Chapter Eighty-Three
They sit on the blanket in the tall grass on the hill.
Jules has her hair in a ponytail, her smooth skin glowing in the golden sunlight.
The grass moves with the breeze on the rare humidity-free day in Nebraska.
Quinn watches as she carefully removes sandwiches from the basket, bottles of the Italian water she loves.
She wears a Linkin Park concert T-shirt from Quinn’s dresser, which makes him smile because she has no clue about that band or any other.
It’s a Tuesday, but she awoke with a plan that they play hooky.
Much easier for him, since he’s a college student now.
While most twenty-seven-year-olds who attended university have long since graduated, Quinn’s finishing his freshman year, majoring in creative writing.
He can imagine Pat scoffing at the idea of majoring in stories.
It’s puzzling to him that he still thinks of his uncle, forgets for a second that he was a monster that Quinn never really knew.
He unwraps the cellophane and takes a bite of the turkey sandwich. “This is good,” he tells her.
Jules smiles, pleased. For all her talents, she’s not much of a chef and even sandwiches can be an eat-at-your-own-risk endeavor.
“You sure it’s okay that you’re not going into the office today?” he asks.
“Lucy and Carrie have it covered.” Jules lies back on the blanket putting her hands behind her head. “They’re actually meeting Jack for dinner tonight.”
The vestiges of May 1st remain.
“You’re not going?” Quinn asks. “You don’t have to skip it for me, I don’t care about my birthday, you should—”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Quinn Riley,” she says. “I want to spend today with you and you only.”
She sits up, retrieves something from the basket. A small box, gift wrapped in silver paper with a delicate string tied into a bow.
“You didn’t need to—”
“Open it.” She beams.
Quinn carefully unties the bow, tucks a finger under the Scotch tape, pulls softly to avoid tearing the paper, unfolds the end.
This apparently isn’t fast enough for Jules who scooches next to him and starts tearing at the paper.
Quinn lifts the rectangular lid of the box and inside finds a watch. His father’s old Timex. Its cracked face repaired.
“I hope you don’t mind. I found it in your drawer.”
Quinn doesn’t remove the watch from the box.
“I’d stopped wearing it.” After what Pat had said about his father, he didn’t want the daily reminder of Dad. The unanswered questions.
“I know. But you should. Wear it, I mean.”
“But what if he…”
“Everything you know about your father says that isn’t true. Your uncle was lying to try to save himself. The FBI found no evidence that … it’s a sick man’s red herring.” She holds his gaze. “I don’t want him taking anything else from us, much less the memory of your dad.”
Quinn removes the watch from the box. He isn’t sure he wants to wear it, but she’s gone to a lot of trouble. He puts it on.
She cups his face in her hands and kisses him.
“I want this day to be ours again,” she says. Grinning now, she says, “I have one more surprise.” Jules pulls a small cassette player from the basket, presses play. “The mixtape you gave me.” She’d kept it all these years. “Admit it, you made it for me.”
Quinn frowns playfully. “I’ll admit to nothing of the sort. And you still don’t know even one song, do you?” Eddie Vedder’s soulful voice floats in the air, singing about someday having a beautiful life.
Jules smiles again. “Well, I guess I should take off this concert T-shirt since I’m such a poser.”
She pulls the shirt over her head, removes her bra, then tugs him down into the tall grass.
“Alright, I confess,” he whispers, “I made it as a love letter…”
That afternoon, after the long drive, they walk the graveyard, Jules carrying a bundle of wildflowers. Jules reaches for his hand. Quinn’s hand in hers feels like home, to get corny about it.
“You’re really going all in on reclaiming the day,” he notes.
“You haven’t visited their graves since we got back from Italy.”
Jules isn’t sure that her plan for today is a good one. But she’s felt Quinn slipping lately, retreating into his head, and she’s learned that sometimes you just have to face the shit. Exposure therapy.
They find the plot. Quinn’s parents and his little brother. He lays the flowers at the base of Mom’s stone.
“Aren’t you going to say something? A tribute or a—”
“Jules, for goodness’ sakes.”
“Sorry.”
He stares at her with those intense eyes but she notices the slight curve of his lips upward. He doesn’t give a tribute or say anything, but he does take her hand again, swinging their arms as they leave.
“Gross,” Jules says with disgust, staring at a group of people who are posing for pictures in front of a headstone near the exit.
Megan Tucker’s grave.
“Serial-killer groupies,” she says. “I should go over there and remind them this isn’t an amusement park—”
“Hey,” Quinn says, squeezing her hand. “You said we need to reclaim the day.”
True. She decides to let it go.
At the rusted iron gate that leads out of the cemetery, a groundsman in dirty coveralls is smoking a cigarette. He has a portable trash can and one of those sticks you use to stab trash.
He’s shaking his head at the group surrounding Megan Tucker’s grave.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” Jules says, not letting it go.
“Been like this for a year. Ever since they caught that killer.” The groundsman doesn’t seem to recognize Jules or Quinn. It dawns on Jules for the first time that they should get out of there before one of the groupies sees them.
The caretaker throws the cigarette on the sidewalk, stomps it out, then stabs it with his trash stick. “Used to be just one fella who’d plant himself at that grave every year … now we got a bunch of kids, every day.”
Jules’s heart trips. “Pardon? What did you say?”
“Used to be a fella who’d spend nearly a full day there. Thought it was her dad or something.” Then the caretaker says something odd. “Yep. He’d go to that stone and the one over there by the fence.”
Quinn asks, “Which one by the fence?” Quinn has turned serious suddenly. “Can you show us?”
The caretaker guides them up the hill past old stones, some turned over, others painted with graffiti. Like this was the potter’s field of the cemetery—the place where the destitute were dumped in cheap coffins provided by the county. Not that the other parts are particularly extravagant.
“The one near the fence,” the groundsman points up the slope.
Quinn looks up and there’s only one headstone close to a rotting wooden fence.
“Guy was actually here this morning.”
Jules and Quinn look at one another but say nothing. Megan’s father, a notorious local drug dealer, died years ago. They thank the caretaker and quickly make their way up the hill.
Jules rushes ahead of him, squats to read the headstone.
“What? What’s it say?”
She wipes the stone with her hand, clearing a layer of filth.
“It says, ‘Tanya Smith, daughter of Wilma, sister of Beth, mother of John.’” Jules’s heart is beating faster. She looks at Quinn. Neither say it aloud.
Mother of John.
John Smith’s mother’s grave.
And the date of her death: May 1, 1967.
May 1st.