Perri said, “I’d like to go get my car. Come over and have dinner about six, will that work?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I think I’m going to set up a mentorship program in David’s name. Something to help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds get into the software business.” He had been the CEO of two software start-ups, one that had succeeded and one that had failed, but he had recovered quickly from that business setback. She had been scared they’d lose the house, but Cal quickly found a new calling. Now Cal worked independently, did private venture-capital investments across the country. He said that was where the real money was. If David had lived, his father’s solo investment practice could have been his. She looked out the window again. So much squandered, so much gone.
“That’s a lovely way to remember him.” She told herself not to cry.
He pulled up next to her Lexus in the Baconery parking lot. “I’ll see you at six. I’ll bring some wine.”
“That sounds fine.” She leaned over and hugged him. She hoped he wouldn’t see it as encouragement for more. He didn’t really hug back. Then she got into her car and waited for him to drive off.
She didn’t drive back to the house they’d once shared.
She stopped at a store to buy cleaning supplies and then drove back to the cemetery.
She returned to David’s grave and knelt on the cool grass. She sprayed cleaner onto the stone and began to scrub away at the smear left by the unwanted words.
“Baby,” she whispered to David as she cleaned. “I miss you so much. What is this, this garbage written on your stone? Who did this?”
She felt better with the stone clean. Perri spoke quietly to the grave, about her days, about what his friends were doing—although she heard a bit now and then about Kamala Grayson and Trevor Blinn and a few others, she found if she thought too much about the joys of their ongoing lives in college, the knot in her heart started to tighten.
She heard the car approaching, resenting its intrusion, then she glanced up. A sedan drove on the road that lay parallel to David’s grave on the right, slowing, then speeding up, and in the backseat window she saw Jane Norton staring back at her.
Something broke in Perri.
Jane leaned forward and spoke to the driver. The car zoomed forward, but to get out of Memorial Heights, it had to follow a U-bend, and Perri found herself running to the left, intercepting the car as it snaked in its turn to leave. She reached the one-way road before it did and she stood square in the middle, hands up. The car slowed. The driver—an older woman with curling gray hair—leaned her head out and said, “Excuse me, ma’am.”
Jane Norton had no reason to see what her stupidity, her thoughtlessness, her recklessness had done. Perri stormed toward the car, fury in her face. She opened the door as Jane tried to lock it.
“Why are you here?” she screamed at Jane as she pulled her from the car.
“I’m calling the police,” the driver yelled, holding up a smartphone.
“No, don’t,” Jane said, and Perri wasn’t sure if the girl was yelling at her or at the driver. Perri thought, She looks horrible. Maybe she really is homeless.
“You want to see him? You want to say something to him?” Perri said. “Were you here already, writing garbage on his gravestone?”
Jane’s face was pale. “What? Please, just let me leave…”
“Oh, no, come say hello. Come see what you did.” She had one hand in the girl’s hair, one on her arm, and she hauled Jane across the cool, immaculate grass toward David’s grave. “Honey, look who’s here: Jane. You remember Jane. She killed you.”
“Mrs. Hall, stop it…” She had the gall to try and pull away.
Perri struck Jane’s face with a slap without thinking, shoved Jane to the grass.
“I didn’t know you would be here…” Jane said.
The words were like a blow to the face. “Where else did you think I would be? Manicure? Shopping? I am here even when I’m not here. He’s never far from my thoughts. You took him from me, and you didn’t think I would be here, especially today?”
Jane had her palms pressed against the grave, heaving, and then she glanced back over her shoulder at Perri, tears streaking her face. “I’m sorry…I can only say it so many times.”
“Is that what your mother told you? If you said sorry enough, I’d forgive you?”
Jane said, “What do you want from me? I can’t bring him back. Can’t we both just miss him?”
Shuddering, Perri turned and staggered away from Jane. She fell to her knees on another grave belonging to someone else’s child, mother, sister, loved one. “Please, don’t ever come back here again. I don’t want you here.”
“The police are on their way right now!” the driver screamed across the quiet of the graves, still holding the phone, aiming it at them.
Perri Hall froze. What…what am I doing? Laying hands on a brain-injured young woman on David’s grave. The fury began to fade but not the hate. It was like a seed she could feel planted in her, a dark vine that would grow, take on its own life if she let it. It was a hatred that could blossom into obsession. And for an awful moment, she wanted to let it. Jane had never paid for what she’d done to David. Never.
A siren sounded in the distance.
“Mrs. Hall.” Jane stood over her, eyes reddened.
Frozen spoons will fix that, Perri thought.
Jane’s hair was more disheveled than before.
Did I do that? Perri wondered. Oh. Yes, I marched her by her hair.
Jane picked up the ugly sunglasses that Perri had knocked off her face and put them back on. “The police will be here in a minute. I’m going back to my ride to wait for them. I have a witness. I could press charges.”
Perri said nothing. She just wanted to cry, curl up, and wait to die. She had been so careful and controlled this morning. Jane had undone her.
“Could press charges. You get me?”
“Just go,” Perri said.
Jane stood up and headed back toward the car. Now a patrol car, its lights flashing, pulled up next to the driver, who was waving it down and pointing at the two of them.
Slowly Perri got to her feet.
“Ladies,” the police officer who was getting out of the patrol car said, taking in Perri’s perfect suit and Jane’s rumpled clothes, “what’s going on here?” The officer was young, female, hair pulled back in a severe bun.
“That crazy woman,” the driver said, pointing at Perri, “attacked my fare. She dragged her from my car.”
“A misunderstanding,” Jane said. “She doesn’t want me visiting her son’s grave. So I won’t. And if you’re not arresting me, then I’m leaving.” Jane got into the car, the driver followed, and the car zoomed off. The officer didn’t stop them.
Perri watched them go. She shivered. The fury was gone and now there was just the emptiness, a hole in her heart.