38

LOOKING UP AFTER reading the last lines on the page, Eden Kingsley saw Rafe had been watching her. The letter was beautiful, and Eden couldn’t hide the emotions it brought out in her. “It must have been amazing to read this,” Eden said looking down at the page. “Your mother loved you very much.”

“She did,” Rafe agreed. “But don’t you see?” she asked, upset that Eden was missing the point of why they were sitting in a cemetery. “She didn’t die just because I was skipping school. She knew everything. She was even talking to her and painting her. The day she died, she was making sure I didn’t skip school to be with Maria. She and Brettito both died because I was sneaking around to spend time with Maria,” she said in a low grumbling tone, “because I wanted to be with her all the time.”

Rafe snatched the drawing pad from Eden. “I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t tell anyone. I had to keep the kiss with Maria a secret, and it led to their deaths!” she explained in frustration as she pointed to herself, her feelings of guilt and sorrow welling up inside. “I couldn’t tell anyone.” She stared at Eden intensely. “You can’t tell anyone!”

“I won’t,” said Eden shakily, shocked at Rafe’s reaction.

Rafe took a shuddering breath. “If Gabri ever knew, he would hate me,” she said in distress. “No one can know what I did. He helped me, and he loves me. I don’t think I could live if I lost him from my life,” she said feverishly. “He’s the only one left who was with me and really knows everything. He went through everything with me and has always been the one I could talk to about everything,” she paused, “everything except Maria. He thinks that going to America made me gay.” She chuckled miserably. “He was very upset when I told him we would never marry, but loved me enough to remain my friend. If he knew Brettito was wasting his time back then, trying to impress me by getting involved with the zingari boys, and I was the reason he was shot in the street. . .” Rafe’s eyes were filled with desperation. “I don’t know what he would do. He would hate me! He would never want to have anything to do with me!”

“I don’t think he would hate you,” said Eden quietly. “You were all just kids trying to find your way.”

Rafe was in disbelief at how wrong Eden was. “He would hate me!” she said forcefully. “Then, on top of that,” Rafe gave a manic laugh, “my father told me I couldn’t talk to anyone about either my mother or Brettito. We had to keep my being sick a secret and not cause damage to his career and my future.”

Eden tentatively put her arm around Rafe. “I’m sorry you had to keep so many secrets,” she said softly. She wondered why Rafe hadn’t mentioned any anger at the fact her father had known about Maria and had never said a word to her about it all her life. He just left the painting out for her to find triggering an emotional breakdown and now causing her so many problems.

Rafe pulled away and looked down at the sketchpad with the precise handwriting her mother left behind. After she found the notebook, she wondered a thousand times what her life would have been like if she would have found it sooner.

“I decided, after Brettito died, I wouldn’t keep the fact I was gay a secret. I told my father. I told my teachers. Eventually, when I worked up the courage, I even told Gabri. I told everyone. I couldn’t live with myself if something else happened because I kept it a secret.” She tore the page out of the sketchpad then dug into the canvas bag and pulled out a lighter. “We have to burn this so no one will know what I did. So it never shows up unexpected again.”

Eden and put her hand over Rafe’s. “Wait,” she demanded. “Rafe, this is a beautiful letter from your mother. You can’t burn it,” she insisted.

“I have to,” she said shakily and pulled a small hammer and a chisel from the bag. “We’ll burn it, and we’ll put the ashes in the tomb with my father. I put the painting with him,” she revealed while looking at his tomb. She ran her hand over the plaque and the cement around it. “I think I can chip off the cement and work out a brick. I can put it back then tell them it was vandalized. They can fix it, and I’ll pay for the repairs.”

Eden couldn’t believe Rafe was planning to break open her father’s tomb to add a page of ashes. No. She could not believe Rafe was planning to break open his tomb–period.

“Wait, I don’t think you should do that,” said Eden trying to think of a way to stop what was happening. “Can’t you put the ashes in one of these smaller places, or in one of the urns? What am I saying. . .” she mumbled as she ran her hands through her hair nervously. “You can’t burn the letter. Don’t you want to keep it? I’d love to have something so loving from my mother and have it to show my daughter someday.”

Rafe could not hide the expression revealing she found Eden’s words insane. “No. I don’t want to keep it. I’ll remember what she wrote. I can’t keep this,” she waved the page in front of Eden. “It’s a reminder of what I did, and it will hurt Gabri if he ever finds out. It’ll destroy my life if anyone else knows! You have to help me get rid of it, and no one can ever know that my mother knew about Maria. No one else can ever know about Maria. It’s why we’re here! You promised!” She sat on the floor of the mausoleum and pulled the canvas bag to her. She reached inside, pulled out a metal bowl, and sat it in front of her. She rolled the letter up and pulled the lighter out of the bag to start burning it.

“Wait!” Eden called, and Rafe looked up at her. “Here,” she said, “let me see it.” She took the letter from Rafe’s hand and unrolled it. She folded it part way down and creased it. “Look, if I tear it here, you can keep the bottom part. This way you burn the part talking about Maria and about being gay, but you can keep the rest of what your mother wrote to you. What do you think?”

Rafe considered her words for a moment as she examined where Eden folded the letter. “Okay,” she said softly, “Okay.” She nodded in agreement.

Eden carefully tore off the lower section of the letter then looked down at Rafe. “This is mine now,” she said as Rafe watched her fold the page and put it in her back pocket. “I want this to stay in the world. This is good advice from your mother, and the part below it is what you wrote about me and how you feel about me.” Eden met Rafe’s eyes again and saw she was looking at her with a frown. “I don’t want this burned or left in a mausoleum in Italy, and I don’t want you to get rid of it someday. This is not a secret we have to keep,” Eden said assertively. “No one has to know there was more to this letter. If you really think you need to, you can burn this,” she said as she handed Rafe the top half of the letter. “But now I don’t think there will be enough ashes to justify opening your father’s tomb. Let’s just,” she stammered, “just put it in the back of one of these smaller openings. No one will even need them for over seventy years, right? I think that’ll be good enough. Don’t you?”

Rafe thought about it and examined the ossuary vaults Eden was talking about and then back to the section of the letter. “Okay,” she agreed softly. “Sit down and block the air in case there’s a breeze.”

She waited for Eden to sit down in front of her then began burning the small section of the letter. She let the paper burn catching the ashes in the small metal bowl. When the paper was consumed and was nothing more than ash, she took the bowl to the mausoleums empty ossuary vault where Eden suggested they put the ashes. She then slid the entire bowl back as far as she could by climbing inside. “There,” she said as she pulled herself out of the small square hole. “It’s pretty far back. It may never get noticed unless the vault gets used by the next family who pays for the mausoleum.” She brushed the dust off her clothes and picked up her canvas bag shoving the drawing pad and the tools inside. “Come on,” she said, and they walked out of the mausoleum.