Graveminder

She thought about it, the things she’d need to do. Get Cherub’s carrier. Trash. Empty the trash. Water the ivy. Do I have anything respectable to wear? There were a dozen things to do. Focus on those. Focus on the tasks. Call the airline.

“Thank you. For taking care of her, I mean. I’m glad … not glad”—she stopped herself. “Actually, I’d really rather you hadn’t called, but that wouldn’t make her alive, would it?”

“No,” he said softly.

The enormity of Maylene’s being gone felt too huge then, like stones in Rebekkah’s lungs, making it hard to move, taking up the space where air should be. She closed her eyes again and asked, “Did she … was she sick long? I didn’t know. I was there at Christmas, but she never said anything. She seemed fine. If I’d known … I … I would’ve been there. I didn’t know until you called.”

He paused a beat too long before replying. “Call the airline, Rebekkah. Book a flight home. Questions can wait till you get here.”

3

WILLIAM SLID HIS PHONE ACROSS THE DESK, FARTHER OUT OF REACH. “She’s on her way. You could’ve called her; you probably should have.”

“No.” Byron sat beside his father’s desk and stared at the page of crossed-out numbers for Rebekkah. Some were in Maylene’s handwriting; others were in Rebekkah’s. She was even worse than he’d been. That doesn’t mean I need to go running to her side. He wasn’t going to be cruel to her—couldn’t—but he wasn’t going to chase after her hoping for another kick in the face.

“Julia won’t come with her. Even for this, she won’t return to Claysville.” William looked directly at Byron. “Rebekkah will need you.”

He met his father’s gaze. “And despite everything, I’ll be here. You know that, and so does Rebekkah.”

William nodded. “You’re a good man.”

At that, Byron’s gaze dropped. He didn’t feel like a good man; he felt tired of trying to live a life without Rebekkah—and utterly unable to live a life with her. Because she can’t let go of the past. Byron’s desire to be there for Rebekkah warred with the memories of the last time they’d spoken. They’d stood in the street outside a bar in Chicago, and Rebekkah had made it very clear that she didn’t want him in her life. Never, B. Don’t you get it? I’m never going to be that girl, not for you or anyone else, she’d half sobbed, half shouted, especially not for you. He’d known when he woke the next morning she’d be gone again; she’d vanished while he slept enough times that he was always a little surprised if she was actually there in the morning.

William pushed away from his desk. Briefly he clasped Byron’s shoulder, and then walked to the door.

Maybe it was only to avoid the topic Byron didn’t want to think about, but it was still a truth they needed to address. Byron started, “Rebekkah only lived here for a few years, and she hasn’t lived here for nine years.” He paused and waited then until his father looked at him before finishing: “She’ll have questions, too.”

William didn’t cow easily, though. He merely nodded and said, “I know. Rebekkah will be told what she needs to know when she needs to know it. Maylene was very clear in how to handle matters. She had everything in order.”

“And Maylene’s planning … is that all in her nonexistent file? I looked, you know. The woman had an office here, but there’s no paperwork on her. No plot. No prepaid anything. Nothing.” Byron kept his voice even, but the frustration he’d felt for years over the unanswered questions seemed ready to bubble over. “One of these days, you’re going to have to stop keeping secrets if I’m ever to be a real partner in the funeral home.”

“All you need to know today is that Maylene didn’t need a file. The Barrow woman pays no fees, Byron. There are traditions in Claysville.” William turned and walked away, his departing footsteps muffled by the soft gray carpet that lined the hallways.

“Right,” Byron muttered. “Traditions.”

That excuse had worn thin long before Byron left Claysville the day after graduation from high school, and it hadn’t gotten any more palatable in the eight years since. If anything, the frustration of these answerless discussions grew more pressing. The traditions here were more than small-town peculiarities: there was something different about Claysville, and Byron was certain his father knew what it was.

Normal towns don’t lure you back.

Most people never moved away. They were born, lived, and died in the town limits. Byron hadn’t realized how securely he was rooted in Claysville until he’d gotten out—and instantly felt the need to come back. He’d thought it would lessen, but the need to return home grew worse rather than better over time. Five months ago—after eight years of resisting it and not being able to ever assuage the need—he’d given in.

During those years away, he’d tried to stay in small towns, telling himself that maybe he wasn’t cut out for city living. Then he’d tell himself it was the wrong town, wrong city. He’d tried towns so small that they were specks of dust, and larger ones, and then more cities. He’d tried living in Nashville, in Chicago, in Portland, in Phoenix, in Miami. He’d lied to himself, blaming each move on the weather, on the pollution, on the wrong culture or the wrong relationship or the wrong funeral home. On everything but the truth. In eight years, he’d lived in thirteen places—although, admittedly, a few of them were only for a couple of months—and he couldn’t stop thinking the next move should be home every single time. The moment he crossed over the town line, every bit of wanderlust he’d been unable to sate dissipated; the vise that had tightened across his chest little by little over the years had suddenly vanished.

Will Bek feel the same way?

