64. What Comes Around Goes Around

“Do you know of any places around Solitary that are, like, holy places?”

Mr. Meiners glances at the doorway to the empty class, then looks back at me. “Holy?”

“You know—something opposite of haunted?”

He raises his eyebrows as he starts collecting the tests on his desk. “There’s nothing around here that seems to fit that description.”

“Anything. Like an old church or maybe an old house. Somewhere that you know good was done.”

He thinks for a minute, sticking the tests in his faded leather briefcase. “Well, they say Marsh Falls has a magical quality about it.”

Yeah, I know that. Come on.

“Okay. But anywhere else?”

“You want more than one place?”

“Yeah, sure,” I say.

I don’t know what I want.

Yeah, you do. You want the opposite of that Indian Bridge. Or what’s underneath it.

Even though he’s wearing glasses, I can see the dark rings under Mr. Meiners’s eyes. As if he hasn’t been getting enough sleep.

He’s got his bag ready, and for a second I think he’s not even going to answer me.

Which is pretty typical of what he’s done the last year or so.

“The Corner Nook.”

I don’t expect to hear this. I might have thought of many places, but the bookstore and café on the main strip of stores in downtown Solitary?

“Really? The bookstore?”

“Used to be an old general store. One of those you might see in a movie or a television show.”

I shake my head. I don’t get it.

“I know—sounds crazy, huh? But that place—the owners of that store helped more people out than probably the entire town of Solitary.”

“Let me guess,” I say, thinking I got this. “They were an elderly couple. Kind of like a Mr. and Mrs. Mother Teresa?”

“Um, no,” Mr. Meiners replied. “They were actually a couple named Joe and Sara Evans.”

Everything suddenly stops.

There’s no way.

I blink and remember the field where Jocelyn showed me her parents’ gravestones.

Joseph Charles Evans.

It can’t be the same, can it?

“They came to this town and did some great things and really made that general store almost a safe haven. They were a godly couple.”

I shake my head, and all of a sudden these things seem to pop up in my eyes, making my vision all blurry. I wipe them away quickly.

“Did Jocelyn ever tell you about them?” he asks.

And of course it’s them.

Of course.

What comes around goes around. The circle of life. The gift that keeps on giving.

All the circular clichés my silly little mind can think of go off like fireworks.

Like the fireworks I was never able to see with Jocelyn.

“She didn’t, did she?”

I shake my head. “Her parents owned that place, right?”

Mr. Meiners nods, again looking at the doorway. “The place was bought and sold—gutted, more like—after they died. About ten years ago.”

“She never told me.”

“I can understand. She didn’t know how to grieve them when she was six. So she ended up spending the rest of her life trying to find a way.”

I want to say more to him, tell him how I miss her and ask how he helped her. But as I go to say something, he shakes his head.

“Check it out sometime,” Mr. Meiners says. “Let me know what you find.”

He leads me out of the room, and I know our brief conversation is over.

For now.