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“Are you working on a new headstone today?” I called, reluctant to see him go.
“Not today,” he called back. “I’m taking a break.”
He threw up his hand in a wave, climbed in his truck, turned the vehicle around and drove away.
But since his equipment was loaded in the back of his truck, I had the feeling he’d changed his mind on the fly.
Because of what I’d said about Rose being murdered?
August 11, Sunday
SAWYER DIDN’T show, so I was left to worry I’d opened a can of worms by opening my big mouth.
I felt restless and, on a whim, decided to take my notebook to the graveyard in the hope that the atmosphere would inspire me to write. I walked down the road, scanning for snakes that might be sunning themselves on the crumbling asphalt. The weather had taken a brutal turn with record-high temperatures and humidity that made the air feel cottony.
But it was cooler in the graveyard, beneath the shade of the low-hanging limbs, insulated from the intense sun. I walked through the headstones to the concrete bench where Sawyer and I had shared cups of iced tea and lowered myself to the mottled surface. I took a few minutes to glance around and soak up the silence and sacredness of the place, imagining all the emotions the people had felt when they were alive—joy, sadness, happiness, disappointment, love, hate, longing.
I zeroed in on the pale gray headstone of Rose Whisper, the newest occupant. Sawyer had insinuated that all the rumors about her parents and her lineage had been too much for her and she’d ended her own life.
This place must’ve been special to Rose if she’d chosen to die here.
How many times had she made the walk from the house to the cemetery to visit her parents’ graves? How many times had she sat on this very bench, contemplating her life and her place in the world?
Something about the place made me feel all the feels. For the past several months I’d fallen numb to deal with fallout of Curtis ending our relationship and leaving me, with cruel words to punctuate his actions.
You write dummy books for dumb people. Even your mom thinks you’re an embarrassment.
Frida insisted that the real point of contention was that my star had been rising, and he couldn’t deal with the fact that my deadlines took priority over attending events meant to foster his career which, in hindsight, appeared to be taking mastermind classes in entrepreneurship in order to learn how to sell mastermind classes to other entrepreneurs who wanted to learn how to sell their own mastermind classes.
And he was good at it. It was a hyper-social vocation among hyper-social individuals. I’d funded his efforts, wanting him to be happy, but it was never enough. Thank goodness he’d ended things because I probably would’ve held on forever. He’d done me a favor, although I wished it hadn’t become so publicly ugly.
Because I was good at this.
Suddenly I couldn’t write fast enough to get down the scenes unfolding in my head. I needed somewhere for the hero and heroine to meet, and to keep meeting in secret as their romance bloomed. I realized a cemetery would be the perfect place for her to visit unchaperoned.
As the hours passed, I filled the pages of the notebook with an enthusiasm I hadn’t felt since the beginning of my career, when I’d been writing for my own entertainment, without the pressure of a deadline and readers I was bound to disappoint and my mother’s legacy I would never live up to.
It struck me that one of the best ways to feel alive was to spend time with the dead.
August 12, Monday
HI, BRUCE. Here are the first three chapters, hope you enjoy.
I attached photos of the notebook pages I’d written, forty-two in all, which took a while to send with my spotty service.
A few minutes later, he responded.
Hand-written? This is old school. But okay, I can work with this. More soon.
I stowed my phone, feeling better than I’d felt in… years? Something about the process of writing long-hand—the tediousness, the frustration—had energized me. Every word had seemed important. And it was inspirational to see the pages adding up. It wasn’t the same seeing digital pages accumulate in a file. I hadn’t printed out a manuscript in years, but I was tempted to start up the practice again.
One of my favorite photos of my mother was her at her desk surrounded by stacks of manuscripts, all different versions of her books.
I only wished someday she’d be as proud of me as I was of her. It was a longshot, but a girl could hope.
I stood up to stretch, then heard the muffled noise of an engine coming from the road. I went to the window and smiled to see a FedEx truck lurching over the uneven pavement.
My new laptop had finally arrived!
