Nothing looked quite right, felt quite right. The bright blue California sky seemed pale; the cranberry bread she’d grabbed at the bakery across the street was flavorless. Her typical edginess didn’t usually result in blunted senses, but today everything seemed somehow dulled.
“Maybe I’m sick. What do you think?”
The tabby cat on the windowsill flicked her tail.
The downstairs buzzer sounded, and Rebekkah glanced down at the street. The delivery driver was already headed back in his truck.
“Occasionally, it would be nice if deliveries were actually delivered rather than left behind to be trampled or wet or taken,” Rebekkah grumbled as she went down the two flights of stairs to the entryway.
Outside the front door on the step on the building was a brown envelope addressed in Maylene’s spidery handwriting. Rebekkah picked it up—and just about dropped it as she felt the contours of what was inside.
“No.” She tore the package open. The top of the envelope fluttered to the ground, landing by a bird-of-paradise plant beside the door. Her grandmother Maylene’s silver flask was nestled inside the thick envelope. A white handkerchief with delicate tatting was wrapped around it.
“No,” she repeated.
Rebekkah stumbled as she ran back up the stairs. She slammed open the door to the apartment, grabbed her mobile, and called her grandmother.
“Where are you?” Rebekkah whispered as the ringing on the other end continued. “Answer the phone. Come on. Come on. Answer.”
Over and over, she dialed both of Maylene’s numbers, but there was no answer at the house phone or the mobile phone that Rebekkah had insisted her grandmother carry.
Rebekkah clutched the flask in her hand. It hadn’t ever been out of Maylene’s possession for as long as Rebekkah had known her. When Maylene left the house, it was in her handbag. In the garden, it was in one of the deep pockets of her apron. At home, it sat on the kitchen counter or the nightstand. And at every funeral Rebekkah had attended with her grandmother, the flask was there.
Rebekkah stepped into the darkened room. She’d known Ella was laid out, but the wake didn’t officially start for another hour. She pulled the door shut as carefully as she could, trying to keep silent. She walked to the end of the room. Tears ran down her cheeks, dripped onto her dress.
“It’s okay to cry, Beks.”
Rebekkah looked around the darkened room; her gaze darted over chairs and flower arrangements until she found her grandmother sitting in a big chair along the side of the room. “Maylene ... I didn’t ... I thought I was alone with”—she looked at Ella—“with ... I thought she was the only one here.”
“She’s not here at all.” Maylene didn’t turn her attention to Rebekkah or come out of the chair. She stayed in the shadows staring at her blood-family, at Ella.
“She shouldn’t have done it.” Rebekkah hated Ella a bit just then. She couldn’t tell anyone, but she did. Her suicide made everyone cry; it made everything wrong. Rebekkah’s mother, Julia, had come unhinged—searching Rebekkah’s room for drugs, reading her journal, clutching her too tight. Jimmy, her stepdad, had started drinking the day they found Ella, and as far as Rebekkah could see, he hadn’t stopped yet.
Maylene’s voice was a whisper in the dark: “Come here.”
Rebekkah went over and let Maylene pull her into a rose-scented embrace. Maylene stroked her hair and whispered soft words in a language Rebekkah didn’t know, and Rebekkah wept all the tears she’d been holding on to.
When she stopped, Maylene opened up her giant handbag and pulled out a silver flask that was etched with roses and vines that twisted into initials, A.B.
“Bitter medicine.” Maylene tipped it back and swallowed. Then she held it out.
Rebekkah accepted the flask with a shaky snot-and-tear-wet hand. She took a small sip and coughed as a burn spread from her throat to her stomach.
“You’re not blood, but you’re mine the same as she was.” Maylene stood up and took the flask back. “More so, now.”
She held up the flask like she was making a toast and said, “From my lips to your ears, you old bastard.” She squeezed Rebekkah’s hand as she swallowed the whiskey. “She’s been well loved and will be still.”
Then she looked at Rebekkah and held the flask out.
Silently, Rebekkah took a second sip.
