I was going, waving to the caretaker, who dropped his rake and followed me.
I didn’t intend to dig anyone up today. I just wanted to talk. I wasn’t there when my aunt chose the tombstone, because to be there I’d have to let go of the anger I’d nursed so carefully. Coming to his funeral would have meant accepting his choices.
His grave stood out among the others, the mounds of white salt making Dad’s grave like his life: a barren place where nothing else could grow.
And I couldn’t find the words I wanted at first, so I stood in silence, until the unfairness of the situation bubbled out. But what came out wasn’t what I went to complain about. I’d finally found a voice for the question I always wanted to ask him. “Why did you leave me there?”
Dad didn’t answer any more now than all the times I asked when he was alive.
“It’s not that they didn’t love me. I wanted to be with you. You weren’t ever going to be able to bring Mom back.” I looked over at the grave next to his. “Lara Carson,” read the headstone. It lied.
“I do everything you taught me. I kill anything that ought to be dead. And it won’t ever be enough.” Tears coursed down my face, making the world blurry. “I’ve got scars on my scars. I’ve broken every bone in my body twice. I’m sick of this. I’m not you. I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”
After a silence as long as all the conversations we’d had in the past, I turned to leave.
Aunt Emelia stood, watching me. She came every day, laying flowers by Mom’s grave, and I guess Dad’s.
I knew she’d heard my outburst. “I’m sorry.”
The tears on her cheeks matched mine, but instead of scowling at me, she looked on me with compassion. “Don’t be, boy. That’s been a long time coming.”
I walked toward her, when what I wanted to do was run away the same way Dad did. “I didn’t do anything with Grace. I slept in the truck. I don’t know why the director—” I did know. Not like I hadn’t earned her expectations.
She nodded, her face glistening. “I tried to explain to Maggie this morning.”
“If she calls again, I need you to give her a message.” I’d never been so certain about anything in my life.
I walked to the truck and didn’t look back. “Tell her I quit.”
Eleven
GRACE
I woke with a headache like someone playing the bongo drum on my skull, and a memory of asking Brynner to stay. That would be my last foray into bourbon for at least a decade. For one moment, I panicked, incapable of remembering exactly how he’d answered my request.
If he’d stayed with me, he wouldn’t have been outside, pounding on the door so hard it rattled the windows. Knowing men, he wouldn’t have been angry. Smug or sleepy, but not angry.
That was it—I’d asked him to stay because the thought of one of those co-orgs clawing at the door, waiting for me to open it, made me sick to my stomach. It was one thing to see them safely trapped behind glass, razor-sharp fingernails and teeth removed.
Another entirely to be inches from one in the wild.
I should have expected the director’s call, wanting to know how my first day of translation went.
After Brynner left, I’d given her a rundown of the organization issues, and my attempts to sort the journals by age. Thankfully she accepted it and let me go. Which kept me from telling her the truth.
How did it go?
Horrible.
I’d nearly shot a man, drank on the job, tried to drive drunk, and invited a coworker with a reputation into my bed. Because without a doubt, that’s where I’d have had him stay. While I couldn’t be certain, I had a nagging feeling I’d been planning on finding out if the stories about Brynner were true. Like I hadn’t learned that lesson already.
I needed another shot at those journals. I needed this job to last at least a month. One month of field pay and the days of my phone’s constant ringing would fade. Two months, and I might have a shot at catching up.
But first I needed to apologize.
For nearly shooting him. For getting completely drunk and trying to drive. If he were gracious, maybe he’d let me skip on an apology about the motel. The part of my heart I didn’t like listening to insisted he would be.