The Paper Swan(87)

Damian let Sierra drag him through the crowd, to another grave on the far side of the cemetery. The plots were bigger and marked with tall slabs of marble and smooth granite. Definitely not the prison lot.

“Here,” said Sierra. She started wiping the dust off the marker and gave him the buckets. “You do the flowers and other stuff.”

“Yes, boss,” said Damian, smiling as he arranged marigolds on the grave.

He reached into the other bucket and pulled out some candles. And a papier maché skull much like the one he’d seen on MaMaLu’s grave.

“They must sell a lot of these,” he said, holding it up.

“I made that,” said Sierra, stepping back from the tombstone.

In Loving Memory of Adriana Nina Sedgewick, it read.

Damian dropped the skull he was holding. “Adriana . . . Sedgewick.” His head was spinning so hard, he could barely speak.

“She’s my mama’s mother. My dad’s mother is buried on the other side. I made her a paper skull too. And this is my grandpa.” Sierra moved to the adjacent grave. It was newer and didn’t need as much cleaning.

Damian didn’t see anything beyond the name carved in stone:

Warren Henderson Sedgewick.

“I didn’t know them, but my mama says Grandpa Warren loved Grandma Adriana very much,” Sierra chattered on, oblivious to the fact that her words were coming at Damian like rogue asteroids, knocking him out of orbit, sending him dizzy and disoriented into total, boundless chaos.

“When he died,” she continued, “he wanted to be buried next to her. My mama and grandpa lived in San Diego. That’s in the States. But when she came to bury grandpa, my mama stayed. She says it’s because she grew up here, but I think it’s also because three of my grandparents are buried here. I don’t know my other grandfather. I don’t know my father either. His name is Damian. He’s the one in prison. Real prison. Not working there, like my ma—”

“Sierra! I’ve been looking all over for you. I told you to meet me by—” Skye skidded to a halt. She was holding candles, one in each hand. They snuffed out with her sharp exhalation.

They stood paralyzed, Damian kneeling on a bed of marigolds, and Skye between her parents’ tombstones, holding on to them, as their daughter introduced them.

“This is my new friend, Mama. I visit him after school sometimes . . .” she said, but neither Damian nor Skye were listening.

All around them, families were gathered in little units around lost loved ones, and there they were, lost to each other, but brought together by MaMaLu, and Warren, and Adriana. For a moment, it felt like the dead really had joined the living, like they were all gathered in that one spot, at that one time, and all of their flaws and choices and mistakes didn’t make them any less perfect. It didn’t matter why Warren did what he did, why Damian did what he did, why Skye kept Sierra from Damian.

In the grand scheme of things, we do the best we can, all of us, and we make up our stories as we go along; we write them and direct them and project them into the world. And sometimes we get other people’s stories, and sometimes we don’t, but always there is a story behind a story behind a story, linked in a chain that we can only see a small part of, because it’s there when we’re born and it continues after we’re gone. And who can comprehend all of it in one lifetime?

Skye and Damian could barely handle that one moment. It was loaded with too much—too many thoughts and emotions, revelations and separations. Too many years. Too much space. Everything expanded, straining at the seams, and then contracted, losing shape, losing form, until the moment hung between them, like a wobbly bubble ready to burst at the slightest shift.

“Where do you want the rest of these?” Nick Turner caught up to Skye and dropped the bags he was holding.

Damian felt himself snap back to reality. He had lost so much, and then gained so much—Sierra, Skye, within his reach, within his grasp—only to lose it all again. Skye might have had his baby, but she had gone back to Nick. And why not? She had dated him at one point. He was familiar and successful and stable. Her father had obviously approved. He was the lawyer who’d handled the case so he knew exactly what she’d been through. Had he accompanied her for Warren’s funeral? Been the shoulder she cried on, when Damian had shunned her in prison? How old had Sierra been then? A few months? Had they been together all along? Is that why Skye worked in the prison? As Nick’s partner, helping him with his cases? Had Nick stepped in and claimed Sierra?