“If anything happens to me, you mind her grave and mine the first three months. Just like when you go with me, you take care of the graves.” Maylene looked fierce. Her grip on Rebekkah’s hand tightened. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Rebekkah’s heartbeat sped. “Are you sick?”
“No, but I’m an old lady.” She let go of Rebekkah’s hand and reached down to touch Ella. “I thought you and Ella Mae would ...” Maylene shook her head. “I need you, Rebekkah.”
Rebekkah shivered. “Okay.”
“Three sips for safety. No more. No less.” Maylene held out the silver flask for the third time. “Three on your lips at the burial. Three at the soil for three months. You hear?”
Rebekkah nodded and took her third sip of the stuff.
Maylene leaned down to kiss Ella’s forehead. “You sleep now. You hear me?” she whispered. “Sleep well, baby girl, and stay where I put you.”
Rebekkah was still clutching the phone when it rang. She looked at the readout: it was Maylene’s area code, but not either of her numbers. “Maylene?”
A man said, “Rebekkah Barrow?”
“Yes.”
“Rebekkah, I need you to sit down,” he said. “Are you sitting?”
“Sure,” she lied. Her palms were sweating. “Mr. Montgomery? Is this ...” Her words faded.
“It is. I’m so sorry, Rebekkah. Maylene is—”
“No,” Rebekkah interrupted. “No!”
She slid down the wall as the world slipped out of focus, collapsed to the floor as her fears were confirmed, closed her eyes as her chest filled with a pain she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“I’m so sorry.” William’s voice gentled even more. “We’ve been trying to call all day, but the number we had for you was wrong.”
“We?” Rebekkah stopped herself before she asked about Byron; she could handle a crisis without him at her side. He hadn’t been at her side for years, and she was just fine. Liar. Rebekkah felt the numbness, the need-to-cry-scream-choke grief that she couldn’t touch yet. She heard the whispered questions she’d wondered when Ella died. How could she not tell me? Why didn’t she call? Why didn’t she reach for me? Why wasn’t I there?
“Rebekkah?”
“I’m here. Sorry ... I just ...”
“I know.” William paused, and then reminded her, “Maylene must be interred within the next thirty-six hours. You need to come home tonight. Now.”
“I ... she ...” There weren’t words, not truly. The Claysville tendency to adopt green burial procedures, those that relied on the lack of embalming, unsettled her. She didn’t want her grandmother to return to the soil: she wanted her to be alive.
Maylene is dead.
Just like Ella.
Just like Jimmy.
Rebekkah clutched the phone tightly enough that the edges creased her hand. “No one called ... the hospital. No one called me. I would’ve been there if they called.”
“I’m calling now. You need to come home now,” he said.
“I can’t get there that quickly. The wake ... I can’t be there today . ”
“The funeral is tomorrow. Catch a red-eye.”
She thought about it, the things she’d need to do. Get Cherub’s carrier. Trash. Empty the trash. Water the ivy. Do I have anything respectable to wear? There were a dozen things to do. Focus on those. Focus on the tasks. Call the airline.
“Thank you. For taking care of her, I mean. I’m glad ... not glad”—she stopped herself. “Actually, I’d really rather you hadn’t called, but that wouldn’t make her alive, would it?”
“No,” he said softly.
Th
e enormity of Maylene’s being gone felt too huge then, like stones in Rebekkah’s lungs, making it hard to move, taking up the space where air should be. She closed her eyes again and asked, “Did she ... was she sick long? I didn’t know. I was there at Christmas, but she never said anything. She seemed fine. If I’d known ... I ... I would’ve been there. I didn’t know until you called.”
He paused a beat too long before replying. “Call the airline, Rebekkah. Book a flight home. Questions can wait till you get here.”
Chapter 3
W ILLIAM SLID HIS PHONE ACROSS THE DESK, FARTHER OUT OF REACH. “She’s on her way. You could’ve called her; you probably should have.”