She had only lived in Claysville for a few years; she’d moved there with her mother at the start of high school, and they were gone before graduation. Somehow those three years were the ones that set the events for the last nine years of his life. Ella died, Rebekkah left, and Byron spent the next nine years missing them both.

Byron heard his father’s voice in their office manager’s office. He listened to William ask about the preparations for the wake and burial. After William was sure all was in order, he would go down to the preparation room to visit Maylene. She had been bathed and dressed; her hair and makeup made her look more lifelike. However, as was traditional in Claysville, she had not been embalmed. Her body would be returned to the earth with no toxins other than the lingering traces of those she’d ingested over the years.

Tradition.

That was the only answer he’d ever been offered to this and myriad other questions. There were times he’d thought the very word was nothing more than a convenient excuse, a way to say “this is not a point we will discuss,” but the truth was that, as far as Byron could tell, most of the town saw no need to alter tradition. It wasn’t as simple as a generational dispute: everyone seemed confused when he questioned town traditions.

Byron pushed his chair back with a thunk and went after his father, catching the older man at the top of the staircase leading down to the prep and storage rooms. “Dad, I’m going to head out, go over to the Barrow house to look around. Unless you need me …”

“I always need you.” The wrinkles in William’s face were divided between laugh and worry lines, but call them what one would, they still reminded Byron that his father was growing old. He’d been almost fifty when Byron had been born, so while most of his friends were minding grandchildren, William had been a first-time father. More than a few of his friends—like Maylene—were now gone; although, unlike her, all of them had died of natural causes.

Byron softened his tone. “Here. Do you need anything from me here?”

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you all the answers you want right now, but”—William’s grip on the doorknob tightened slightly—“there are rules.”

“I came home,” Byron said. “I’m here for you.”

William nodded. “I know.”

“You knew I would.”

It wasn’t a question, not truly, but William answered it all the same. “I did. Claysville is where we belong, Byron. It’s a good town. Safe. You can raise a family here, and you can know that you and yours will be protected from the world beyond.”

“Protected?” Byron echoed. “Maylene was just murdered.”

William’s already age-worn features looked years older for a moment. “She shouldn’t have been. If I’d known, if she’d known …” The elder Mr. Montgomery blinked away obvious tears. “Things like that don’t happen here often, Byron. It’s a safe place … unlike anywhere else out there. You’ve been out there. You know.”

“You talk like it’s another world outside Claysville.”

William’s sigh said what he didn’t: he was as frustrated by their circular conversations as Byron was. “Give me a couple more days, and you’ll have your answers. I wish … I wish you didn’t ask so many questions, Byron.”

“You know what would help with that? Answers.” Byron closed his eyes for a moment before looking at his father and saying, “I need air.”

William nodded and turned away—but not quickly enough for Byron to miss his look of regret. He opened the door and vanished inside, pulling it closed with a soft snick.

Byron turned and walked out the side door of the funeral home. His Triumph was parked behind the house just under a big willow. From the back, the funeral home looked like most of the other homes in the neighborhood. The yard was fenced in by faded wooden pickets, and a long covered porch had two rockers and a swing. Azaleas, an herb garden, and flower beds—carefully planned and replanned by his mother for years—still flourished now as they had when she was still alive. The oaks and willow looked just as they had in his childhood, shading the yard and part of the porch. The normalcy of it didn’t hint that the dead were cared for inside the building.

Gravel crunched under his boots as he walked the bike forward a few yards. Old habits were hard to escape even now, and the roar of motorcycles outside the kitchen window had always bothered his mother. He shook his head. Sometimes he wished she would walk out the door to give him hell for tracking mud on the floor or spitting gravel when he left, pissed off at his father again, but the dead don’t come back.

As a boy, he used to think they did. He’d sworn he’d seen Lily English sitting out on the porch one night, but his father had shushed him and sent him back to bed while his mother sat at the kitchen table and wept. Later that week, she’d torn out the entire flower bed and replanted it, and Byron suspected that his imagination and nightmares weren’t the only upsets resulting from living too near the dead. His parents didn’t argue often, but he’d have to have been clueless to miss the tension between them over the years. They’d loved each other, but being the undertaker’s wife wore on his mother.

Byron eased out into the scant traffic and opened the throttle. The wind slammed into him like he was hitting a wall. The vibrations of the engine and twists of the road allowed him to slip into a Zen-like state of simply being. When he rode, there were no thoughts—not about Lily English, or his mother, or Rebekkah.

Well, maybe still Rebekkah.

But he could outrun that, too. He might not be able to run from Claysville, but he could run from memories for a little while. He sped up, topping out the speedometer and whipping around curves fast enough that he needed to tilt dangerously close to the pavement. It wasn’t freedom, but it was the closest thing to it that he’d found.

4

WILLIAM STOOD IN THE QUIET OF THE PREPARATION ROOM. MAYLENE WAS silent on the table in front of him. She was gone. He knew that. The body wasn’t her, wasn’t the woman he’d loved for most of his life.

“Even now, I want to ask your opinion. I hate taking the next step without you.” He stood beside the cold steel table where they’d stood together over the years more times than he could rightly count.