I raise the phone to my ear. “What is this?”
“This is where you dig.” The phone clicks off.
Dig.The word leaves me shaken. They’re watching me. I can feel their gaze boring through my skin as I trudge higher toward the cross. The man with the blue eyes is out there somewhere. Maybe Gunn and Holston, too. But I can’t see them, can’t see anything except the meadow draped in the soft light of the slowly setting sun.
I pause at the top of the hill, my palms sweating as I grip the shovel. I don’t want to dig, don’t want to uncover whatever they buried here for me to find. It takes everything I have to heave the first shovel full of dirt to the side. The earth is loose and comes free easily. I follow it with another shovel full, and another, digging as a floating sensation overtakes me. It’s like I’m hanging above myself, looking down as the hole grows deeper and wider, the dirt rising to the side.
Thunk.
The shovel strikes something solid, and the vibration carries up my arms. I bend and scrape away handfuls of soil, heaving it out with both hands. Beneath the grime is a brown, mirror-smooth surface. Richly grained. Shining and wet. It’s a casket. One that’s too small to belong to Avery.
But not too small to belong to a baby.
Christ, help me.
I push back to my feet, frantic, and scoop free thick shovelfuls of clay until I can see the entire thing. My arms feel like rubber by the time I reach down and take hold of the casket and drag it free. And then I drop to my knees and stare at it—unable to move. The casket is about two feet long and one foot wide, with a silver plate stamped in the center. On the plate is an inscription partially concealed by dirt, which I brush off. And then I read.
To everything there is a season:
A time to weep, a time to mourn.
A time to lose, a time for war.
A time to kill, a time to hate.
A time to die, die, die, die.
It’s a verse from Ecclesiastes and the lyrics to a song by the Byrds. I know them both by heart, but this—what I’m staring at right now—is all wrong. The words are garbled and out of order—no positive counterbalance to the negative. No, a time to be born or a time to heal. Not a time to laugh or a time of peace. Just a mangled version of the original verse repurposed in a warning. Especially the last line which doesn’t belong at all. It makes me want to run and never look back because I know what I’ll find inside when I open the lid.
But I can’t run. I have to look. I don’t have a choice.
I reach for the latch with trembling fingers, feeling sick, and it takes all the strength I have left to flip it up and lift.
The lid rises, my breath leaving my body as I peer at what lies inside.
There is a dark crimson pall.
And a snow-white satin pillow.
But there is no body. No alien-eyed, bleeding fetus the size of a plum.
No child.
Tears fill my eyes as relief pours through me. It means Avery is alive, that my baby isstillalive. Maybe. I don’t know for sure, but the thought is a lifeline I use to pull myself back to the moment. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and study what the casket contains. There’s a stuffed bear with fur I can tell was once white but has gone brown with age. One eye is scuffed, the other hangs by a thread. Placed next to the bear is a child’s Captain America mask along with several Avengers figurines. And there are pictures. Pictureseverywhere—scattered throughout the coffin.
I pick one up. It’s a photo of a boy with straw-blond hair and wide, bright eyes. He’s looking up at the camera with a shy smile painted on his face and his hands stuffed in his pockets. There are more. A picture of the same boy on a swing set. Another of him eating a sandwich, his lips coated in jam. Several photos show the boy as an infant, and then as a toddler, his face shining like a star. There are images of him racing over a green lawn wearing the Captain America mask. There are pictures of him posing with the captain’s plastic shield.
But these aren’t the only photos in the coffin. There are shots of a man as well. He has the features of someone perpetually young. His thick brown hair swoops low over his eyebrows. His cheeks are full and dimpled, split by a straight but rounded nose. He has a smile that’s wide and infectious. The smile of a guy who looks like he’d be fun to grab a beer with sometime. The same smile as the boy’s. This man must be his father, and as soon as I make that connection, all I can think is,what the fuck is going on?I turn my attention to the last item in the coffin—a box resting on the pillow wrapped in satin-black paper and tied with a silver bow. There’s a card in a white envelope pressed beneath the bow that reads,Open Me. I take it, slide it out, and read.
Hello, Grant.
Or should I call you Adrian? Or Logan or Miles? Lucas?
Or maybe I’ll just use your real name, Reed.
Three and a half years ago, you took everything from me.
Today, I will take everything from you.
