by Willa Reece
The ashes were in the backseat. I’d put the urn in one of Sarah’s storage boxes. The kind with the old-fashioned botanical prints she’d always favored. This one was covered in roses. Big cabbage roses the size of saucers. Would the pretty box entice a thief to break in and steal what would turn out to be a horrible surprise? My empty stomach plummeted at the thought and I quickly shrugged out of my jean jacket and laid it carefully over the box.
Truth: Nothing in life prepares you to handle cremated remains. Everything you do feels disrespectful. For the first time, I thought maybe I understood some of the traditions surrounding death. I didn’t have traditions. I was adrift. Grief doesn’t pair well with inexperience and awkwardness.
Or fear.
I was dressed in my usual camouflage—black skinny jeans, black high-top sneakers, a logo T-shirt from a defunct bar and the faded jacket I’d discarded. Only here my city camouflage achieved the opposite effect. I felt exposed on the sidewalk. Too dark, inside and out. I was doing what I’d promised to do, but it felt like I’d brought Sarah to foreign soil. The strange sunrise didn’t help to negate the horror in my dreams.
Somewhere not too far from this sunny street, there was a black locust tree where a body had been found, so maybe I wasn’t too dark for this place after all.
I placed my hand on the top of my jacket to make another promise to Sarah. This one was wordless and more about steadying my nerve. I’m here. I’ll see this through. Then I hurriedly backed up to slam the car door shut.
Sarah was gone. I’d promised to bring her home. Those were two absolutes I couldn’t change. Besides, hiding in my apartment had never been an option.
I hadn’t hidden since I was five. There’d been a closet and an abusive foster mother. There’d also been a toy clown that hadn’t saved me any more than hiding had. I’d huddled for all I was worth with the pitiful little clown. For hours, I’d ignored my bladder as it became painfully full and the cramps in my legs as they’d stayed curled up under me too long in the tiny space. When she finally found me, she’d ripped the clown from my arms. She’d torn the stuffing from it. The white fluff had fallen onto my upturned, tearstained face like snow. It had clung to my lashes and stuck to my lips and I’d never forgotten the stale cotton taste. Once the clown was destroyed, she’d wrenched me to my feet onto stiff, numb legs that would barely hold me.
They didn’t stay numb for long when the beating began.
I’d never hidden again. I’d faced and dealt with whatever punches came my way. And once Sarah came into my life I’d faced a few for her too.
I walked into the diner looking for a fight. I wanted to hit back at the universe the same way I’d hit Jason Mews in middle school. All I found was the heavy aroma of bacon and a waitress frenzied by a “crowd” of three occupied booths and one guy on a stool at the counter. I walked past him and settled at the last booth with my back to the wall and my face toward the door. I played with the sugar dispenser while I waited for the lone server to see me. The click, click, click of the sliding metal lid was soothing, until I noticed the dispenser reflected my face back at me in the same distorted way the urn had done the night before.
Who was I now that Sarah was gone? I’d been eleven when we’d met and, by necessity, wholly focused on making it through each day. My intense self-preservation had expanded immediately to encompass the tiny girl who would become my world.
“We have fresh rhubarb pie this morning if you’re interested,” the waitress said. She rushed up to my booth carrying the scent of coffee and bacon with her. I had to admit it was an appealing perfume. The bacon made up for the lack of imported bean scent that normally permeated my hair and skin. My stomach growled even though I had no idea what “rhubarb” could be. The rest of the menu was above the counter on a chalkboard that had seen better days. Someone had tried to offset its dilapidation with jaunty smiley face emojis. They hurt me the same way the stuff I’d deleted from my phone had hurt me. Too happy, too ordinary in a life turned empty and cold. Again. Loss was such a simple way to describe the hollow I’d become.
“Coffee and toast,” I said. “Please.” The last was added as an afterthought when my first words had come out curt and clipped and totally out of place compared to the chalk emojis. I was definitely not going to take my edginess out on a server just doing her job. Nerves, lack of sleep, grief and fear were no excuse. None of those things should be allowed to negate the empathy I’d developed on the other side of the counter.
“Okay. But I’m going to bring you some of my blackberry preserves because you look like you need something sweet,” the waitress said. She didn’t have a name tag. She was wearing faded black jeans and a T-shirt with the diner’s logo on the front. The mascot on her chest was a pig in a chef’s hat. The pig had a huge smile on its face I couldn’t quite reconcile with the scent of bacon in the air. She wasn’t being snarky. A quick glance from the pig’s grin up to her face found a more relaxed and natural smile there.
She was being kind. My body responded by flooding my eyes with hot moisture.
The waitress didn’t wait for agreement. She hurried away and I breathed a sigh of relief because every interaction I’d had since the accident felt like walking on shattered glass. Her rush allowed me to widen my eyes so the tears would dry before they could fall.
There were harder things I would have to face in Morgan’s Gap than a server’s kindness. I had to say goodbye to Sarah. I had to endure the scene of my nightmares to do it. And I had to decide where to go from here.
I was on the second cup of coffee so acidic a third might dissolve my esophagus, downing each gulp like a bitter medicine I had to endure, when the door opened. A woman entered to greetings from the rest of the customers. Calls of “Granny” met her from everyone in the place and for a crazy second I wondered if they were all related.
