T: Pick you up at noon?
Perfect! If you don’t hear back from me, all is good. See you then.
I sent a quick text to Desi and within seconds my phone beeped again. Hopefully she didn’t have plans and wouldn’t mind sitting here for a couple hours. I looked at the screen and took a sharp breath.
V: How are you? Is there anything I can do?
I’d known that text would be coming eventually, but I was still caught off guard. Every day when he’d texted, I had deleted it immediately so that I wouldn’t be tempted to answer. My phone beeped again.
D: No problem. I’ll be there at 11:45.
I worked my butt off all morning to get the kids dressed for Desi, have lunch ready to go, and pick up the downstairs. Before I knew it, Taylor was at the front door. Of course Matthew and Maura were hanging all over their auntie, begging her to come play with them.
“Mommy and I are going to run some errands, but how about after I drop her off, I come in and hang out for a bit?”
Matthew agreed and reluctantly let her go, and we were off.
The cemetery where Mike was buried was only about ten minutes from the house. Taylor and I had gone often last summer to plant flowers and keep his gravesite as clean as possible. It was our thing to do together. We both agreed it made us feel good to still have something we felt like Mike needed us for.
“So… I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Taylor said seriously as soon as we pulled out of the driveway.
I turned to her, frowning slightly. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,”—she shook her head—“but I feel terrible and I owe you an apology.”
“An apology? For what?”
“For being the worst sister-in-law in the world.” Her voice cracked.
I tilted my head to the side and pursed my lips. “No you’re not. What are you talking about?”
“The whole reason I moved here in the first place was to help you with the kids and be around more, and then I met Isaac…” She chewed on the corner of her lip to try and keep from smiling, but when Taylor talked about her new boyfriend, it was impossible for her not to.
“Taylor, I get it. You don’t have to apologize,” I assured her. “You’re young and gorgeous. I figured it wasn’t gonna take long for some man to scoop you up.”
“We’re moving in together,” she said hesitantly, grinning at me.
My mouth fell open. “You are?”
She nodded as we turned into the cemetery parking lot. “His lease is up next month, and since we spend all our time together anyway, we figured why pay two rents.”
“Well.” I giggled. “At least he doesn’t have far to move.”
She put her truck in park and we grabbed two shovels out of the bed, linking arms as we made our way to Mike’s plot. Thankfully, there wasn’t too much snow on the ground yet, which meant the cleanup wouldn’t be too difficult.
I was staring at the ground, concentrating on not slipping on random pieces of ice, when Taylor stopped suddenly, almost knocking me to the ground in the process.
“What are you doing?” I looked up at her.
Her head was tilted to the side and she was staring straight ahead. “Look.” She pointed. I turned my head, following her finger toward Mike’s grave.
My head jerked back a little. “Whoa.”
Mike’s entire area had been shoveled clean already.
“Looks like someone beat us to it. A fan maybe?” she asked as we finished walking the rest of the way there.
As soon as we got close enough, we could see that not only had someone cleaned the snow off his plot, but the ice and snow had also been removed from his headstone, and sitting on top of it, right in the center… Lemonheads.
Taylor picked them up and frowned at me. “Who would’ve left these here? That’s weird.”
My eyes stung and I pinched my top lip in between my teeth, trying my hardest not to lose it right there.
“Don’t you think this is strange?” Her eyes swept up from the box to mine and then bulged. “Michelle, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I sniffed and shook my head.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Taylor’s eyes darted around the cemetery like she was missing something.
“Nothing. I’m good.” I cleared my throat, looking down at the box of candy. “Those are from Viper. That was their thing.”
She looked down at the Lemonheads and back up to me. “Wait, are you crying because of these? Because of him?”
“No, I’m not.” My chin quivered. “Can we just not talk about this right now, please?”