Page 10 of We Already Dug the Grave

“I see her there in the afternoons sometimes. She’s quite a beauty. She looks exactly like Lilibet.”

My head snapped to attention. Hearing Mama’s first name would never not be a fist in my gut.

“Yes, she does. Both of my girls are beautiful.” A hand tapped the table before Hattie-May spoke again. “I mean it, Earline. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

My aunt’s footsteps snapped me out of my stupor, and I rushed back to the front door, opening it once again as if I was entering from the yard.

“You have something for me?” Hattie-May stared at me, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she knew exactly what I’d been doing. I schooled my heartbeat, my breathing.

“Ma’am?”

Her sparse brows raised, wrinkling her forehead. “My glasses, dearie?”

“Oh. Uh.” I tried for an innocent smile. “Couldn’t find them.”

“Huh. I swore I left them out there. Did you check by the bookshelf?”

“Uh. Yeah… Yes, ma’am.” The lie was sour on my tongue, and I had little doubt that Hattie-May knew I wasn’t being truthful. She let the fib slide.

She sighed. “I’ll go check. You finish up Earline’s reading.” And then she passed by me, whistling an old hymn I recognized as one she often sang while working in her greenhouse.

I come to the garden alone

While the dew is still on the roses

I listened to the fading sound as she shut the front door and walked into the yard. Then I did what I had to do. I pasted on a smile as if I’d heard nothing out of the ordinary and waltzed into the kitchen to begin my reading.

Later, after Mrs. Earline had gone, I wondered over what Aunt Ruth often said. How fate was fickle and malleable. How people could technically change the path laid out for them, though they rarely do. I wondered about the pain I’d seen plainly in Mrs. Earline’s fortune, and about the rumors whispered about Hattie-May and how I could possibly reconcile all of these things.

Then I turned on the tap, rinsed the old woman’s fortune down the drain, and prepared for my next client.

Chapter 3

Now

My roommate, Carla, was gone for the evening, probably out with her boyfriend. Her absence felt like another kind of sign. And as I slipped into my comfiest pajamas and pulled a half-empty bottle of Two Buck Chuck from the fridge, I knew I was about to do a stupid thing.

No. Not a stupid thing.

The stupid thing.

I pressed the bottle to my lips and took a deep swig.

Long time, no see, the message had read. And then that name. That impossible name.

I took another pull, grimacing as the sour burn slid down my throat. Getting buzzed off cheap, out-of-date wine gave me an excuse for reaching for the kettle. Everyone does dumb things when they’re tipsy, right? So what if I knew better than trying to read my own leaves? Who cares if in doing so, I was breaking my own heart? I’d chug the wine, then steep the tea, and conjure up my sister. Same old song.

I paced tight loops in my tiny living room, while thoughts paced loops in my mind. Who’d left that message? Why’d they left it? Was it connected to the body in Moss Grove?

How did they know where I was?

I wasn’t impossible to find if someone knew how to look. And for years I’d existed in a state of limbo, constantly waiting for the cops to show up and haul me off.

Time had muffled that fear. And now, a decade later, just as I’d made peace with my current life, the ghost of my past had finally caught up with me.

I downed another gulp of wine.

Then, I made myself a cup of tea.