“No.” Byron sat beside his father’s desk and stared at the page of crossed-out numbers for Rebekkah. Some were in Maylene’s handwriting; others were in Rebekkah’s. She was even worse than he’d been. That doesn’t mean I need to go running to her side. He wasn’t going to be cruel to her— couldn’t —but he wasn’t going to chase after her hoping for another kick in the face.
“Julia won’t come with her. Even for this, she won’t return to Claysville.” William looked directly at Byron. “Rebekkah will need you.”
He met his father’s gaze. “And despite everything, I’ll be here. You know that, and so does Rebekkah.”
William nodded. “You’re a good man.”
At that, Byron’s gaze dropped. He didn’t feel like a good man; he felt tired of trying to live a life without Rebekkah—and utterly unable to live a life with her. Because she can’t let go of the past. Byron’s desire to be there for Rebekkah warred with the memories of the last time they’d spoken. They’d stood in the street outside a bar in Chicago, and Rebekkah had made it very clear that she didn’t want him in her life. Never, B. Don’t you get it? I’m never going to be that girl, not for you or anyone else , she’d half sobbed, half shouted, especially not for you. He’d known when he woke the next morning she’d be gone again; she’d vanished while he slept enough times that he was always a little surprised if she was actually there in the morning.
William pushed away from his desk. Briefly he clasped Byron’s shoulder, and then walked to the door.
Maybe it was only to avoid the topic Byron didn’t want to think about, but it was still a truth they needed to address. Byron started, “Rebekkah only lived here for a few years, and she hasn’t lived here for nine years.” He paused and waited then until his father looked at him before finishing: “She’ll have questions, too.”
William didn’t cow easily, though. He merely nodded and said, “I know. Rebekkah will be told what she needs to know when she needs to know it. Maylene was very clear in how to handle matters. She had everything in order.”
“And Maylene’s planning ... is that all in her nonexistent file? I looked, you know. The woman had an office here, but there’s no paperwork on her. No plot. No prepaid anything. Nothing.” Byron kept his voice even, but the frustration he’d felt for years over the unanswered questions seemed ready to bubble over. “One of these days, you’re going to have to stop keeping secrets if I’m ever to be a real partner in the funeral home.”
“All you need to know today is that Maylene didn’t need a file. The Barrow woman pays no fees, Byron. There are traditions in Claysville.” William turned and walked away, his departing footsteps muffled by the soft gray carpet that lined the hallways.
“Right,” Byron muttered. “Traditions.”
That excuse had worn thin long before Byron left Claysville the day after graduation from high school, and it hadn’t gotten any more palatable in the eight years since. If anything, the frustration of these answerless discussions grew more pressing. The traditions here were more than small-town peculiarities: there was something different about Claysville, and Byron was certain his father knew what it was.
Normal towns don’t lure you back.
Most people never moved away. They were born, lived, and died in the town limits. Byron hadn’t realized how securely he was rooted in Claysville until he’d gotten out—and instantly felt the need to come back. He’d thought it would lessen, but the need to return home grew worse rather than better over time. Five months ago—after eight years of resisting it and not being able to ever assuage the need—he’d given in.
During those years away, he’d tried to stay in small towns, telling himself that maybe he wasn’t cut out for city living. Then he’d tell himself it was the wrong town, wrong city. He’d tried towns so small that they were specks of dust, and larger ones, and then more cities. He’d tried living in Nashville, in Chicago, in Portland, in Phoenix, in Miami. He’d lied to himself, blaming each move on the weather, on the pollution, on the wrong culture or the wrong relationship or the wrong funeral home. On everything but the truth. In eight years, he’d lived in thirteen places—although, admittedly, a few of them were only for a couple of months—and he couldn’t stop thinking the next move should be home every single time. The moment he crossed over the town line, every bit of wanderlust he’d been unable to sate dissipated; the vise that had tightened across his chest little by little over the years had suddenly vanished.
Will Bek feel the same way?
She had only lived in Claysville for a few years; she’d moved there with her mother at the start of high school, and they were gone before graduation. Somehow those three years were the ones that set the events for the last nine years of his life. Ella died, Rebekkah left, and Byron spent the next nine years missing them both.
