“I’m trying to find someone. A grave site, I mean. I’m here to visit a friend who has passed. Can you tell me how to find the spot?” I ask, my voice breaking more with each word.

“I can help you. Give me the name and year of death and I can search our system,” he offers.

“Emily Bennett. She died last year.” Just saying the words aloud, tears well up in my eyes.

He punches some keys on his computer. “Got it. J-117. Here’s a grounds map. It’s not far. You can walk it if you want.” He gets up to point the direction from the door and trace the map with his finger for me.

***

Five minutes later, I’m standing at a row of headstones with a marker “J”. I walk past J-1 and look down the long row realizing I’m only a few hundred feet away from the answer. Tiny drops of rain begin to fall as I take the first step down row J. The drops increase both in size and number as I make my way passed J-51, 52…. The rain washes away the tears that have been streaming down my face since I saw the first headstone. Emily can’t have been born on Valentine’s Day. Please, God, let her birthday be any other day.

In the distance I see a figure placing flowers on a grave as the rain pummels his silhouette. I stop in my tracks. “Long Beach High Football” is emblazed in red letters on the back of his gray sweatshirt— the sweatshirt I have worn so many times.

I quietly slide down behind a large headstone and bow my head to my lap. I can’t see Zack now. I don’t want to see anyone. I just want to see that grave.

Minutes feel like hours, but eventually he walks away, head down. The walk of grief. I feel sick.

I make my way down to the place where he stood, rain showering my body and blurring my vision as I read the headstones I pass. Then I see the lilies. Fresh, beautiful lilies. Two bundles— each placed in the standing vases on stakes in the wet ground on opposite ends of the headstone. Two visitors were here today.

I kneel in the fresh muddy ground in front of the stone so the rain doesn’t impair my vision.

Emily Lynne Bennett

2/14/1996— 3/27/2013

Beloved daughter of Michael and Lynne Bennett

Beloved Sister of Brent Jon Bennett

Our Angel has been called to Heaven

My body collapses on the grass in front of her grave. I’ve lost everything at once. Again.

Chapter 37

Nikki

“Why are you here?” A woman’s voice startles me. I lift my head, wiping the dripping hair plastered to my face from my eyes.

It’s her.

“Why are you here?” she repeats more insistently when I don’t respond.

Who is she?

“Why did you come here?” Her stern voice rises.

“Who are you?” Ignoring her question, I finally find my voice.

“I’m Lynne Bennett.”

Eyes wide, my head whips to read the headstone again. I turn back to face her, she’s staring at me blankly. I have so many questions, yet I don’t know what to say.

“I’ll ask you again. Why are you here?”

“Emily was my sister.”

“Emily didn’t have a sister. You and your delusional mother are nothing to Emily.”

“But…”

The woman speaks over me. “My husband never loved your mother. She was nothing more than a manipulative young girl.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t belong here. You can’t take her place. He will never love you.”

“Who? Who won’t love me?”

“You can’t replace her. Not to my husband. Not to Zack. You should have just kept running that day.”

“Zack? Zack doesn’t even know I’m Emily’s sister.”

The woman laughs maniacally. “You’re as crazy as your mother was. Do you really believe he doesn’t know who you are? He’s using you. He misses my daughter. I see him running with you, just like he used to do with my Emily. He was so in love with her, so desperate to keep her with him, he turned to a cheap copy. He doesn’t give a damn about you.”

“I…”

“You should go back to your trailer park. There is nothing here for you.”

I stare at her; she doesn’t so much as blink. My clothes are muddied and dripping wet. Yet, this woman, standing holding her umbrella, doesn’t have a hair out of place or a drop of water on her. I look like the trash she thinks I am.

“Leave!” I jump when she screams. Her blank, perfectly made-up face twists with contempt.

“Leave!” She throws a large bouquet of lilies tied with a white ribbon at me. They hit my face and fall, scattering all around Emily’s grave.

I turn, taking one last look at my sister’s headstone, then run, never looking back.

***

I ring the doorbell for the third time, but no one answers. Zack’s car isn’t here. The driveway is empty. I feel sick. Confused. Angry. Scared. Lost. I need to hear Zack tell me she was lying. He couldn’t possibly have known Emily was my sister.

I bang on the door. Maybe the bell isn’t working. But no one answers. I turn, stopping in my tracks at the sight of Emily’s house. My sister’s house.

Then suddenly I’m ringing the Bennett’s doorbell, yet I don’t even remember crossing the street.

I wait, but no one answers.

I try the door handle. It’s locked.

I need to go inside, although I’m not even sure why.

I try the side door, but it’s locked too.