Chapter Four
Despite being able to see her breath, the physical exertion of carrying all of the trash bags to Margaret Spence’s grave had resulted in Lee Holmes expelling the black band hoodie she had borrowed from Morgan in order to cool down.
Wearing just a black T-shirt and equally black jeans now, having changed out of her red dress earlier, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and took a seat on the short patch of grass to the left beside Morgan, whom of which was currently shoveling away at the soil where Margaret Spence had been laid to rest. Morgan's denim jacket had been discarded simultaneously, revealing a white tank top underneath that highlighted the tattoos on her arms, even in the dark. “I can’t believe you didn’t think about wearing black, babe.
You’re like a lighthouse navigating sailors to land right now,” Lee commented as she plucked out a few strands of grass from the ground.
Morgan Finch snickered, throwing dirt outside of the hole she was digging, adding to the growing pile on her right. “I wasn’t planning on taking my jacket off. This is just so fucking exhausting. I can take my tank top off too if you think that it sticks out too much.”
Lee rolled her eyes as if Morgan was looking at her directly, lifting her knees towards her chin in order to get more comfortable.
“I can’t believe that you’re flirting with me right now.
I can only hope that ghosts aren’t real and that Margaret Spence doesn’t haunt the both of us for desecrating both her memory and her grave with your crude remarks. ”
The sound of the shovel hitting wood spurred them both into motion, their conversation a thing of the past as Lee lifted herself from the ground and stood beside Morgan who placed the shovel down beside the newly formed mound of dirt with a satisfied exhale.
“That was far deeper than I expected, and no, I’m not going to make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke about my own comment. No matter how much I want to.”
Wasting no time, Lee Holmes escorted herself to the closest trash bag, rolling it closer towards the open grave in preparation.
“You technically just did. You just phrased it in a way that allowed you to make it without seeming like an insensitive asshole. Remove the rest of the dirt, please, so we can get this over with and go home.”
Home—the thought of going home, where everything had unfolded, made Lee feel ill, and yet at the same time, the idea of staying in the cemetary made her feel equally nauseous.
If it wasn’t for a certain type of behavior being unconventional, such as texting Natalie at 1:00am on her five-year anniversary with Morgan and asking her if she really could stay over, or walking into a hotel and checking in at the front desk potentially stinking of blood, she would remain in her emotional purgatory forever, between her home and the feeling she was terrified to face head-on.
For now, she was simply riding a wave and hoping that it didn’t swallow her whole.
Morgan Finch did as instructed, crouching down as she leaned forwards into the dirt hole she had dug in order to drag the soil away with her gloved hands.
Her breathing became deeper in unison with her girlfriend’s as Lee shifted another bag closer towards the grave.
Each shift in the soil revealed more and more texture underneath—a mahogany wooden box with golden handles attached to the sides.
Uncovering the grave was like a morbid form of archeology, Lee thought, only an archeological dig that had been conducted hundreds of years too soon.
Or perhaps, one that should never be conducted at all.
“There it is,” Morgan observed, sweat beading off her forehead now as she pulled herself up from the ground.
Retrieving her shovel now, she wedged it into one of the corners of the coffin and pulled.
“Fuck, this is diabolical, even for me.”
As Morgan grunted her way through multiple attempts at prying open the coffin, Lee had taken it upon herself to roll all of the trash bags within a meter of the open grave.
After many deep breaths to regain her composure, she made it her final mission to retrieve the spray bottle a few feet away from the grave, filled with the various oils that she had crafted to mask the smell.
By the time the coffin had finally opened, Lee had practically emptied the bottle of oils into each of the respective bags.
Lee Holmes had expected to be met with another pungent smell as the casket lay open just a few steps away, and yet, to her surprise, her senses were filled instead with only the lingering scent of lemon and eucalyptus oil.
Margaret Spence had yet to decay, her body still fresh, and if Lee didn’t know any better, she would say that the woman was merely asleep, a half-smile painted on her face.
A wild-eyed Morgan stood firmly in place, her attention focused solely on what, or rather, who, lay inside the coffin.
“Maybe we should say some words for Margaret after we’re through here. ”
Morgan didn’t make any attempt to look away when she spoke, as if frozen in time, drenched in thought, and sweat. “Of course. I think we owe her that much,” Lee offered, as she watched her girlfriend exhale a sigh of relief at the confirmation. “I’ll start rolling the bags in when you’re ready.”
Sputtering into motion again not unlike a wind-up toy, Morgan shook her head. “Let me do it. I owe you that much, too.”
She moved herself over towards the bags before Lee could argue, positioning the first one beside the right-hand side of the coffin as she rolled it into the casket with a grunt.
As each bag shifted out of Lee’s line of view, her body eased up bit by bit, the tension gradually loosening upon each of her joints as she allowed herself the gratification of an exhale.
When the act was brought to completion, Morgan retrieved the shovel a final time, moving the dirt with force, dragging each mound of soil in rapid succession towards its original space.
With little to do except wait, Lee Holmes glanced at her watch, observing the time to now be a little after 2:00am.
