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Two rows of pin cherry trees framed the walkway leading Gracen deeper into the cemetery. Lines upon lines of gravestones carried over the small rolling knolls for as far as her eye could see. She stopped to step off the path at the sight of one grave near the edge where a vase of white roses had tipped over. Only a couple of the roses were wilted so the bouquet couldn’t have been placed too long ago.
She fixed the vase and flowers and even picked out the worst of the wilted ones so the rot didn’t travel to the white petals of the rest of the roses that were still fresh. Once finished, she could barely tell that she’d picked out flowers from the bushel at all.
“There you go,” she said, reading the name and date of a woman who had lived nearly eighty-nine years, before she stood once more.
Back on the path, Gracen picked up a cluster of pin cherries that had fallen from one of the trees. The fruit from the trees—not great for people as they were quite sour—fed birds and other animals in the late spring and looked like pins in a sewing cushion with their bright red, but small, globes. Her favorite time to visit the graveyard was spring, though. When the pin cherry trees bloomed with white blossoms, and the pathways weaving throughout the gravestones were decorated with fallen petals.
It had been in the spring of the year when she buried her parents. Their accident had happened at the end of winter when the ground was too frozen to bury them, so to rub salt deeper into the wound, she’d waited months to actually see their matching black caskets go beneath the dirt.
The fact she could look back on that day and remember the blossoms coloring up the path that carried her to her parents’ graves before she thought about how broken she’d been leading up to that moment—and beyond—spoke volumes to Gracen.
The pain never went away.
It had gotten easier.
The beauty of the place distracted her from the grief she’d felt as a girl—not yet a woman—the first time she walked down these paths hugged by trees and manicured grass. It took years for her to visit the graveyard again after the first time. Mostly because she’d convinced herself that even though her parents’ bodies rested here, she didn’t feel their souls, too.
Her perspective—but not her belief about the souls—changed when Gracen got a little older and realized there was really no one but her to visit her mother and father. No one to wipe clean their stone marker made up of two pillars of black marble with a bench connecting the middle. No one to stop and simply say hello.
No one but her, it seemed.
Whether their souls could be found in this place didn’t really matter—a part of them was here. Alone. That’d made her even more sad. The very least she could do was visit.
So, while she didn’t feel Phil and Marla’s presence during her seasonal visits, on which she always brought along a microfiber cloth to wipe down their stone, Gracen make it a point to carve out time in her busy days to come to the graveyard tucked away at the far south side of town. Owned and maintained by a nearby Baptist church, it was one of the largest graveyards in their valley town because of the fact anyone could be laid to rest regardless of their religious denomination.
Or lack thereof.
Gracen’s mother and father had been buried at the far end of the cemetery just beyond the branches reach of what had once been a juvenile maple tree. Over the years, that ten-foot tall tree had doubled in height and provided shade for her parents’ grave at midday.
The time she always chose to come.
Today wasn’t any different.
As she told Delaney she would do, Gracen went to work, saw every client on her schedule, and then took her noon hour to do exactly what she had planned—visit her parents’ graves. She’d intended to bring Malachi along, but she refused to dwell on it.
That, too, would come.
She eventually found her way to the far end of the walking path, beyond the line where the pin cherry trees ended. She was still twisting the cluster of mini cherry-like fruit when she came to stand at the foot of her parents’ graves. She placed the cluster on top of her mother’s headstone after brushing them over top of her father’s.
Sudden death was the worst.
Her whole life had changed in an instant, and she never had the time to properly process everything. That came later, but even then, a part of her felt stuck there—emotionally stunted in the same place she’d been when her grandmother woke her up with the terrible news.
Life took a lot.
It rarely ever gave back, though.
“Mimi’s really missing you guys,” Gracen said absentmindedly as she pulled the royal blue microfiber cloth from her messenger bag.
The stones got dustier in the summer and fall when less rain beat down the sky to help keep them looking nice. They still gleamed, but one could appreciate their shine and the white lettering on the fronts after Gracen took the cloth to the curved tops and flat marble faces. She always did the bench last.
A fresh, clean place to sit.
