By the time he had packed and dealt with all the airport nonsense, flown across the country, and checked in at the Best Western he booked over the Internet Greg was too tired to do anything beyond grabbing a quick dinner and watching an HBO movie on the room’s TV. When he woke the next morning he reminded himself that he was on a vacation, of sorts, with no schedule or deadlines and he treated himself to a long, hot shower and a lazy breakfast before setting out on what, in the cold light of day, seemed to be a fool’s errand. Perhaps, he thought, this trip was evidence that his brain had not really healed itself after all.
Kane plugged the address into the rental car’s GPS and about twenty minutes later spotted the white and black marble sign: “Fairhaven Acres Memorial Park.” He took a left and pulled into the lot fronting the caretakers’ building. At first Kane was surprised by the number of vehicles but then realized that the media frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court decision would have spilled over into every aspect of Lyla Masterson’s life including this one.
A white gazebo flanked the beginning of a path that wound through the grounds and inside it Kane found an index to the graves. The edges of the page holding Lyla’s name were worn from frequent use. According to the plastic-covered map she had been laid to rest in plot 843, just past Sunrise Hill near the beginning of Serenity Glade.
When Kane reached the top of the slope he noticed a trickle of people wending among the markers, pausing in ones and twos for a few moments at one particular spot. Greg ducked back under the greening branches of a big-leaf sycamore and waited for them to leave. Where Washington had been gray and battered by storms here the breeze felt soft on his face and bore the fragrance of eucalyptus and bay. Kane gladly waited, enjoying the morning sun that warmed his skin. After about fifteen minutes the last of the other visitors turned away and Greg walked down the slope.
The headstone was black marble with the name “Lyla Masterson” inscribed in gold leaf. Above it a laminated photograph of a smiling child in a pink dress had been set into a depression chiseled into the stone. Below her name and the dates of her birth and death were the words:
Gone From Life Too Soon
But Her Dreams Live On
In All Of Us
Kane stared at the marker but heard and felt nothing beyond the rustle of the breeze and the distant screech of a stellar jay. A part of him wanted to ask if she really had appeared in his dream and what she had wanted to tell him but he knew that only a fool or a lunatic would believe something like that. For a moment he wished that he could whisper the thoughts racing through his head but then realized that even if Lyla were standing before him that they could not be translated into words.
What am I doing? Kane berated himself. The only part of Lyla Masterson here is the memory of her in the minds of her visitors. The child herself is irretrievably lost. Kane stared at the headstone a moment longer and knew himself to be a fool.
For a second the breeze picked up and brought Kane the sound of footsteps moving down the path behind him. Time to go, Kane knew, and put this madness behind him. He turned away from Lyla’s marker then froze when he saw her standing in front of him.
“Hey, sailor,” Allison said, “buy a girl a drink?” and before he could answer she was in his arms.