With the act fulfilled to completion, the shovel hit the ground with a soft thud against the grass whilst rugged, uncontrollable breaths fell from Morgan Finch.
Lee noted that whilst the grave did not look exactly identical to how they had found it originally, it was damn-near close, like looking at a twin instead of a mirror.
She nodded to herself in approval, grateful that the night was nearly over, or perhaps not grateful at all, she wasn’t sure.
For now, she was in her emotional purgatory, and waking up to a new day could very well alter that completely.
“Would you like to say some words, baby?” Lee muttered quietly, as if the words may spook Morgan out of the trance she had committed herself to.
Morgan Finch remained solely focused upon the newly-covered grave, her sly remarks a distant memory. For a fraction of a second, Lee debated as to whether her girlfriend had even heard her at all, until she ushered back just as quietly a simple “sure.”
Lee took her place beside Morgan, now, placing a gloved hand against her back, adding further stains to Morgan’s white tank top presently covered in dirt.
As the silence lingered for a few moments, Lee debated as to whether to begin the speech herself, only for Morgan to chime in seconds later.
“Margaret Spence—you were someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s friend.
I won’t disrespect you any further by pretending I know anything about you, but I’m sure that there are people out there that smile upon hearing your name.
You will be remembered by myself, and Lee, but more importantly, by the loved ones you left behind.
I’m sorry for what unfolded here tonight.
We can’t expect your forgiveness, but we do hope that you can still rest easy now. ”
Lee Holmes silently wished that she could rest easy after this, too, but after Morgan’s speech, she wasn’t so sure that she deserved to.
“Let's leave her be now, babe. Don’t forget your jacket. Once we’ve burned the boxes and stopped by the thrift store, it might even be preferable if we act slightly drunk for the sake of the CCTV in our apartment complex just in case we need to present a reason, other than our charity donation, for being out so late as our alibi. It is our anniversary, after all.”
“I’d happily down a whole bottle of whiskey right now and not have to act at all, honestly,” Morgan commented, sounding sullen, as she grabbed her jacket from the grass alongside the shovel whilst Lee retrieved the empty spray bottle on the opposing side of the grave.
It was strange, Lee thought, how the emotions rippled from Morgan whilst she herself remained completely vacant.
The acts that Morgan had committed prior at their apartment seemed far more worthy of guilt, and yet it was clear at that moment that the culpability she felt lay solely for Margaret Spence.
The both of them departed from Margaret’s grave in silence as they made their way back to the car.
With all their energy depleted, climbing over the fence seemed a much more arduous task than it had previously, but as the pair worked through their exhaustion, they exhaled a sigh of relief in unison as they stared through the metal fencing to the cemetery that was now on the other side.
After opening the trunk of the car, they set the used boxes alight with Morgan’s metal cigarette lighter upon the stone path as the pair watched them burn.
As the fire crumbled each box into ash, Morgan used the same lighter to spark a cigarette from her jacket pocket; the same jacket that was now, fortunately, covering her dirty white tank top. “You want one?”
Lee Holmes had never smoked for the entirety of their relationship, and yet, it appeared that such a declaration never seemed to matter.
Morgan would always offer, and Lee would continue to say no.
Shaking her head, Lee Holmes retrieved the shovel from Morgan’s other hand, dragging some of the ashes into the grass beside the fence, grateful that it was overgrown.
“I presume you have the common sense to take that cigarette with you.”
Morgan Finch exhaled a puff of smoke into the crisp air.
“I was planning on it. Speaking of planning, I wish we’d have thought beforehand about the massive fucking burn mark these boxes would leave on path,” she said, half of the sentence partially shrouded by the cigarette as she perched it back inside of her mouth.
Lee shrugged her shoulders, her eyes slightly scrunched together whilst she devised another plan.
“At least we’re not standing beside the grave anymore.
Light a few more cigarettes, without putting them in your mouth,” she emphasized, “and leave them on the ground so that it just looks like teens were here smoking and setting fire to things or something.”
As instructed, Morgan did exactly that, focusing her attention on each cigarette as it burned. Lee knew Morgan well enough by now to know that a heavy focus like this could only mean that she was temporarily lost to the outside world—a dissociation that she herself wished she could adopt.
“One more stop,” Lee commented, expelling Morgan from her detached state, opening the trunk and placing the shovel and spray bottle inside, dropping the last remaining remnants of the concoction into the interior.
“We’ll have to clean this mess up as well,” she continued, motioning towards the stains that had settled on the carpet of the trunk.
Morgan nodded, removing her gloves from her sweaty palms as she climbed into the driver's side of the car, awaiting Lee’s arrival on the passenger side. “Time to give away your teapot.”
The car roared to life as Morgan placed the key into the ignition. Meanwhile, Lee placed her seatbelt into its buckle with a satisfying click. “I told you that I don’t want to give away my pot, Morgan.”
Her girlfriend looked over at her, a glint in her eye as the car began to roll down the concrete path. “And I’m telling you it’s good karma.”