Authors: Kimberly Malone
“Can I have one?”
Jane raises a penciled eyebrow, but doesn’t hesitate to light another and stick it in my mouth. Her hand pinches my cheek while I take a drag. “You know, I always told Annie, ‘Maybe it’s not such a bad thing I never had a daughter,’ because with you, I got all the fun parts. But none of the sass. And my Lord, child—you’ve got that in spades.”
“Learned from the best,” I counter, and Jane laughs so loudly, I have to laugh too.
At the cemetery, I sit in one of the five folding chairs set up for family. Silas is a pallbearer, along with Mom’s cousins and their sons. They look like stone statues, or soldiers.
The pastor gives another speech. Says a prayer. Ashes to ashes. I put my rose on top of my mother’s casket and move out of the way, preparing to shake hands once again and hear the same condolences as before.
When I turn, though, facing the crowd, I can see someone up by the cars. It’s a man in a dark blue suit with big sunglasses, the wraparound kind. When he sees me, he turns to leave.
“Wait!” I shout. “Are you the lawyer?” I kick off my heels as I run towards him. “We aren't supposed to meet up until—”
He’s shaking his head, opening a car parked crookedly beside our processional, halfway on the grass. By the time I reach where he stood, his car’s at the entrance.
Silas comes running up behind me. “Who was that?” he asks.
I follow the car with my eyes, all the way out to the street. It cuts off a minivan to merge.
“I don’t know,” I answer. I have an idea, actually. But as always, I keep his name where it belongs: bitten back into the bile of my throat, crushed inside the clench of my fist.
“Looks like he dropped something.” Silas crouches down and hands me a folded square of paper, worn at its creases. I open it up carefully.
ANNA ST. JAMES, it says. WILL READING, 3 O’CLOCK.
And then, near the bottom, circled twice: ERIN?
~~~