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Both shocked and flummoxed, I listen silently as he continues. “Ava, the storm is coming our way. There’s going to be a rare hurricane in LA later today. Take precaution. Especially with my little Isa.”
An idea comes to me. “Gabe, Ned is texting me. I’m going to put you on hold for a sec.” I pretend I’m checking my messages and then return to Gabe.
“Gabe, good news. Ned is out and about picking up emergency supplies.” As if he would ever.
He falls for it. “Good.”
“He says Home Depot is a madhouse.” He’s never been to one in his life.
“I believe it.” A beat. “Tell your old man to call me when he comes home. I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“I will.”
A pause. I hear Gabe suck in a breath. “Stay safe…Ava.” He says my name so softly, so reverently. “Give Isa a kiss from me and call me if you need me.”
My heart throbs with longing. My need for him so great, my throat constricts as we say goodbye. It’s hard. So, so hard. Be patient, Gabe. My emotions are all over the place, but once they settle down, my brain goes into action.
What the hell is going on?
Where on earth is my husband?
FORTY-THREE
MARLEY
Ever since I could take a bus, then drive, I’ve made a weekly pilgrimage to the legendary Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Always on Sunday. Located on Santa Monica Boulevard across from Paramount Pictures, it’s equidistant from both my house and Ned’s. A short fifteen-minute drive. I bet with binoculars you could see it from the edge of his former Hollywood residence.
Many residents of Los Angeles as well as tourists come to this popular California landmark to see the outdoor, mostly iconic movies they play on weekends throughout the summer. I’ve never done that. I couldn’t. I can’t.
This is where my sister and her baby are buried.
Usually before visiting them, I go to mass at a nearby church, but today I don’t have time. I park Ned’s Lamborghini in the visitor parking lot and hastily make my way into the cemetery.
The verdant park-like grounds are graced by stunning flowers, trees, and swan-filled lakes, and I know my way around the sixty acres like the back of my hand. Carrying a bouquet of flowers that I purchased at the flower shop by the entrance, I wend down a serpentine brick path passing myriad tombstones and mausoleums, some as big as Beverly Hills mansions, including one belonging to one of my sister’s idols, Judy Garland, until I reached my destination—the modest but stately mausoleum that houses my beloved sister and her baby. The pediment is inscribed with our family name. Mann. One day I will rest here too…with my child.
Though my sister had no directive—why would she at the age of seventeen with her whole life ahead of her?—Mama knew this is where she would have wanted to be buried. To be among the movie and television stars she worshipped…with her baby. With the money I saved, I erected the mausoleum and entombed them inside it. Maybe it isn’t the size of a Bel Air mansion, but it’s the closest I could get to one. And I knew it would make my sister happy.
Despite the gloomy weather—the air is thick and sticky and it even looks like it may thunderstorm, which is rare in Southern California—my heart feels lighter than usual. After today, I may not be here again for a long time, but I know that at last they will rest in peace. Well, at least more peacefully. Eternal peace will not come until all of them are dead. The butcher, the enabler, and the man who betrayed her.
Despite my lightness of being, tears fill my eyes as I kneel to lay the flowers on the freshly cut grass that surrounds the masonry structure. Evil stole my family from me all too soon. Shutting my eyes, my mind flashes back twenty life-changing years ago.
FORTY-FOUR
MARLEY
Twenty Years Ago
As far back as I can remember, it was only Mama, my sister, and me. My father, a custodian at our local church, died shortly after I was conceived, from an aneurysm. I’ve always suspected my struggling parents never planned on having more kids, that I was an accident, but because Mama was devoutly Catholic, she gave birth to me.
My father left Mama with very little money. To make ends meet, she worked as a housekeeper for wealthy families who paid her well but overworked her. She was never home during the day—even on weekends because she made overtime on Saturday and Sunday. Hence, I was raised by my sister, who was twelve years older than me.
I loved my sister, Mabel. I thought she was the prettiest girl in the world. With her long blonde hair and lithe body, she reminded me of Cinderella. Even her beautiful singing voice reminded me of a Disney princess. I remember her reading me books and acting out all the parts…watching movies and TV shows with me in our rinky-dink Fresno apartment where we shared a tiny bedroom…and letting me snuggle in bed with her where she shared her dreams of going to Hollywood and becoming an actress.
“Em,” she told me, “one day, I’m going to be rich and famous, and you and Mama are going to live with me in my Beverly Hills mansion and have everything.”
Then, one day, when I was five, she left us to pursue her dream. Just like that. The next time I saw her I was almost six… her bodylying in an open casket at our church, next to the tiny casket bearing her newborn child. The little girl she never had the chance to name.
My sister, her face paler than I remember, was as beautiful in death as she was in life. I didn’t understand what had happened to her. And how could she have had a baby? I thought only married people had babies. I wanted Mama to explain everything to me, but she was too distraught to form words. I had never seen her, despite all the hardships she’d endured, sob. Let alone shed a tear. She was never the same after that day. A curtain fell and she went into a downward spiral.