The lone guy at the counter disrupted that chain of thought. He stood to face the older woman and nodded at her as he also said “Granny” with a curtness that suggested she was not his grandmother. And yet, he didn’t get out his wallet to pay. He hadn’t risen to leave. He moved the stools beside him closer to the counter to get them out of her way. Then he stood as if at attention while Granny passed by. It seemed a gesture of respect, but one strangely tinged with wariness. His back was straight. His shoulders stiff. His jaw tight. He didn’t speak again, but he watched until she had walked all the way to my booth.
As the woman walked, my attention met the lone guy’s gaze over the top of her head. Only for a second. I looked away quickly and he sat back down, but not before I had seen that the intensity of his dark green eyes didn’t match the casual ruggedness of the rest of his appearance. His fall catalog clothing suggested simple outdoor pursuits. His boots were worn. His hair thick and tousled. But the weight of his stare seemed complicated. Why did he seem wary of a little old woman? And why, in spite of his wariness, did I find his old-fashioned deference to her charming? I was too jaded for chivalry to make an impact. But, as with the waitress, genuine consideration was another thing altogether.
I’ve made coffee for all kinds of early morning patrons—from politicians to construction workers. The guy at the counter had more on his mind than hiking. I was sure of it. His caution and the respect he’d shown her in spite of it made me look closer and harder at the woman than I initially had.
Granny—whoever’s grandmother she might be—arrived at my booth as if it had been her intended destination when she got out of bed that morning. She hadn’t even paused when the man stood. And, unlike me, she hadn’t seemed to be affected by his eyes, his courtesy or the certainty he had more on his mind than the fried eggs on his plate.
In a Richmond coffee shop you’re more likely to hear a grandmother referred to as Louise or Beverly. Maybe NeeNee or Nan. But the instant I met this woman’s eyes I couldn’t imagine her being called anything else
“Coffee. Should have known. Damnable stuff. Always interferes. Never drink it unless you need to co
unteract… Oh well, Sarah wouldn’t have remembered everything, would she? Bless her and you,” the old woman said. “I was a friend to her mother and her grandmother before that. Even knew Great-Granny Ross. Not that she was exactly friendly with anyone. Did my best for you girls. Wasn’t good enough. But here you are and that’s what’s meant to be.”
She sat in a flounce of colorful fabrics with so many layers I didn’t know where one sweater ended and a shirt began. I’d thought at first she was soft and round, but it was her clothing that padded her with extra inches, not body fat. In spite of the layers, she wasn’t messy. All was clean and bright about her, including her sharp blue eyes. As I took in her bohemian appearance, she reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny net pouch tied with a thin yellow string. Suddenly, I was certain her layers hid numerous pockets, each prepared to fulfill whatever requirements she might encounter as she went about the business of her day. And nothing about her suggested her business would be the ordinary type you’d expect an elderly woman to undertake, including the fact that she obviously thought she knew me even though I’d never heard of her.
The waitress came rushing back to our table with a steaming cup. She placed the cup in front of Granny and the old woman plopped the net bag into what appeared to be water. It was all done in the fluid motions of habit. As if it was commonplace for this particular customer to brew her own tea.
“I promised Sarah I’d bring her home,” I said. My jostled brain wasn’t at its best and my lack of sleep might be beginning to mess with my perceptions. I was compelled to confide in her as if I’d been waiting for her to join me.
“At least she knew to tell you to bring her home. Even if she didn’t remember to avoid coffee. She didn’t forget the garden,” Granny said. She sipped from her cup and the scent of peppermint rose into the air as the liquid was disturbed. From the wild mop of graying curls on her head to the voluminous patchwork skirt that fell to her knees to the polished black hiking boots on her little feet, I’d never seen anyone like her. The phrase “jolly old elf” kept running through my brain, but some niggling instinct honed from years of living out of a backpack told me her jollies might be of a darker variety than I expected.
“She found her mother in the locust tree,” I said. It wasn’t a secret and yet I whispered the words as if I was oversharing. The whole town must have known about the murder, including the longtime denizen across from me. The diner still existed around us. The waitress still rushed. The man at the counter finished his eggs. Several other customers came and went. But I saw what Sarah had seen on the worst morning of her life superimposed over it all.
“You helped her. You shouldered the weight of her burden. Seeing you now I’m not surprised. Your strength is palpable,” Granny said as she sipped her tea. “Exactly what’s needed. You actually worked with coffee? You brewed the stuff and drank far more of it than you should have.”
My eyes were hot again. For so long, I’d been strong for Sarah. Now that she was gone I felt insubstantial. Not strong at all. As if one stiff breeze would blow me off my feet. It was oddly comforting this woman seemed to know about me when normally I would prefer not to be known. Like I needed the reminder of who I was or who I was going to be.
And that increased the edginess the caffeine hadn’t soothed.
“Bah. Coffee. Not good for you at all. Bring another cup, June!” Granny ordered. She pushed my coffee cup away from my elbow and reached into the folds of her clothing to pull forth another net bag. This one was tied with a green string and the second it hit the water in the cup the waitress had rushed to our table, a familiar scent rose on the steam to tease my nose.
