CHAPTER 6
Aggie
Mumsie had already made coffee. It was the inexpensive grocery-store kind. The kind that left a burnt scent in the air. Aggie shuffled into the kitchen of the old house, her gaze skimming the yellow cupboards with the rounded corner doors, and she sniffed appreciatively anyway. Coffee was coffee, after all, and desperate times required desperate measures. Besides, the kitchen was quaint and vintage, so in a way, high-end gourmet grounds wouldn’t have fit. It made sense the coffee came from a can.
Aggie eyed the room with expertise. If she were to sell this place, she could sell it on charm alone, never mind the fact it desperately needed updated appliances. The yellow could be repainted to a weathered teal. The wood floors with their scuffs could be polished. Or leave the scuffs. Maybe it was more charming that it looked worn.
Aggie shrugged off her thoughts. It didn’t matter. She was now a cemetery secretary and no longer a flourishing real estate agent who sold houses with the ease of someone who also knew how to convince even the worst do-it-yourselfer that they could indeed do it.
Mumsie leaned on her walker that was braced against the counter and poured coffee from the pot into a green thermos.
“Can I have a cup first?” Aggie snatched a mug from the kitchen sink drying rack, barely noticing the orange-painted mushrooms on the ceramic.
Mumsie was still in her pajamas. Cute cotton ones, capris style with purple roses on them. Her baggy sweater hung past her hips, a fluffy cream color, and her hair had a cowlick in the back where the gray-permed curls split where her head must have rested on the pillow for most of the night. She gave Aggie a raised brow. “Do you need creamer?” Mumsie poured some of the black pitch into Aggie’s offered mug.
“No. Black is good.”
Mumsie gave a wan smile. “Well, at least that’s one thing we have in common.”
One thing. Yes. Aggie had a sneaking and almost foreboding suspicion they were more similar than either of them realized.
She sank onto a metal kitchen chair, the kind with the vinyl padded seat and the silver studs that bolted the back to the chair with a small swatch of the same green padding. The table was also quaint. Its edges a worn silver, its top an old Formica white mottled with cream flecks and yellowed with age.
Mumsie sat opposite Aggie and took a sip of her coffee, looking out the four-paned window that inaudibly announced cheerily that it was morning and that the filmy curtains in front of it couldn’t bar out the sunshine if they tried.
“Happy mornings shouldn’t be squandered,” Mumsie said with a bit of censure. She set her mug down with a solid clunk on the table.
Aggie drew back, cupping her mug with the tenacity of a drowning victim clinging to a life preserver.
“Excuse me?” She couldn’t help the squeak of surprise in her voice.
Mumsie tipped her head and raised her brows as if the answer were obvious and she was surprised Aggie wasn’t already following her line of reasoning.
“Happy mornings are a rarity, and when they come, one should revel in the delight of them. Regardless of the circumstances. Happiness is fleeting, after all, and you look as though you swallowed a sour apple—or have a doozy of a hangover. I’ve not decided which.”
Aggie’s latest sip of coffee went down in a scalding gulp.
“It’s not a hangover.” Aggie hadn’t even had a glass of wine in . . . well, in over a month. It was the first non-necessity to go after she’d been fired from her position. No more one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottles of Cabernet, and it wasn’t as if she’d ever gotten wasted on wine anyway.
Aggie gave her grandmother a look of consternation. “Who do you think I am?”
Mumsie pursed her lips with an impish smile. “How should I know? You haven’t visited in eight years. For all I know, I should be planning an intervention and calling a rehabilitation center to reserve you a spot.”
“Good grief, Mumsie!” Aggie glowered, but she didn’t miss the twinkle in Mumsie’s eyes. She was goading Aggie—and having quite a bit of fun with it too.
“My first stint at rehab didn’t go so well.” Aggie decided to return the favor.
Mumsie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. She tipped her chin up and looked down her nose. “You shouldn’t joke about those things. For some, they are very real and very sensitive circumstances.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Aggie muttered, then wondered how Mumsie was so adept at spinning the fault off herself and on to others.
Shaking past the interlude, Aggie tapped the side of her coffee cup.
A bird twittered outside the window.
A drip fell from the faucet into the kitchen sink.
Mumsie’s breath was soft.
Aggie felt as though a bulldozer was shoving its way through her emotions and shattering every piece of stillness she had left inside of her.
“Why didn’t you come to Mom’s funeral?” The question blurted out with sincerity, though the timing was awful. Aggie immediately regretted the question that had scarred its forever-spot on her mind since the day she’d buried her mother. Alone.
Mumsie blinked, but she didn’t respond with impulse. Instead, she looked out the window at the sparrow that hopped across the grassy lawn and over an orange leaf that had floated down from the nearby maple. “Farewells are difficult for me.”
“But lying about broken hips isn’t?” Aggie shot back, again wishing she had the fortitude to simply bite her tongue.
