Page 53 of Memories of the Lost

“Oh, baby.” Jon scooted from his side of the table over to hers and looped his arms around her.

“I’m sorry.” Tillie breathed. “This is all ... I just hate that I have to think about her in a new way now, when she doesn’t have a chance to defend herself. I love her. I don’t know how to be in the world without her, and I don’t want to be upset with her.”

He rubbed her arm, leaned his head into hers.

In the safety of his presence, Tillie let the bubble of grief rise. She saw Arlette last summer, picking tomatoes, her hair grown thin the past few years, but still long and woven into a skinny braid. She’d offered Tillie a perfect, deeply red tomato.It’s like a jewel, isn’t it?

After a minute, the bubble dispersed. She took a breath, leaned into Jon’s shoulder. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’re strong. You’d be okay.” He kissed her head and moved his chair back into place. “Let’s get some food in you.”

Once they’d eaten, which brought her flying emotions back into her body, she said, “Okay, let’s google my mother.”

“Sure?”

She nodded. Together, they bent over her phone as she typedArlette Morrissey.

There wasn’t much. The first three results were her obituary, which she’d written herself before she died.

Arlette Morrisey passed away peacefully in her home in Fox Crossing, New York, after a long illness. She is survived by her daughter, artist Tillie Morrisey.

Tillie always wondered why she’d left it so bare, but she would never have dared change it. Arlette would have risen from her grave to haunt her.

The next result was a hair salon. A lawyer in New Hampshire. An obituary for a woman in South Carolina in 2009.

Nothing else.

Jon said, “Google her name, the year of her birth, and the town she was born in.”

Nothing.

On impulse, Tillie googledValencia firestormand her mother’s name. The same story she’d read in print came up, but so did three others. Two led to a story obviously written in the first days after the fire, where she was listed as one of the victims, the mother of a toddler killed when the fire swept through her home. The family also lost two dogs.

Tillie repeated this aloud. “‘The family also lost two dogs.’” She shook her head. “But no mention of another child.” Something crept up her spine, dark and unidentifiable. “Where was I?”

“Are you sure you want to keep going down this road?”

“No.” She read the short story again. “But I can’t leave it now, can I? I have to find the truth.”

“Do you?”

“You know I do.” She clicked on the final result, which was a story about a list of plaintiffs who’d brought a lawsuit against a construction company that was liable for the initial fire. “Listen to this.” She read it to Jon. “The money was substantial.”

He googled the construction company and the lawsuit. “And it was settled for millions.”

Tillie divided the number of plaintiffs into the settlement. “My mother ended up with just under two million dollars.”

“A lot more then than it is now.”

“There’s the money she used to buy the farm,” she said. “But where was I? How do I find out?”

“Maybe you have to go to LA, talk to people there.”

“Ugh.” She pressed her face into her hands. “I have a show to finish. I can’t afford this right now!”

“You’re in good shape. You could take a few days, fly out there, see what you can find out ...”

“Or maybe I can do it online. Find numbers of people and just call them or something.”