Chapter 44 Emily
EMILY
Emily sits on the edge of the bed at her hotel, a lovely little historic inn in Bayfield, with creaky, uneven floorboards and tall, bright windows looking out onto the leafy main street.
She runs her hand over the quilted bedspread, takes a moment to ground herself as she feels the stitching beneath her fingers.
It would be an inconvenient time for the panic attack she can feel building.
It’s just simmering, but at least, after so many years of therapy, Emily has the tools now to prevent it from overtaking her.
“Thank you,” she says. She takes three deep breaths in succession, then stands and moves into the bathroom to finish getting ready for Annie’s reburial.
Rachel Mackenzie had called her a few weeks ago to let her know that the case was now considered closed, and that she’d spoken with Annie’s son, Gregory, about his wishes for the remains.
He requested they be cremated and buried in the plot with Helen and Richard Sharrock.
Emily thought that plan not only made the most sense, but was certainly what Annie—and Helen—would have wanted.
Gregory had called Emily the following day to ask if she would please attend.
She wants to, but the experience isn’t without its emotional hurdles.
She’s had twice-weekly therapy sessions in the interim to deal with the mess of emotion and trauma this business with the police has churned up.
But her therapist has assured her this is a huge step for getting the necessary closure on Annie’s death, that the reburial is an opportunity to put it all to bed.
She’s struggled for decades with guilt that she caused it.
No one else seems to see it that way, though—not Doris, Howard, her family, not even Gregory.
They’d had another chat when he called a few weeks ago.
He had some follow-up questions from their conversation with the detectives, and Emily was happy to give him whatever she could.
But he refused to hear any sense of responsibility on Emily’s part.
“That place had been trying to kill her for fifteen years before you arrived, Ms. Radcliffe,” he’d said. “You were doing what you could to get her released so she could come be my mother again. There’s no shame in that.”
Emily slicks on a muted dark-pink lipstick—the only makeup she ever wears—and gives her hair one final spray to help ward off the humidity. She steps out of the bathroom to find Howard whisking the sleeve of his jacket with a lint brush.
“You’re going to bake in that, I’m afraid,” Emily says with a frown.
She herself is wearing a green floral dress with a light cardigan over top.
She’s never been a particularly vain person, but she can’t do sleeveless anymore, not since the skin on her upper arms decided to give up clinging to the muscles beneath, preferring instead to sag.
She lets the few varicose veins in her legs have their moment in the sun, though.
She liberated herself from pantyhose in 1982 and never looked back.
“I know,” Howard says quietly, “but it’s like a funeral, isn’t it? Closest thing to one. It doesn’t feel right to just go in shirtsleeves.”
Emily nods. “That’s very honourable of you.” She offers the best smile she can manage while feeling as though she might vomit. “Thanks for coming, sweetheart.”
“Of course.” He embraces her, and she homes in on his heartbeat, the scent of his aftershave, the prickles of the suit jacket under her fingers, the warmth of his body beneath the fabric.
“Do you have the magazine?” he asks as they pull apart.
Gregory had asked her for a copy of it. Fortunately, Emily’s kept an entire box of them since 1962.
“Yes, in my bag here.”
They drive the ten minutes into Millgate with directions provided by the hotel receptionist. Halfway there, Emily spots a market stall at the side of the road near a long country laneway.
“Oh! Honey, can you pull over there?”
He obliges, and Emily seizes her purse from the floor and gets out, returning a few minutes later with two quarts of fresh strawberries.
They arrive in Millgate and find the cemetery; easy, as the town is so small and the park-like cemetery appears to be the centre of it.
Howard drives into a gravel lot beside the church and parks next to a police car, leaving their sedan running for the air conditioning.
He turns to face her, searching her eyes.
“I’m ready,” she says, already blinking fast. “I am. This is good.”
Emily loops her arm through his as they walk over to the small crowd of people clustered around a headstone on the northwest corner of the cemetery.
