When We Were 8

by catt dahman

  Jill depended on Charlie and told him the truth in small segments sometimes when she cried and screamed and sometimes when she barely spoke loudly enough for him to hear her.

  Cassie was her other rock, the person she could remember Tiffany and Joey with. She missed Samantha, but the others, she found that she stopped thinking about with any real affection.

  Cassie wanted to give a large chunk of cash to Coral her boss because she admired him so much and thought things he had taught her were probably what saved her life. He didn’t want the money, but Cassie insisted that they use it to make the diner larger, and Cassie became a partner in the business.

  She took a year and wrote a sanitized, but still frightening story about her ordeal, leaving out more than three-fourths of their trials, but she went with the crazy Watkins brothers as the villains and had Meg and the rest as breaking from sheer horror and trauma. The story was a best seller, and she sold the movie rights for a huge amount. She shared that with Coral as well because by then they were married, the only mixed race couple in the small town.

  She quietly gave Cindy a small but appreciated amount of cash so that Cindy could keep the home she and Samantha had bought. Cindy always waited for more information and wondered what had really happened at the cabin, but she only kissed Cassie on the cheek and thanked her, her cool fingertips on Cassie’s warm hands.

  Cassie turned down having her own talk-show in order to write another book about eight girls who never had bad times and who stayed best friends forever.

  Everything she wrote went to the bestseller’s list.

  Cassie, Jill, Charlie, and Coral spent quiet evenings together sometimes, but they never talked about the past. When the conversation went to one of the other women who had died, Coral quickly turned the topic to something else.

  “Let the dead be dead,” he would say. “Don’t exhume what can’t be reburied.”

  Chapter 13

  One day, Jill went to the cemetery to cover Tiffany’s grave with flowers. She saw a man walking slightly bent over and recognized him as Meg’s father. He hadn’t said much to her since the initial questioning except for a faint hello if he saw her on the streets.

  Although he was retired, she still called him Sheriff Conners and said hello.

  “Hi, Jill. How pretty you look. Boy or girl?”

  She patted her belly and said, “A boy.”

  “Fine. Fine. I was out here putting flowers out for Meg.”

  “Of course.” Jill had never gone near Meg’s grave. Nor to Whitney’s or Nelwynn’s or Samantha’s or Angel’s. She couldn’t.

  “Funniest thing.”

  “What is that?” she asked as he walked with her, taking her elbow to help her walk over the uneven ground since her belly was large.

  “I still come and wonder why,” he said.

  Jill nodded. “I wonder why. I don’t think we’ll ever know all the answers, sir.”

  “I buy her flowers whenever possible. Most stay pretty for days. But each time I bring roses, they are withered and black within hours. What could possibly cause that?”

  It was rhetorical, but it gave Jill a chill. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s strange, and I think back to the days…well…we won’t talk about them, but the roses and all that seem almost supernatural. You said she talked about roses at the end.”

  “She did. I’m sure it isn’t anything supernatural, sir.”

  “I got permission to plant a rose bush for her. And you know what, Jill?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think I’ll prune it back and back each year and see if I can get it to grow. Would that help, do you think?”

  Jill took a deep breath and said, “Don’t do that, please. Take daisies and hydrangeas, and tulips. Don’t do that, please.”

  He seemed to shake himself out of his depression. “Of course not. What was I thinking? No. It was good to see you, Jill.”

  “You, too,” Jill said as she started away and paused. She turned back for just a second, “and I’m still glad they were my friends. All eight of us were special…for a while. Let it go.”

  He nodded with wet eyes. “I wish I had known about the evil people in town so none of you would have had to deal with it so Meg didn’t become like she was.”

  “She couldn’t help it,” Jill lied.

  “Maybe not, but I’m still so angry with her.”

  Jill nodded. “Give it time, sir.”

  Before she went home, Jill stopped by the florist shop where Cassie’s brother worked; she told him about the conversation she had with retired Sheriff Connors.

  “Now, Eddie, if I hear about it again, I’ll tell Cassie. Don’t be doing bad thing to the roses so they all die and scare that poor man.”

  Eddie’s honest, sweet face looked surprised. “Me? Jill, don’t tell a soul okay, but you want the truth? It ain’t me doing anything, and it ain’t anything ghostly. Mr. Conners, he ain’t all there.”

  “I may stop visiting graves,” Jill admitted

  “He’s not right in the head, not all there,” Eddie repeated.

  Eddie looked at the counter and then back to Jill. “My baby sister. It wasn’t right what happened. You both almost died. And Charlie, too. I visit his grave.”

  Jill cocked her head. She knew whom he meant, but she asked anyway, “Mike’s?”

  “Yeah. Yanno what? I’ve done peed on it and spit on it. It don’t help much, but I do it. I wish his damned dog had died that day and you girls had never gotten to be friends.”

  “I’m only glad because I have Cassie. She’s all that remains.” Jill turned to leave.

  “Jill. He ain’t all there, but he gets it. The sheriff, I mean,” Eddie reminded her.

  She looked back.

  Eddie sighed. “Connors goes on and on about the lovely roses and how sweet and fresh they are, but he digs in the pile we’re tossing out. We don’t even charge him for those. He buys the ones that are mostly brown and crinkled.”

  Jill shook her head.

  “Yeah, Sheriff Conner buys dead roses for his daughter’s grave.”

  (Forth Worth 2015)