She did, quieter than before.
Gracen never had much to say to her mom and dad, and because she didn’t really have another place to go where she felt like they could hear her, the guilt chewed her alive the longer she sat there in silence. It wasn’t like she forgot about them because she didn’t visit often and only saw this as their resting place—how could she?
That wasn’t the problem.
Here, she found reality.
A stark, harsh truth.
She buried both parents, had little to no extended family, and the world seemed a lot more big and lonely because of it, too. Why, when she ventured out and found someone she might want to show her desolate life, did she get knocked back on her ass?
Was she destined to be alone?
“I really miss you guys, too,” Gracen whispered, her sandals swishing back and forth in the grass under her feet.
“Sorry,” came a new voice from the rolling knoll where she’d previously walked, “did you want me to let you know I was here first?”
Sonny, in a silk dress shirt, tie, and slacks, rocked on his heels on the hill. He shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced back the way he’d come—Gracen couldn’t see that far.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come, actually,” she admitted.
He swung back in her direction, smiling awkwardly. “Of course, why wouldn’t I? When I said if you ever needed anything then call me, I meant that, Gracen.”
She didn't have his number in her phone, but it wasn’t hard to find. Before starting her first client that morning, she sent a text to Sonny after a quick internet search provided his publicly listed number as a realtor. He’d replied to her request to meet up at lunch in the cemetery without even asking why.
“To be fair,” she said, standing from the bench and wiping away the wetness from tears she’d pretended didn’t exist, “I don’t exactly need you.”
“I know as much without you pointing it out.”
“Thank you for keeping that promise, though.”
Sonny stiffened on the walkway as Gracen came closer. He tried to roll his shoulders in a shrug like it wasn’t a big deal. “I mean, maybe that’s the least I can do. Except for leaving you alone otherwise, but you’ve made that side of things clear. Trust me.”
Maybe.
“I don’t hate you, Sonny. I just don’t like you. “
He nodded once. “Yeah, I know.”
She didn’t look back at her parents’ graves when she joined Sonny on the path. His gaze remained fixed over her shoulder on the matching headstones and connected bench.
“It’s quiet here, huh?”
“I think they’d like it,” she returned.
Sonny’s bobbing head agreed, but his mouth said nothing. He was yet another person in her life who came after the accident, and didn’t stay. He’d never known her parents. Only the stories and her memories. Sometimes, she dared to think she had shared too much with her ex. Every private fear and painful truth.
He’d been a good listener, if anything.
“I guess I should ask what you want, then,” Sonny said, “if there’s nothing you apparently need.”
Right.
The whole reason she’d reached out after saying she wouldn’t do so, and he should do the same for her.
Some things couldn’t be helped.
“Why were you at the end of my driveway this morning?” Gracen asked, getting right to the point.
Sonny couldn’t hide his surprise, but he tried by glancing away and running his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “Uh ...”
“I have a video of it.” Gracen reached in her bag, pretending to go for her phone. “Do you want to see?”
Sonny laughed under his breath. “No, thanks, I—”
She wasn’t interested in yet another deflection.
“You met up with Malachi.”
“Actually, he met up with me after I learned he was in town,” Sonny corrected, meeting Gracen’s stony gaze, unfazed. “Imagine my surprise when he agreed, gave me a time that should be fucking illegal, and topped it off with your address, to boot. What a way to start my day, eh? A head’s up might have been nice.”
She didn’t even blink. “For what?”
“You guys?” Sonny shrugged. “I didn’t know you were even a thing.”
Gracen held back a laugh.
Barely.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize I—or we—had to tell you anything about us,” Gracen said, not hiding the oozing sarcasm.
Sonny rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I mean, okay?”
Frankly, she didn’t care. His feelings on the matter were insignificant, if not practically nonexistent.
“Go back,” Gracen said, popping one hand to her hip. “You asked to meet up with him?”
“You know, the guy’s got a phone number that works if you’ve got questions to ask him.” Sonny put up his hands as if to surrender, but it still came off defensive. “I’m just saying.”
“Yet, here I am, asking you.”
