Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Penny
I tangle my hand in Cooper’s as we walk through the cemetery.
We drove south early this morning, checking into a hotel near where I used to live. Being back in Tempe, a place I used to know so well, is strange. We got lunch at a café I’d go to with friends after school. The rose latte is still on the menu. Still delicious, too. At first, I was convinced that someone from my old life would walk through the door, but as time went on without some horribly awkward encounter, I relaxed. It ended up being nice, even though I have a knot in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon that formed once we crossed city lines. At least it’s been hard to think of Preston—or really any part of that situation—when I have Cooper by my side.
I’m wearing a sundress with my old Birkenstocks to the cemetery, hair loose around my shoulders. When I stared at the options in my suitcase, everything felt just a little wrong. Cooper noticed my stare, the way I was digging my teeth into my lip until it hurt, and wordlessly held up one of my favorite dresses. He tugged it over my head and kissed me soundly as he fixed my hair.
Now, he lets me set the pace down the path. I still know the way, years removed from the burial.
Before we left the hotel room, I slipped a poem into my bag. I did a poetry unit during my creative writing class last semester, and while poetry definitely isn’t my thing, I wrote one semi-decent one, “Desert Rose,” about Mom.
Maybe some part of her will be able to hear it if I read it aloud.
I don’t know what to expect. During the funeral, I was too stunned to cry. The two times I visited before we left Arizona, I did cry, but I didn’t say much. I just stood and looked at the headstone, at the whole sea of them broken up only by cacti and trees, and felt a well of sadness so deep, I had no desire to dive for the bottom.
I take a deep breath.
This is different. I have the love of my life by my side. Marriage might not be on the table yet, but it’s our future. I have flowers in my hands and a poem in my purse. My poem.
She’d like what I’m doing now. The future I’m trying to create. I wish she could experience it all with me, but I have to hope that part of her soul lingers. That she’s able to see all I’ve done and all I will do.
I rub the skin around the bandage on my wrist, where my new tattoo is healing. We found an open tattoo parlor last night and didn’t hesitate when the owner said she could squeeze us in. Two tiny tattoos, one on my wrist and one on his. I love you , written in the pretty, curved script that Cooper described as Tengwar, spelling out the phrase in Sindarin. We could have gotten the same phrase in English, or another spoken language, but this felt right. It felt like us.
We come to the right curve in the path. My feet feel like a pair of bricks; I can barely force them up.
A couple more steps.
A palo verde tree with a twisted trunk.
I stop and force myself to look at the headstone. “Hi, Momma.”