. Maybe in the high eighties. I wish I’d brought along my floppy straw hat. But at least I had sunscreen on, and so did Tanya.
“So, tell me more about how she died.”
A cloud of darkness fell over me. “Tanya, I don’t want to go there. Remember, this is a celebration of her life.”
“Sorry, then tell me a little about the day she was born.”
I told our inquisitive exchange student that I’d had the easiest of pregnancies. Not a day of nausea or pain. Everything on track. And when my waters broke, Matt had excitedly driven me to the hospital—Cedars—and held my hand as I pushed out Anabel with an epidural and two sharp breaths. When I saw her, I knew I had given birth to a beautiful angel. Our tiny fair-haired Anabel, a symbol of grace and beauty. She hardly even cried. And when I held her in my arms for the first time and she latched her rosebud lips onto my breast, I felt a love like none other that couldn’t be put into words.
Tanya sighed. “I bet firstborns always have a special place in their mums’ hearts.”
Despite the heat, I felt my blood freeze. I forced a smile. “Yes, dear, they do.”
“My poor mum died in labor. She had a hemorrhage and bled to death. You’re so lucky you didn’t have to experience that.”
A chill spread from my head to my toes.
I’d once almost died, too, from a hemorrhage. I flashed back to one of the many worst days of my life, the memory as sharp and clear as a shard of glass. The tiny, unventilated room in the scorching hot desert. The lumpy metal bed. The stench. The agonizing pain and ear-piercing screams. The blood, sweat, and tears.
The blood. So much blood! As the vision of the soaked crimson sheet filled my head, a violent shudder ripped through me.