She’s holding one of the quarts of strawberries in one hand as her purse dangles from the other arm.
The smell of the fruit fills Emily’s nostrils and a bee lands on top of the juicy red pile, investigates, then flies off to tell its friends.
As they approach, she spots Detective Mackenzie and her junior, both with their arms crossed over their chests.
Mackenzie is in conversation with a man wearing a minister’s stole.
He says something and she responds, smiling genially.
It might be the first time Emily’s seen her smile.
It’s a good one, it reaches her eyes, but Emily gets the sense she doesn’t exercise it much.
Off to the side, nearer the headstone, are Gregory Little and his daughter, Annie, along with a rather surly-looking, stooped teenage boy and a curvy woman who must be Gregory’s son and wife.
They’re all dressed in shades of purple, even the boy, who tugs uncomfortably at the collar of his eggplant-coloured dress shirt.
Gregory looks up at Emily’s approach and smiles a little sadly.
“Emily.” He greets her with an enthusiastic embrace that nearly triggers her tears, then introduces his wife and son.
“And this is my husband, Howard,” Emily says.
They shake, then she holds up the strawberries.
“I spied them at a stall on the way here. For all I know, maybe that was the same farm stand your grandmother used to get them from, for her jam. I’d like to think so, anyway.
” She pauses. “May I ask why all the purple?”
“It was her favourite colour, my grandmother said,” Gregory tells her. “Did you know that?”
She shakes her head. “No. But now I do. Thank you.”
Without a word, they all move into a semicircle around the stone.
A hole has been dug in the earth there. A pewter urn rests beside it, and Emily’s breath catches at the sight, her heart suddenly tight.
She kneels to set the quart of strawberries next to the stone where Annie’s parents’ names and dates are etched, and below them, a recent addition:
ANNIE SHARROCK LITTLE
Apr 15, 1926—Dec 18, 1961
Mother, daughter & friend
Emily kisses her fingers and touches them to Annie’s name, then rises and takes her place again beside Howard, who reaches for her hand.
She watches through shining eyes as Annie’s son and granddaughter lower the urn into the grave, then place their bouquet of purple irises at the base of the stone.
Emily wipes away a tear as Gregory makes his way over to her.
“Thank you, Emily. For coming today. And for being her friend when she had no one else.”
Emily nods, but can’t speak. Howard squeezes her hand, and she steadies herself on the grounding pressure.
“I know this is what my grandmother wanted,” Gregory says. “I think she’d be happy. And my mom, too.”
The leaves sigh in the warm summer breeze as birds twitter from the branches above.
The sparrows sing to their newborn babies songs of the wide and never-ending world, of the liberty that is their birthright, in all its complexity, its joys and sorrows and horrific dangers.
And they only wish what all good mothers do: that their babies’ wings should grow strong, their sense of direction true, and that any suffering be minimal.
And in that moment, Emily knows they are posthumously fulfilling Helen Sharrock’s greatest wish: to have her baby fly back home to the warm and protective wings of her mother.
“All Annie wanted was to be free again,” Emily says, finally able to get the words out. “To be free, and reunited with you, Greg. To be back in this place that she loved so much.”
“So I guess, in a way, she has all of those things now,” Gregory says. He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you think she’s looking down on us?”
His eyes reflect the same complicated peace that Emily feels within herself now that Annie is at rest. But there’s a desperation there, too. A longing to believe that some part of his mother might still be watching over him.
Emily reaches for his hand now, clasps it firmly. Her eyes move to Gregory’s daughter, who so resembles Annie that it still takes Emily’s breath away to see her. And she remembers that Annie is alive in Gregory, and his children. She lives on in them.
As for her spirit? Emily doesn’t know. But she finds she’s all right with that, because the uncertainty at least allows room for a comforting wish.
She smiles at Gregory. “I hope,” she tells him. “With all of my heart, I hope.”