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Chapter Forty-Nine
Gina
Afew weeks after Joel’s death, I receive a letter in the mail. It is from a woman who says her name is Margo, and she wants to meet me at Great Oaks Cemetery the following Thursday at noon. She has something she would like to give me. She says she was a friend of Joel’s.
I don’t really feel like getting out of bed, much less going to my husband’s gravesite. It’s just another reminder that he's really gone.
But I go anyway.
At first I think she’s not going to show. It’s twenty-five minutes past noon, and I’m just sitting there under an oak tree, wishing I were anywhere else in the world. But then I see a small figure step out of the shadows and come into view.
Margo is a pretty woman, not much older than me. She’s wearing a long, yellow dress, and she has a determined, steady look in her eyes.
“I have to say,” she tells me, handing me a brown envelope. “You’re exactly what I expected.”
She sort of curtsies. “I’m Margo, by the way. But I’m sure you figured that.” She looks around. “Seeing as I’m the only other living person here.”
I tear open the envelope. Inside is a photo of Joel and me. He’s holding my hand, and the smile on his face is so infectious that it makes my heart ache. I remember having it taken at the barn dance the first time we met. I have a copy at home. It sits on the dresser beside my bed.
“How'd you get this?” I ask.
“Joel sent it to me,” Margo says.
“You said you were friends?”
“We worked together.”
“Of course.”
“I'm guessing you didn't know a lot about Joel's work.” She rocks on her heels. “What I know of your husband, he was a very private man.”
She seems like she's choosing her words carefully, like she's either skirting around something or feeling me out. I can't tell which it is. Maybe it's both.
“Joel dug graves.”
She smiles. “Yes. But he also helped people. I had the good fortune of being one of them.”
“Forgive me if I'm being forward, or presumptuous... but were you a lady of the night?”
Margo laughs at my choice of words. Then she presses her lips into a tight smile. “Something like that.”
“I see.”
“Joel helped me turn my life around. He told me that if anything ever happened to him, he wanted me to be okay. But more than that, he wantedyouto be okay.”
I don't know what to say or what this has to do with me or even why I'm here. I'd like to pretend I care, but I don't have it in me. The good days are when I feel nothing, and today seems to be one of those.
Margo looks at me with warm eyes. “I’m sure you're wondering what this has to do with you... and I'm sure you have better things you could be doing, so I'll get on with it.”
She takes a deep breath and continues. “Like I said, your husband helped a lot of people. He kept a lot of scum off the streets, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don't know what you mean.”
“Joel collected bounties,” she tells me, fidgeting with her dress. “That's how we met.”
“I see,” I say, but I don't see. Why wouldn’t Joel have told me this?
“He didn't want you to worry,” she says. “That was his biggest concern. He wrote to me about that a few times. He said if anything should happen to him, he never wanted you to have to worry.”