Byron heard his father’s voice in their office manager’s office. He listened to William ask about the preparations for the wake and burial. After William was sure all was in order, he would go down to the preparation room to visit Maylene . She had been bathed and dressed; her hair and makeup made her look more lifelike. However, as was traditional in Claysville, she had not been embalmed. Her body would be returned to the earth with no toxins other than the lingering traces of those she’d ingested over the years.
Tradition.
That was the only answer he’d ever been offered to this and myriad other questions. There were times he’d thought the very word was nothing more than a convenient excuse, a way to say “this is not a point we will discuss,” but the truth was that, as far as Byron could tell, most of the town saw no need to alter tradition. It wasn’t as simple as a generational dispute: everyone seemed confused when he questioned town traditions.
Byron pushed his chair back with a thunk and went after his father, catching the older man at the top of the staircase leading down to the prep and storage rooms. “Dad, I’m going to head out, go over to the Barrow house to look around. Unless you need me ...”
“I always need you.” The wrinkles in William’s face were divided between laugh and worry lines, but call them what one would, they still reminded Byron that his father was growing old. He’d been almost fifty when Byron had been born, so while most of his friends were minding grandchildren, William had been a first-time father. More than a few of his friends—like Maylene—were now gone; although, unlike her, all of them had died of natural causes.
Byron softened his tone. “Here. Do you need anything from me here ?”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you all the answers you want right now, but”—William’s grip on the doorknob tightened slightly—“there are rules.”
“I came home,” Byron said. “I’m here for you.”
William nodded. “I know.”
“You knew I would.”
It wasn’t a question, not truly, but William answered it all the same. “I did. Claysville is where we belong, Byron. It’s a good town. Safe. You can raise a family here, and you can know that you and yours will be protected from the world beyond.”
“Protected?” Byron echoed. “Maylene was just murdered.”
William’s already age-worn features looked years older for a moment. “She shouldn’t have been. If I’d known, if she’d known ...” The elder Mr. Montgomery blinked away obvious tears. “Things like that d
on’t happen here often, Byron. It’s a safe place ... unlike anywhere else out there. You’ve been out there. You know.”
“You talk like it’s another world outside Claysville.”
William’s sigh said what he didn’t: he was as frustrated by their circular conversations as Byron was. “Give me a couple more days, and you’ll have your answers. I wish ... I wish you didn’t ask so many questions, Byron.”
“You know what would help with that? Answers.” Byron closed his eyes for a moment before looking at his father and saying, “I need air.”
William nodded and turned away—but not quickly enough for Byron to miss his look of regret. He opened the door and vanished inside, pulling it closed with a soft snick .
Byron turned and walked out the side door of the funeral home. His Triumph was parked behind the house just under a big willow. From the back, the funeral home looked like most of the other homes in the neighborhood. The yard was fenced in by faded wooden pickets, and a long covered porch had two rockers and a swing. Azaleas, an herb garden, and flower beds—carefully planned and replanned by his mother for years—still flourished now as they had when she was still alive. The oaks and willow looked just as they had in his childhood, shading the yard and part of the porch. The normalcy of it didn’t hint that the dead were cared for inside the building.
Gravel crunched under his boots as he walked the bike forward a few yards. Old habits were hard to escape even now, and the roar of motorcycles outside the kitchen window had always bothered his mother. He shook his head. Sometimes he wished she would walk out the door to give him hell for tracking mud on the floor or spitting gravel when he left, pissed off at his father again, but the dead don’t come back.
As a boy, he used to think they did. He’d sworn he’d seen Lily English sitting out on the porch one night, but his father had shushed him and sent him back to bed while his mother sat at the kitchen table and wept. Later that week, she’d torn out the entire flower bed and replanted it, and Byron suspected that his imagination and nightmares weren’t the only upsets resulting from living too near the dead. His parents didn’t argue often, but he’d have to have been clueless to miss the tension between them over the years. They’d loved each other, but being the undertaker’s wife wore on his mother.