Remarkably Bright Creatures(49)

Tova anticipated this. She built a Janice coffee delay into her schedule.

An hour later, after departing the Kim home, Tova drives down to Elland. This would be a quick ten-minute trip if she took the interstate, but as always, Tova takes the back roads. Half an hour later, she arrives at the chain drugstore listed under “Passport Photos” in the Snohomish County phone book. The application requires two such photos, and having never been issued a passport, Tova is in possession of no such thing.

A young woman who could not possibly be more bored with her job directs Tova to stand against a blank white wall and instructs her to remove her eyeglasses, which she does without argument, clutching them in her hand and squinting at the camera as it flashes twice.

“That’ll be eighteen fifty,” the clerk says, handing over a small folio with the two square, unsmiling photos tucked inside.

“Eighteen dollars?”

“And fifty cents.”

“Good heavens.” Tova pulls a twenty-dollar bill from her pocketbook. Who would’ve thought two tiny photographs could cost so much?

Her final errand brings her back to the northern edge of Sowell Bay, nearly an hour-long journey from Elland, to Fairview Memorial Park. The afternoon has grown lovely, and the gates are propped open like welcoming arms under the clear, cloudless sky. A footpath winds around the cemetery lawn, gentle curves heading this way and that, never a straight line. Like it was designed to make the walk seem as soft as possible. The grass is flawless, edged meticulously around the identical headstones.

She kneels on the grass and traces along the engraving on his stone. The smooth, polished rock is warm under her fingers, basking in the hot July sun. WILLIAM PATRICK SULLIVAN: 1938–2017. HUSBAND, FATHER, FRIEND.

When she’d submitted the epitaph to Fairview Memorial Park’s coordinator, the woman had the nerve to ask if she was sure she didn’t want to add more. The package included up to 120 characters, she explained, and Tova had only used half. But sometimes less is more. Will was a simple man.

Next to Will’s headstone is Erik’s. Tova hadn’t wanted one; Will had insisted. It has always bothered her that Erik’s commemoration lies here, in this grassy field, when his body never left the sea. But the stone sits here, with its overly fussy font that reads, ERIK ERNEST SULLIVAN. Whomever Will had designated to take care of it hadn’t even bothered to record Erik’s name correctly. Tova’s maiden name, Lindgren, is supposed to be Erik’s second middle name. She has always fantasized about stealing Erik’s headstone and hurling it off the end of the pier, but one can’t do things like that, of course.

The third stone in the row is blank, meant for her. There’s a series of questions on the application about this, too. Wishes, preferences. Meant to be a supplement to one’s legal arrangements, Tova supposes. She has made her preferences clear in her own documents, of course, but what if someone tries to insist on a service? She could see Barb, in particular, doing something like that. Tova must broach the topic with her before she leaves. A marker will be fine, but she prefers no service.

Voices drift across the lawn. She turns to see old Mrs. Kretch ambling up the path. Heavens, the woman must be in her midnineties. But she’s getting around well, by the looks of it. She’s brought her great-granddaughter with her today, a coltish thing with legs as long and straight as a pair of knitting needles.

“Hi, Mrs. Sullivan,” the great-granddaughter says as they pass. Old Mrs. Kretch nods, her eyes meeting Tova’s just long enough to impart a pitying look.

“Good day,” Tova replies.

The great-granddaughter has a basket slung over her skinny arm. They stop six plots down and spread out a picnic. Tova catches a whiff of deli chicken as they settle in. Then the two women chat with their dead patriarch, showing no self-consciousness about talking to the manicured turf, the cold gray headstone. A one-way conversation with thin air itself.

Tova has never spoken aloud to Will’s grave. Why would she? His tired, sickened body turning to dust underground cannot hear. Cancerous flesh cannot reply. She cannot bring herself to emulate Mary Ann Minetti, who keeps her husband’s ashes in an urn on her mantel and converses with him daily. He can hear me from heaven, Mary Ann always says, to which Tova simply nods, because it brings her friend comfort and harms no one. Such is the case with the Kretches, as well. So why must the sight of them bantering with the deceased as though he were seated on their red-and-white checkered blanket, sipping lemonade right along with them, make her wish she were invisible?

But there’s a first time for everything. The Kretch ladies eventually rise, and the great-granddaughter gives a tired wave as they make their way out, their afternoon shadows grown long and tall. Tova ought to get it over with, the thing she came here to do. She homes her focus on Will’s headstone, runs a tongue across her lips. Then in a low voice, she says aloud, “I’m selling the house, dear.”

She trails a finger across the headstone as if the action might summon tears to her eyes.

THAT EVENING, AFTER Jessica Snell’s tour, and after a reheated casserole supper, she organizes the application and her collected documents.

Ten minutes later, she’s driving again. The very first line of instructions had stymied her. Please complete in black ink. So, one more errand today, to purchase a proper black pen. After trying out all of her writing utensils, she determined that none of them contained truly black ink. A scrupulous eye could only conclude that the most promising samples were actually dark gray.