Mumsie’s glance was savvy. “You wouldn’t have come any other way.”
“I didn’t feign a broken hip to get you to come to Mom’s funeral,” Aggie countered.
“I wouldn’t have come regardless.” Tears welled in Mumsie’s green eyes. She reached up with an arthritic-bent finger and swiped away the offense. “I don’t handle funerals well.” Her admission was vulnerable but unsatisfactory.
“And if I needed you?” Aggie ventured, softening her voice, a pang of guilt for accusing Mumsie.
Mumsie sniffed. “Well then,” she said, and raised her gaze to lock with Aggie’s. “I’ve needed you too, and it seems only now we’ve come together. So, bygones be bygones. Shall we move forward?”
Yes.
Move forward.
It was what Aggie had been trying to do since the day of the funeral.
And it wasn’t working. Not at all.
The Mill Creek Cemetery sloped up a hill and over the ridge, lines of different-sized stones marking row upon row of graves. Aggie pulled her car onto a small gravel patch just to the side of the cemetery office that would be lucky if it boasted more than five hundred square feet. Its boxlike form was sided in white, the paint worn and peeling. But there was an urn stuffed with silk daisies and carnations at the door.
Aggie grimaced. She eased from the car, feeling insecure in just jeans, blouse, and cardigan . . . and flats. Gone were her powerhouse days. Confident and sure of herself in suit and stilettos. Aggie perched her hands at her waist, flipping her black braid over her shoulder. Here were the days of service. Serving . . . dead people.
She blinked and shook her head. Self-pity was going to get her nowhere, and with Mumsie safely ensconced in her recliner with TV remote in hand, it was time to get to work. Whether Aggie liked it or not.
The ground was still soggy beneath her shoes. It squished like stepping on a sponge, and the colorful leaves blanketing the green grass were heavy with moisture and glistening from rain and the onset of mold. Aggie had done a quick browse online the previous night and learned more of the disaster she’d inadvertently been hired to fix. Days of heavy rains just two weeks ago had flooded the lower areas of Mill Creek, making the creek itself crest and overflow its banks. The river to the east of town overtook roads and made traveling on those highways near to impossible. Sandbags had saved some of the homes along the river, but no one could plan for the fact the earth could absorb only so much water before it affected basements, wells, foundations, and even the cemetery.
With the newer section of plots on the acreage in the higher planes, Aggie was left hopping over a rather wide puddle to hike to the iron fence that was open for visitors. In her bewildered state yesterday, she hadn’t really taken the time to study the mess. Mr. Richardson, the head of the cemetery board, had prattled on and on about Fifteen Puzzle Row, but now that Aggie was alone, she could do what she did best. Take in the entire vision of the project, much like she’d survey a house she was to sell. See what needed repairing, refinishing, or replacing, and then prepare the perfect pitch to sell it. Of course, she wasn’t going to sell plots—not yet. Not until the water surrounding Fifteen Puzzle Row receded completely, the graves were repaired, and—
Aggie halted on the narrow asphalt path.
The ground had eroded, evidently during the heavy rains. In this particular row, Aggie could see the tops of encasements that had once been underground closeting the deceased’s casket in a protective vault. Or maybe it was a coffin? One of the tombstones was knocked over and lying in the muck.
“Back in the day, they used to bury a person facing the rising sun.”
She wasn’t surprised to hear Collin O’Shaughnessy’s voice nearing her as he strolled up the path. Mr. Richardson had indicated yesterday that Collin would be meeting her here today. She still wasn’t sure she liked the idea or even understood what he was doing here.
“Is that a—?”
“A casket?” Collin followed Aggie’s stare at the wooden box corner that peeked up from beneath a pool of water and sodden earth. “More than likely.” He nodded. “And you need me, because if you notice, there’s no stone to mark that plot.”
Aggie frowned. She shifted to look at Collin, who stood beside her with the casual air of someone who was used to daily interactions with the dead.
“I don’t understand your point,” Aggie admitted.
Collin gave her a sideways smile, the crease in his cheek deepening. “It means there are other graves here that aren’t on record. So the plots we do know are marked by the tombstone or what we have on record. That one—there’s no marker, so we hope we can find a record. If not, then I’ll put more of my expertise to work.”
“But if you’re here to find the record, then what am I to do?” Aggie pulled her cardigan closer around herself as a breeze kicked up, and with it the rustling of dying leaves in the autumn-colored trees.
Collin shook his head. “Oh no, I’m here to help determine if there are more unknown graves and also the age of them, et cetera. You’re here to dig up any records—forgive the pun.” His eyes twinkled behind his glasses. “And then draw a new map of the yard. Don’t be overwhelmed. I’ll assist with that.”
