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I shift in my seat at the way my thoughts have changed and try to concentrate.
A woman comes onstage for a solo.
Another woman tells the story of a nurse killed in the blast.
A now-elderly mother cries about the loss of her baby and bemoans the what-might-have-been from thirty years past.
Her story causes a scratch in my throat and the slight prick of a tear in one eye. I rub my neck and blink twice, and presto!—both recede, as they should. I’m not here to get emotional. I’m here to get some semblance of a story.
It isn’t until a man walks on stage and introduces himself as the president of Washington Plastics that I’ve finally had enough. To hell with the story. It’s one thing to listen as people give actual accounts of authentic mourning. It’s another to sit by and listen to fake ones. I let go of Billi’s hand and stand from my seat, making my way down a row of people, not stopping when I accidentally step on a woman’s foot and hear her quiet gasp. I mutter an “I’m sorry,” but I’m unsure she hears it. No matter, we shouldn’t be talking during the ceremony anyway.
The cemetery is across the street, shaded by massive oak trees and winding grapevines on all sides. I don’t stop walking until I’m through the gates standing in the middle of it next to an old mausoleum. Images of above-ground coffins assault me while crumbling gravestones and faded lettering that name the souls buried out here give me a weird sense of comfort.Elise, Jane, Edward, Tom…the names shout at me, one at a time. “Remember me, remember me,” they seem to say. Maybe I’ll add them to my article, along with a snippet about my parents.
My parents. Two words that elicit all sorts of emotions. Loss. Grief. Longing. Distrust. Anger. Doubt.
So much doubt.
I walk down the makeshift rows, nothing more than ashy gravel and dirt meant to keep cars in line and away from the markers. More names come at me, the deceased begging to be remembered by those walking all over them. It’s the least I can do, seeing as I’m invading the only space they have left. I keep reading, printing first and last names in my mind for later, traveling farther and farther into the cemetery until I’m almost to an outer edge where pink flowers dot tiny gravestones that are markedly different than the others.
I stop, realizing where I am.
A child cemetery might normally repulse me, but this one doesn’t. My curiosity propels me forward until I’m searching for something I can’t even name. A touchstone. A memory. A sense of belonging. My own identity.
And then I can name it.
Because I knew. Down deep, I knew.
“Why did you leave?” I hear Billi’s voice behind me, but I don’t turn around. Breaking eye contact with this marker might cause it to disappear. An irrational fear, but a real one still. “Finn?” She says my name with a shaky lilt, no doubt discovering the thing that freezes me in place. Her fingertips rest on my lower back. “Oh, Finn. Is that what I think it is?”
I nod because it is. I nod because I can’t speak.
Baby Boy Hardwick. Same date and everything. My parents’ names listed on the small plaque almost as an afterthought. When it comes down to it, aren’t we all?
Nothing but collective afterthoughts.
It’s then that I know. Know it in my bones, in the blood running cold through my veins, and in the fear pushing sharp talons into my neck.
“Billi, I think Sally might be telling the truth.”
19
33 years ago, 1965
Sally
In the movies, turning twenty-one is a rite of passage for girls. They celebrate with parties and high heels, first kisses if they haven’t had them yet, a glass of wine or two with friends at a local bar, and a two-tiered birthday cake. Lots of cake. So much cake, they go home with stomach aches, tired feet, and weight gain, but in the movies, all that misery is forgotten by morning.
Papa had been gone five years, and still, everyone in town hated her as though he had died only yesterday. When you accuse the town leaders of negligence and under-the-table payoffs, the accusation tends to trickle down to your family members in the form of anger and hostility. Seeing as Sally was the only living family member Papa had, all the finger-pointing the town used to lob toward her father landed solely on her.
Which was why Sally spent her twenty-first birthday snapping clean sheets atop well-worn beds at the Silver Bell Motel. She’d been at work all day. It took over two weeks to find someone who would hire her, and she wasn’t about to do anything to risk swift unemployment. Her boss had made it clear that he would be watching her, and so far, the man’s words hadn’t been an empty threat. His eyes were everywhere, sometimes in places, Sally didn’t like. On Sally vacuuming the hotel room floors, making sure every speck of dust was accounted for. On the bottles of shampoo Sally left on bathroom counters, checking to see she wasn’t swiping the occasional bottle for her own personal use. On the tips laid out on hotel beds, making sure she added the money to the community pot to be divided up equally at the end of the day. Never mind that Sally’s total was always much less than everyone else’s.
On Sally’s breasts when she bent over to pick up used, discarded towels as he stood in open doorways making inappropriate conversation.
“Too bad your daddy died like that and left you all alone. You need a man to take care of you, living out there in that shack by yourself.” No matter that she had been living that way for years now, and she didn’t need anyone at all.
“Too bad your daddy went crazy and ran his mouth the way he did, accusing so many people of crimes they didn’t commit. He coulda had a good career in this town if he’d just kept his mouth shut.” No matter that her boss didn’t know what he was talking about. Papa wasn’t crazy, just drunk.
“Too bad your momma died when you were so young. You coulda used having a woman teach you how to behave around a man, all uptight and snooty you are.” No matter that the problem wasn’t her, but him. No woman wants a man ogling her body and making unwanted advances every hour of the day.
