I go through to the door that Ryan always leaves unlocked for us girls to sneak out of. It’s probably sacrilege, but I offer up a prayer of thanks when the door pushes open. The backyard is more like a thin strip of land; if I lay flat in it, one hand could touch the building and the other could touch the fence. Because it’s so small and fenced off from the front, the nuns apparently don’t think us girls use it. The back fence is nothing like the cold black iron bars of the front. The back is cement blocks and, while definitely tall, they still are only about four and a half feet. Ryan has brought out some more blocks for us to stand on, and once I climb on those, I can jump over the fence.
It’s crazy, and I shouldn’t be tempting fate this soon, but I’m not running away to Bantam. I won’t see Skull again. I don’t want to put his life in danger. No. This time, I’m just having a meltdown. So I go to the one place that makes me feel real.
Gethsemane Gardens Cemetery. It’s a huge local cemetery that you can’t walk by without seeing several tents up of people that have passed on and are being buried. I go here once a week, but not to visit my mom or Edmund. Their plots are on the other end far away from the small grave I visit. I walk by the manmade pond, which has swans swimming in it, then go to the third grave on the left. It’s a seemingly unimportant grave marked only by a small nondescript gravestone, yet it means everything to me.
Katie Benson. Daughter and Sister.
“Bethie? Do you ever wonder if we’ll marry someone like our dad someday?”
“Not me. I’m never going to marry someone like our dad. The guy I marry will be kind and sweet. He’ll have pretty green eyes that sparkle and he will laugh. He’ll like rainbows and ponies and, most of all, he’ll like me. And when he has a little girl, he’ll make sure he hugs her and plays with her. What about you, Katie?”
“I’m not getting married. I’ll use a man for sex and that’s it.”
“Katie!”
“What? That’s what mom says men are only good for.”
“What’s sex?”
“I think it’s where you hug and kiss and watch movies together.”
“Oh. Well, then… I’m just using a man for sex, too!”
“It’s a deal then. Let’s pinky swear…”
I play over the memories in my mind, hearing our voices just like it was yesterday. God, I miss her. Would she be disappointed in the person I am now? We were so close when we were younger. Then our parents divorced. Somehow they got it in their heads that, because we were twins, dad would take one of us and mom would take the other. I still wonder which of us got the better deal. In truth, neither Katie nor I won the parent lottery on either side. The last time I saw my sister, we were ten years old and Roger, my dad, let Katie come visit for a week before he took her to Scotland to visit his relatives there.
“What happened to your sister?”
It’s Skull. I look up, startled to find him standing right there beside me, staring down at Katie’s grave. There’s a hundred questions that form on my lips. I look around to make sure I’m still without Gerald. All I need is for Colin to think I’ve already disobeyed him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Tracking you down,” he answers simply. “You’ve not been at school all week. You didn’t tell me you were in high school.”
His voice sounds accusatory. I’ve already had about all I can handle.
“It didn’t matter,” I tell him, resenting the fact that he’s here and taking my time with my sister and angry because he’s within touching range after a whole week without him—and I can’t touch him.
“It matters very much, querida. Men go to jail for fucking kids. Hell, I feel dirty for even talking to you.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“You’re in fucking high school. You’re a kid.”
“I’ll be twenty in just a little over a month now.”
“I know. It’s the only reason I’m allowing myself to chase you down,” he says, crouching down beside me.
My eyes follow his movements, drinking him in. I’ve missed him. I’m dying to touch him and I can’t.
“How did you know to look here?”
“It turns out, Beth, it’s hard to track a woman down with just her name.”
“Did you ever think that might be a sign that you shouldn’t?”
“I did. Especially after finding out you were in high school. Why are you, anyway? Your records said you took a year and a half off on personal leave. Why?”
“You went through my records? Aren’t those things supposed to be confidential?”