“Valerian tea,” I said. No tears actually spilled. Although the world glistened around the edges. “Sarah used to make it for me.”
“She left us young, but she’d already learned a lot from her mother,” Granny said.
Wary or not, there was nothing in me that could resist the tea that reminded me of my sister. I picked up the cup and carefully sipped while the bag of herbs continued to steep. The flavor brought it all back—the friendship, the loss, the confidence of togetherness, the certainty that, now, I’d be alone for the rest of my life.
“It’s too soon. I wanted you both to grow older and wiser before you came back. But here you are. You’re too young,” Granny said. “And I’m too old. But seeds scatter where and how they may.” She was even older than I’d initially thought. Her movements were quick and certain. Her eyes sparkled. But a close look at her face revealed a tiny network of lines around those eyes and more lines around her lips. She drained the last of her tea and placed the cup in front of her on the table, then untied the yellow string to allow the damp herbal mix contained in the net bag to dump out. She looked down into the bottom of her cup and chewed her lower lip as if she was contemplating the secrets of the universe.
“I’m supposed to take her ashes to the garden near her mother’s cabin,” I said. Her tea and sympathy had caused me to relax my guard. I needed to share this solemn, horrible duty with someone and I had no one else.
“She wants you to do more than that,” Granny said.
She reached for my cup, but I held fast to the handle. For some reason I suddenly didn’t want her to tug on the green string and release the valerian mixture. And by “didn’t want her to” I mean my heart was pounding as if I was hiding in the closet with a plush clown while my abusive foster mother turned the doorknob with a determined rattle that was going to break the flimsy lock.
I didn’t know this woman.
Not her intentions or her motivations.
Granny’s hand was surprisingly strong on my cup, but she accepted my resistance. She slowly released the mug and lowered her hand with nothing more than an arched brow that said she didn’t need to see the herbs in the bottom of my cup to know what she knew.
Hadn’t Sarah always known things? She was that girl who always stopped to stare at lost pet notices. After a while, I didn’t even try to pull her away. She’d found so many of them. Knowing things was something you accepted about Sarah Ross. The sun would rise tomorrow. Sarah would feel out the exact location of that missing bichon frise. Finding someone like Granny in Morgan’s Gap didn’t exactly shock me. Sarah had told me to bring her ashes home without any doubt I’d find the way.
Still. Accepting Sarah’s otherworldly qualities had happened gradually over time as we’d grown up together. Granny was too sudden. Sarah had been a spark of special in a world too often dingy and dull, but my self-preservation instincts were overwhelmed by the unexpected discovery of more sparking, here, of all places, where coal dust might still smudge attic keepsakes.
“There have been Ross women in Morgan’s Gap since this area was settled by Irish immigrants after the Whiskey Rebellion. Some say they were here waiting when the first folks arrived. They were wisewomen, you understand,” Granny said.
“They knew things,” I said, but my tone was reserved. Accepting something about your best friend didn’t mean you comfortably accepted it about anyone else. Or the world. The hair on the back of my neck had risen to attention and my stomach had gone light as if it was suddenly filled with helium instead of herbal tea. This woman had been expecting me in town this morning even though I had decided to come myself only in the wee hours after I’d “lived” through Sarah’s mother’s hanging multiple times.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Granny said. “Another way is to say they knew how to influence this world. To prick. To nudge. To help. To heal. But whatever you call it in these parts if you know something you shouldn’t—if rain’s going to fall or some couple is going to marry—they say you must have Ross blood. Some deny it. Some claim it. Some fear it. But no one has disturbed the Ross cabin or the garden. You can take Sarah to join her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother there.” The old woman stood up and slid out of the booth. She retrieved several tiny envelopes from yet another pocket and laid them beside her cup. “Ginseng powder for June’s
mother,” she said, nodding toward the packets. “She’s undergoing cancer treatments and her energy is low. Come see me when you’ve finished at the garden. We’ll have more to talk about then.”
The man at the counter was looking at us again. Unaccountably more tense than before. This time, Granny turned toward him and shushed him as if he’d spoken.
“Don’t you worry, Jacob Walker. I’m no poacher. This ginseng was legally harvested from private land,” she said. To me, she continued, “As if I’d endanger a single leaf in the whole of the wildwood. He’s a biologist. Works for the state. He should know he and I both worship this mountain, just in different ways.”
The biologist didn’t turn away. Our glances caught and held again long enough for superstitious tingling to give way to a different sort of tingling and I sat stunned. I was too guarded not to notice when I wasn’t guarded enough. Why was I so disarmed by his moving a couple of barstools a few inches to make way for an elderly lady to walk by? Or had it been the standing? The respect he’d shown her? He was just a guy eating breakfast. A stranger who happened to be polite. I was terrible at guy meets girl. I always had been. So, I usually dealt with that kind of tingle by ignoring it.
But today was proving to be even tougher than I’d imagined it would be. I didn’t want anyone to see my pain and I was afraid the man saw my unshed tears and more before he finally turned around to focus on his breakfast.