Aggie pinched the bridge of her nose, a sudden headache coming on. She drew in a deep breath, but the smell of the cemetery wasn’t the crisp, refreshing fall smell she preferred. Instead, it smelled dank, moldy, and wet.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she muttered. For a moment, she was captivated by a lost feeling. That deep, disturbing hollowness that captures a spirit and begins to pull it into the pit. Images of her mother’s graveside service filtered through her mind. The abandonment loss from her father’s absence. The cold reality that Mumsie was probably too old to travel, but not too old to call and express her shared grief.
The emptiness caused her to spin away from Collin and hike up the path. The gentle slope upward meant the water grew less puddled. The grass had troughs cut through the side where the rains had created their own paths, slicing past stones, upending some and unearthing other elements.
She paused, her eyes narrowing. A stone several yards away was tilting precariously to the right, the ground around it having been on the edge of one of the water’s miniature ravines. Curious, Aggie tilted her head and frowned.
“What is it?” Collin had followed her.
Aggie pointed. “Are there flowers on that stone?”
Collin’s hands were in his trousers, but he gave a nod, a ginger strand falling over his forehead. “It appears to be. Perhaps a rose?”
Aggie eyed the mud and slop, then her ballet flats. Oh well. She stepped onto the grass and felt the squish of the ground beneath her foot. The mud seeped around the sole of her shoe. She could feel water on her foot. Investing in a pair of rain boots was going to be a must.
“Going exploring?” Collin quipped from his dry perch on the cemetery asphalt path.
“Au contraire,” Aggie shot back. Her shoe made a suction sound as she took another step forward through the flooded row. She glanced at the stone ahead with the flower at its base. She could make out some of the etching on its front. “I thought this was the old section of the cemetery? Fifteen Puzzle Row?” Aggie tossed the observation over her shoulder, making her way to the next marker.
“It is. From what I’ve been told,” Collin affirmed.
Aggie pointed as though he were beside her. “Then how come that stone is from 1946?”
“I haven’t a clue.” Collin seemed to debate whether he’d join her in the muck. Apparently, he cherished his leather loafers more than she did her own shoes.
Aggie hopped over a puddle, which sent only a spray of mud onto her jeans as her right foot landed on the sodden earth. She peered over the back of a gravestone to the right of her.
“See? That row looks to be people having died around the turn of the century . . . 1907, 1893.” Aggie took a few more tentative steps to survey another marker. “1901?” She looked back at Collin as if he would supply some explanation.
His eyebrows rose over the gold rim of his wire glasses, and he shrugged.
Aggie rested her hands on her narrow hips. She blew out a puff of air to push a strand of hair from her cheek. Yes. All the stones in this row on her left were definitively from the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century.
Aggie skipped over an exposed area of a grave, unwilling to look down into the divot to see if she saw anything other than just washed-away earth.
“Something seems . . . well, dodgy,” Collin called to her.
“Dodgy.” Aggie muttered the non-American slang expression to herself. Dodgy was right. It was as if someone had slipped a grave into Fifteen Puzzle Row because they’d run out of room. Or something.
She paused in front of the tilting tombstone. It wasn’t tall. It was just an average marker of worn gray granite. Nothing fancy. But there was most assuredly a rose at its base. A small pink rose, like a bud that was picked before it could bloom. Picked too early.
Her eyes skimmed the name on the stone.
Hazel Elizabeth Grayson
b. January 19th, 1927 – d. July 18th, 1946
Grayson. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but then it wasn’t an uncommon surname either. She bent and lifted the rose, even though she felt as if she shouldn’t. As if she was disturbing something sacred.
Who would have sloshed through this muck to put a rose on a grave of someone who had died over seventy years ago?
Aggie moved to put the rose back in its original position when she caught sight of something on one of the outside petals. It was black, inky, with the pigments bleeding into the veins of the flower petal. She frowned, pulling it closer so she could try to interpret it.
It was writing. Writing on a flower petal with what she assumed was a permanent fine-tip marker.
Her breaths came shorter now. She’d stumbled onto someone’s homemade epitaph for a long-dead Hazel Grayson.
Not over.
Not over? Aggie drew back. “What’s not over?” she mumbled. She turned the rose in her hand, but only the one petal was marred with ink.
“Pardon?” Collin asked from yards away.
Aggie cast him a disturbed look. His smile faded as he caught the angst that crossed her face, probably stretching from her brown eyes to the light spattering of freckles to the corners of her lips.
“Is something the matter?” Concern edged his voice, enhancing his accent.
Aggie frowned, shaking her head. She looked back at the rose, at the petal that slipped loose from its stem and floated toward the ground. It drifted softly until its pink softness rested on the mud at the base of the gravestone.
Not over.
Aggie had no desire to be in the middle of an untold story. A story someone had penned remembrance of onto a rose petal.
She dropped the rose, ignoring the way her shoe crushed it into the messy ground.
“Everything’s fine,” she called back to Collin.
Lies.
But sometimes lies were far better than the truth. Sometimes, at least, a lie didn’t hurt as much.