Sonny sighed and scrubbed a hand down his clean-shaven jaw. Eyeing the pathway behind him once more, he came back to Gracen with a wave. “I got worried, all right? He had that chat with Alora at the manor when she was going on her break, and all I could think was the last time—”
“He saw his sister yesterday?”
At the manor with her? Gracen couldn’t bring forth a single reason why Malachi didn’t tell her that information.
Sonny’s confusion answered Gracen’s question.
“Was he trying to catch her there?” Gracen asked, trying to make sense of it all. Malachi hadn’t said as much to her, but he’d also acted like he was concerned about someone possibly seeing and recognizing his face at the manor, too.
Which was the truth?
“You tell me,” Sonny returned.
“I don’t think—”
“Listen,” Sonny muttered, pointing at Gracen and silencing her in the process, “when she’s married to me and out of this town, Alora can do and speak to whoever she wants. If that’s him, so be it. Here, she plays by different rules. Maybe he’s forgotten what it’s like to be stuck inside that church, but she’s living it every single day. I’ve seen the welts and bruises her father leaves when she doesn’t toe the line he’s drawn for her—it’s fucking sick, Gracen, because there’s a part of her that believes she deserves it. Can you believe that?”
Sonny shook his head, not waiting for Gracen’s answer before adding, “Not even her brother is going to fuck up the one chance she has to get away from the things this place has done to her. I won’t apologize for making sure he understood as much when we met up this morning, either.”
Huh.
But hadn’t Malachi already made the choice to leave before the meet-up with Sonny? The summer breeze wasn’t chilly, but Gracen couldn’t help the cold seeping deep into her bones. A picture had started to form in her mind made up of all the things Malachi had decided to keep from her, and it wasn’t very pretty.
“I don’t think he’s forgotten about it at all,” she replied quietly.
“Good,” Sonny spat, “because I’m getting sick and tired of walking on eggshells all the damn time. You put Malachi into the equation, and it’s like Alora’s father can’t fucking handle it.”
Gracen flinched.
She didn’t want to know what that meant.
Maybe she was the real coward.
“I’m sor—”
“Don’t apologize,” he interjected, but not very kindly. Sonny shrugged one shoulder, and nodded her way. “Good for you and him, Gracen. I hope he’s making you happy, but until the fall when Alora and I are married ... Well, I’m gonna need you both to stay the fuck away.”
What could she say to that?
“I get it, Sonny.”
Their goodbyes were short.
Awkward at best, really.
He’d headed back down the path while Gracen turned around to say a proper goodbye to her parents’ in their grave. Then, she heard him double back with a loud hey.
“Yeah?” Gracen asked.
Sonny stayed twenty feet down on the path.
Gracen had yet to leave the knoll.
“I wasn’t going to mention it—didn’t really know if you’d care,” he added like an afterthought.
“What, Sonny?”
“Your parents’ old place on the Flats. The owner is moving out west with her son who just got married out there. One of our partners went in and made an evaluation to list the house. It goes up on the market next week.”
Gracen blinked. “Really?”
Every memory of her parents featured the farmhouse and the barn that was big enough for her to get lost in ... at least, when she was just a kid. Located in a small community on the other side of Montgomery Mountain that earned its moniker for the stretch of flat land made up of fields. How could he think she wouldn’t be interested?
“I can forward your contact along to the listing agent,” Sonny suggested with a tilt of his head when he added, “and maybe fill her in on your history with the place if you want to make a private offer?”
She didn’t even think about it.
“Please do.”
*
The end of the workday found Gracen in the same place it usually did. Perched in her stylist chair, feet sore from being on them all day, while she chatted with Delaney and Margot. Only one of the girls who earned their practical hours remained in the salon.
Not for long.
“See you next Monday, Gracen?” asked Christina.
“Yep, see you then,” Gracen agreed.
The young brunette with a sweet smile bounced out of the front doors with a wave over her shoulder. At the same time, Margot grabbed her bag and keys from the behind the front desk with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, dentist appointment, remember?”
Gracen nodded. “Delaney and I can clean and close up, no worries.”
