Beautiful Graves(75)

“How did you know?” My eyes fill with tears. Just thinking about the Graves family makes me want to curl into a ball and cry. I’m also surprised he didn’t say it was Dom. He was the one I was supposed to marry, after all.

Dad dips the tea bag into his mug in a soothing motion. “I saw the way you two were looking at each other when you talked at the church. Under that tree, when you thought no one could see you. The way you were the only thing that mattered to him, and he was the only person on earth to you. There was something very protective about the way he treated you. He reminded me of myself when your mother died. All I wanted to do was shield you and Renn from the world.”

I’m caught red handed. Busted. But I feel oddly relieved to be able to talk about it with someone.

“Well, obviously, I can’t keep in touch with Joe. That would be too messy.”

“I think that’s the issue, Everlynne. What you don’t understand—what your generation doesn’t understand, I think—is that things are naturally messy. They’ve always been messy. Perfect doesn’t exist. Embarrassment and shame are a package deal. They’re a part of life. You cannot remove these compartments from your existence. You have to meet your challenges head-on. When your mother died, she took a part of me with her to that grave. But losing you on top of that? Not being able to hug you, to talk to you, to cry on your shoulder and let you cry on mine? That made things unbearable. Some days, I wondered why I’d even gotten out of bed. But then I heard your brother snoring down the hallway and remembered. There’s always someone to fight for.”

I think about Dom’s infidelities. Joe’s harsh words before he kissed me the day Dom and I got engaged. I close my eyes. “It’s hard to forgive people. Including yourself.”

“I’ll tell you what your mother always told me. It’s a good lesson. ‘Be thankful to those who helped you when you were down, and be thankful to those who didn’t. The former are worth keeping, and the latter helped you realize it.’”

I break into tears for the millionth time this week, burying my face in my hands. Dad keeps talking.

“No. Shush. Don’t feel bad. Even if you thought we were angry, you should’ve stayed. You should’ve fought for this family. Renn and I have been working on trying to get back to what we were for six years now, and we could’ve used the extra pair of hands.”

I put my teacup aside and fling myself on him, crying into his chest. He wraps his arms around me tentatively. Frozen at first, and then, when he feels my body shaking against his, tighter. He drops his tea on the floor in the process. The cup breaks at our feet. He grabs the back of my head.

“Jesus, Ever. We thought we’d lost you forever.”

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” I say between sobs and hiccups. “I thought you hated me.”

“I never hated you.” Finally, his voice breaks. Finally, I can hear the emotion in it. “I only hated the situation, and wished your mother was alive, so she could tell me what to do to get you back.”

It is so clear to me now that this was what I needed all this time. A hug from my dad. A confirmation that he still loves me despite everything. Salem was my cloak. I’d hidden from the world, because I thought it didn’t want me.

He pulls away from me, clutching my arms. “Hey. I forgot to mention the best part.”

“W-w-what part is that?” I sniffle and hiccup and generally look like a total mess.

“That the war Renn and I were fighting? We won. We are still a family. We laugh. We go places. We have vacations, and holidays, and dinners. We tell inside jokes. All we needed was for you to come back to us. And now that you have, everything will be okay.”

For the first time in a long time, I believe in something good.

I believe in my family.



Wearing Dad’s slippers, I clean up the broken china on the patio. I sweep the floor while he waters the flower beds. Every now and then, I look up to look at him. He is doing an awful job, drenching each bell pepper. I have no idea how he’s kept the garden alive for so long.

I feel lighter after my conversation with him. But also tired from the long day and the flight. I don’t know what I’m going to feel like tomorrow, but I know today is bearable, and that is a good start. The world did not end when I left Massachusetts. Dad and Renn did not change the locks and tell me to go away. And even though I am still guilt ridden about what I did to Joe—how I left things—I know he probably doesn’t want to hear from me.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I ask after a few minutes of watching Dad refilling the funnel for the fifteenth time. There is zero chance this is how he is sustaining this beautiful garden. There is also no way in hell he can handle the kind of water bill that comes with watering his plants this way.

Dad drops the empty funnel at his feet, moving a hand over his hair. He laughs. “I’m busted, aren’t I?”

“I thought it was weird that the garden survived without Mom.” I shrug. “Who’s taking care of the garden, then? Lawrence?”

Lawrence had been our gardener since I was three. He and Mom used to spend a lot of time together, planting and trimming and laughing.

Dad shakes his head. “No. He had to retire three years ago. He had a knee surgery, and then his daughter needed him to watch the grandchildren while she was at work . . . it got too much for him.”