Would sleeping with Hunter really be that bad? Sinclair walked down the road from the Breckenridges' house, plucking at the wild reeds growing from the roadside as she went. Her footsteps took her on the path to Hunter's house. Whether her mind was ready, her body was fully prepared to answer the question she'd just asked herself.
"Hey, there."
Sinclair jumped at the unexpected voice, then turned to see Della walking toward her. The woman looked fit in loose capri jeans and a salmon colored T-shirt tucked into its belted waistband. She carried a bunch of wildflowers in her hand. "Where are you heading?"
"Nowhere. I'm just killing time while Nikki is at work."
"Good. Then you can come with me."
"Where?"
"To see your mother." Della held up the flowers. "I'm going to take her some garden-grown sunshine." The older woman took Sinclair's hand. "Come on."
A controlled wilderness reigned in the cemetery. Beyond the tall, iron gates of Hilltop View Rest Home, vines tumbled from thick overhanging trees to trail the ground like green lace. Each tombstone lay distinct and well tended in the marble and granite jungle, protected by the trees except for where sunlight slid between the gaps in the natural canopy to light the names on the tombstones. Samuels. Belvedere. Chin. Sinclair.
The ground was soft near Beverly Sinclair, the grass, green and prickly against Sinclair's palms as she sat down next to Della. The older woman tucked her flowers into a vase built into the base of the headstone and arranged them neatly against the gray marble.
"The people here take real good care of the grounds. When they first put her here I was worried. But I'm glad all that was for nothing."
The grave was a narrow marble bed raised a half a foot off the ground, dark gray and new looking. Patches of tiny, crimson tea roses grew around her grave, as if someone had taken the trouble to plant them just so, then tend them year after year. Their bright heads lay in beautiful disarray against the marble.
"Hey, Bev. I brought your baby to see you." Della touched the grave as if it could feel. She turned to look at Sinclair. "I know that she's not really here, but I like having someplace where I can come and feel her presence."
Sinclair nodded. The lines marking her mother's name on the marble slab were still deep. Her fingers traced them. BEVERLY SINCLAIR. BELOVED. 1948-1985.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Because, if memory serves, they never allowed you to go to her funeral. You've never been up here."
No, Sinclair had never been to see her mother's grave. Too many of her nights had been spent wondering why she hadn't been with Beverly Sinclair that afternoon twenty years ago when she'd gone out to buy groceries on the town bus and ended up at the bottom of the gorge under two tons of twisted metal and steel. Her thirteen-year-old mind had been unable to grasp her mother's death for what it was. Sinclair remembered being told of her mother's absence, then asking who would iron her clothes for school the next morning. When her grandmother came to take her back to America less than a month later, she was still wondering where her mama was.
In the twenty years of living in America she'd healed from the violence of her mother's death, taken Beverly Sinclair's last name as her own-with her grandmother's blessing and even fit reasonably well into society. The memories of her mother, of her comforting Soft Sheen and baby powder scent, the warmth of her hand in Sinclair's, even the remembered taste of the hot chocolate she made in the mornings, were all Sinclair had needed. And now here was Della and the whispered hints of what Beverly Sinclair had really been like. She traced her mother's name again then silently turned away from the headstone. After all these years, did any of it really matter? Sinclair got up and walked a few feet away to lay in the grass, watching the powdery clouds shift above her. Nearby, Della whispered something to her dead lover, leaning closer to the deaf tombstone as the first trickles of raindrops began to fall.
