Page 197 of Wild Embers
What is this? Military training?
When I exit the bathroom, they’ve changed into all black outfits as well.
Santiago looks around at all of us and beams. “I feel like we need to get some eye black to paint a line under our eyes to complete the look.”
“I’m willing,” Levi says, raising his hand.
“I’m not,” Walker returns with a glare.
“I’ll do it if you tell me where we’re going,” I negotiate.
Walker looks relieved. “Two versus two. No eye black.”
“You’ll both do it anyway,” Santiago says confidently.
Santiago ends up being right. In the car on the way to the undisclosed location, he wears Walker and me down into putting on the eye black, which Santiago had in his pocket the whole time.
When we turn down a road I’ve avoided for twenty-three years, my chest tightens.
They wouldn’t take me there. It’s not exactly a date night location.
But then we take a right turn into the parking lot. My palms grow clammy, and my pulse races.
Levi parks his truck and shuts off the engine. Santiago and Levi turn in their seats to look at me. Walker’s hand moves across the back seat and grasps my own.
My eyes stare out the windshield toward the field, sparse with trees. “I don’t want to be here,” I whisper. “I don’t want to see him.”
Walker squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to.”
I can’t do this. I don’t want to.
But why did they bring me here? What’s the point?
He does not control me. I am stronger now.
I repeat the mantra until my muscles allow me to move. Slowly, I climb out of the cab and move to the front of the car. The guys meet me there.
Levi and Santiago each grab one of my hands, while Walker stands behind me. They don’t move a muscle until I lift my foot to step forward, and we make our way across Evergreen Falls Cemetery.
Old snow crunches beneath our boots. Bare cottonwoods stand watch over the dead, their skeletal branches creaking whenever the wind stirs. Dozens of footprints from loved ones who have been here recently are scattered among the granite headstones. The lettering on many of the headstones is softened beneath caps of snow, their families and friends not having visited in some time. The cold settles deep in my lungs with each breath.
The farther we walk, the quieter the world becomes. Even the wind seems to die. Every footstep in the snow feels too loud.
Too final.
Like the dead are listening.
I don’t need anyone to tell me which grave we’re headed to. My body remembers the way, even though I haven’t been here since I was seven years old.
The headstone we stop at is a polished black granite. Dirt and snow cover part of his name. I reach forward and brush it away.
Landon Kurt Jennings.
Loving husband and father
A bitter laugh catches in my throat.
Loving.