“Absolutely,” Delaney agreed. “See you tomorrow.”
“Love ya, ladies.”
Gracen and Delaney waved in tandem as Margot took her exit from the Haus. Despite the salon being closed, they still had an hour or more in sweeping floors and cleaning up. Gracen didn’t rush to get up and move.
Delaney rearranged her workstation, before asking quietly, “Did he call?”
The he in question was obvious.
Malachi.
Gracen glanced down at the phone in her hand. She’d kept it close most of the day. Not that doing so was anything out of her ordinary, but she found her gaze searching for it more often than not while she worked.
Waiting.
For a call ...
A text.
Anything.
“No,” Gracen said, not able to hide the disappointing dip in her tone. “He hasn’t.”
“Yet,” Delaney added.
Gracen frowned.
She had to consider the fact that Malachi had left her place very early in the morning. At the latest, he’d arrived home in Miramichi around noon. That was if he took breaks on the road, too; so she gave him grace. Now, closing in on the evening hours, the lack of calls or messages felt almost pointed.
Purposeful.
“You could call him,” Delaney suggested.
“And ask him if he’s a liar?” Gracen returned.
What would be the point?
Gracen already had the answer.
Her friend’s unimpressed expression stared back at her in the reflection of the mirror. “I think we both know it’s probably a lot more complicated than that.”
Not really.
Gracen simplified shit down.
“Even if what I have to give to somebody isn’t a lot, I’m willing to give all of it,” Gracen said. “I’m not going to feel bad about expecting someone else to do the same for me, Delaney.”
It all mattered.
Every good and bad part.
The thing was, to do that, a person had to stop running from what used to be to build something meaningful in the present. Gracen couldn’t say Malachi was ready to do that—after all, he’d gotten terribly good at staying away.
Delaney glanced down at her workstation. “Yeah, I guess ...”
Thinking the conversation was over, Gracen pushed out of the swivel chair to find the broom and get to work. The sooner they finished, the quicker she could sleep away this horrible day. She disappeared into the backrooms and re-emerged with the broom and dustpan in just enough time to see Delaney hang up her phone.
It would have been a terribly short phone call.
Less than twenty seconds.
“Who was that?” Gracen asked.
Delaney stuffed the phone in her back pocket. “Bexley.”
“Your cousin?”
“I need to take her something.”
Gracen leaned on the handle of the broom, using it as support for her tired body. “I thought you were staying clear of her?”
The whole damn family, really.
Delaney shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the story.”
“And if your uncle shows up here to threaten you again?” Gracen questioned.
“That won’t happen. He’d have to know we were talking to begin with—the point is that he doesn’t, you know?”
“Not really. To be fair, you’re not exactly sharing.”
A lot like Malachi.
Gracen didn’t point that out.
Delaney faced Gracen, fretting with her nails and the thin gold rings on her fingers as she said, “Alora isn’t the only person trying to leave the church, okay?”
Jesus.
Bexley was coming into her adulthood, too, and so it made sense if she had a desire to leave. Unlike her friend, however, a marriage as a way out might not be a viable option.
“I filled out her applications for nursing school,” Delaney explained, “and mailed them back when we were still meeting up for the wedding stuff. I found her acceptance in the mailbox when I checked it this morning.”
“Oh, wow. That’s—”
“It should be great, yeah,” her friend interjected with the obvious, “but it won’t make a difference if she can’t get away from those people and out of this town. This was my little way of helping her see a new path. That she’s got options.”
Nothing good came easy.
Wasn’t that how the saying went?
“Let me know if I can help,” Gracen said. “We’re not going to let anyone from that church, or your family, push you around anymore.”
Delaney smiled, as timid as it was. “I’m not scared of them.”
Maybe she really wasn’t afraid. Or perhaps Delaney was just as scared as she had always been of the people she’d left behind—rightfully so, too, but didn’t want to admit it. Either way, there came a point, though, when fear just wasn’t enough to hold someone back from doing what needed done. That, more than anything, Gracen understood.
Fear had kept her going for a long time, too.
