people have passed on, I don’t know if they’re focusing on morale anymore.”
That struck Angel as desperately sad. “Then nobody remembers them?”
Tucker frowned. “I didn’t say that. Family stories persist. Look at these three graves—see?”
Angel drew nearer. “‘Morgan Peters, beloved husband of Sarah.’ So?”
“Now look at the graves on either side.”
“‘Elizabeth Peters. Beloved wife of Morgan.’ Wait—”
“Now the other one,” Tucker said with a wicked smile.
“‘Sarah Clayborn. Beloved wife of Oren.’ Wait—how do those dates…? I mean, how could they all…?”
“And over here,” Tucker said, taking a playful leap to the pinnacle stone sitting in the midst of a large family plot.
“‘Oren Clayborn, beloved companion of Clancy Matthews, and the children they protected in their home.’ Tucker, I am so confused!” Had all these people been married at the same time?
Tucker laughed, and the sound was as giddy as Tucker had been the morning he’d run out of Daisy Place, excited to buy a truck and get a kitten.
“So am I!” he cackled. “But you know what? I bet it’s a hell of a story.”
His grin was infectious, and Angel caught it.
“We tell stories,” he said, feeling a bit of wonder. “You and me. We tell stories.”
“We do indeed.” Tucker sobered. “Now, it’s time to go tell the stories of our friends the Beauforts, you think?” He went on without giving Angel time to respond. “I’m going to guess a big centerpiece headstone, like our buddy Oren here. Something weighty that dominates a family plot. The Beauforts had two sons, so it’s going to be big enough for six people. There’s not too many of those.”
“Will it have the women’s names on it?” Angel asked. Most of the centerpiece stones he’d seen so far had been erected by the women for the men.
“Probably not,” Tucker said sadly. “It seems like the headstone was for the one who died first, and that was usually the guy.”
“Men’s bodies are made to burn out more quickly,” Angel said. He looked down at his male body. “Maybe it’s because of all the testosterone.” He isolated it in his mind, could feel the hormone flooding his incorporeal being, attacking hair follicles, sending sex signals to his gonads. “It’s almost a toxic hormone.”
“You’ll have to tell me how estrogen feels sometime,” Tucker muttered. “I’m dying for your opinion on that. But now, let’s find our….”
He paused, scenting the air almost like Squishbeans did when Tucker was going to feed her bacon. With trancelike slowness, he turned his head and bowed.
And Angel saw them.
Only they were not as they had been at Daisy Place—young and full of fear and the suppressed excitement of whatever was to come.
They were older, but not gnarled and tough like the roots of crabgrass they trod upon. They were gently old—the wrinkles were deep, but not bitter because the women hadn’t fought aging. They’d let it have its way with them while they’d gone on with their lives.
Judging from the deep smile lines at the corners of their eyes, the gentle dimples of their mouths, their easy posture, hand in arm, as they strolled among the other ghosts of the cemetery, their own lives had been sweet enough to forgive the years their toll.
Tucker bowed deeply, and although the women were dressed in what appeared to be the favored rumpled sundresses of the forties, the two hearkened immediately back to the days of their youth and curtsied back. They were still regal. The bustle and corset of the turn of the century were gone, and so was the intricacy of the Gibson girl hairstyle. Sophie’s white hair was pulled tight in a flyaway knot on the back of her head, and Bridget’s shorn, careless curls blew back from her face in the breeze.
But the formality, the shyness of two girls who had fled across the continent to have freedom and love—that was still there, and Tucker responded to it with an innate nobility that Angel had missed at their first meeting.
He’d come to treasure it since.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Tucker said, holding his unwieldy cardboard box to the side. “How are you this fine day?”
The women exchanged glances, and Sophie stepped forward. “We’re just fine, young man. What can I do for you? I haven’t seen a stranger here in quite some time.”
It was Tucker’s turn to look at Angel, his eyebrows arched. Angel shrugged one shoulder.
They could see him; they could speak to him. Was it the pentacle at work or just Tucker’s basic empathy? Probably Tucker’s empathy, Angel thought, remembering the