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Then Yuki bowed to her mother’s coffin.
I gripped Claire’s hand with my right hand, Cindy’s hand with my left, feeling my own grief well up in me as tears rolled down Yuki’s face.
“This is just the saddest damn day,” Claire said.
Chapter 42
I FOUND MY MOTHER’S GRAVE by walking east and south for ten minutes with a map in my hand, stepping around carved lions and angels, and ornate mausoleums, until I found the simple granite stone that I carried around like a weight in my heart.
The carved letters had darkened with almost fifteen years’ growth of lichen, but the legend was clear and indelible. Helen Boxer, wife of Martin, devoted mother to Lindsay and Catherine. 1939-1989.
A picture came to me of being a little kid, Mom making breakfast as she got ready for work, her yellow hair pinned up in a twist, pulling hot Pop-Tarts out of the toaster for me and Cat, burning her fingers and crying out “oooh-oooh-ooooh” to make us laugh.
On those days, workdays, I wouldn’t see her again until dark.
I remembered how my little sister and I would come home from school to an empty house. Me, making the mac-and-cheese dinners. Waking up at night to our mom screaming at Dad to shut his trap and let the girls sleep.
And I remember what it was like after my father left us: my mother’s beautiful, short-lived freedom from my father’s iron fist over all of us. She cut her hair into a flingy bob. Took singing lessons with Marci Weinstein, who lived down the street. Had six or seven years of what she called “breathing free”—before runaway breast cancer knocked her down.
I had a dim memory of standing at this very spot when Mom was buried, not having a shred of the grace or eloquence Yuki had shown today. I was mute, torn up with anger, bent on keeping my face turned so that I didn’t have to look at my father.
Now, sitting cross-legged beside my mother’s grave, I stared out at the autumn-brown hills of South San Francisco as an Alaska Air jetliner crossed overhead. I wished that my mother could see that Cat and I were both okay, that Cat was strong, that her little girls were smart and fine, and that my sister and I were friends again.
I wished I could tell her that being a cop had given my life meaning. I hadn’t always been sure of myself, but I think I had become the woman she would have wanted me to be.
I ran my hand over the curve of her headstone and said something that I didn’t often admit to myself.
“I really miss you, Mom. I wish that you were here. I wish I’d been sweeter to you when you were alive.”
Chapter 43
MY THOUGHTS FLITTED between love and death as I drove back from Colma to San Francisco. Images kept coming to me of the people I’d loved deeply who had died.
Lights glinted on the Bay Bridge as I entered the city and threaded my way through the narrow, rising streets of Potrero Hill.
I parked the Explorer a few houses down from mine, thinking ahead to my small chores and pleasures, ready to settle in for the night.
I had my keys in hand, about to open the front door, when I heard Martha’s distinctive bark coming from outside the house!
It couldn’t be, because it made no sense.
Was I crazy?
Or had Martha somehow slipped out the door when I left this morning for the funeral?
I whipped my head around, listening intently, frantically sweeping the street with my eyes.
Then I saw my doggy leaning out of the passenger-side window of a black sedan that had pulled up to the curb and was parked behind my car.
I was overwhelmed with gratitude. A good Samaritan had found her and brought her home.
I peered in through the car’s open window to thank the driver for bringing my girl back—and my heart almost stopped.
How could I have forgotten?
It was Joe.
Chapter 44
