I got in the car with the girls after the ceremony. They were as talkative as ever; Stephanie may have been more talkative than usual. I told myself it was a defense mechanism—that it helped them cope with the loss or made them feel like they had some level of control, even if it was only over the words coming out of their mouths. The alternative, that they didn’t care as much as I did, was too upsetting to consider. 

“How are we going to get to school next month?” Stephanie said. “You’ve never taken us to school. Won’t you have to work?” Lindsey started crying, but it took me a minute to notice. I’d heard so much of it I was desensitized. 

“We’ll get you to school. Don’t worry about that right now.”

“What do you mean we?”

“We,” I said. “The collective we. I don’t know what I mean.”

“What about Christmas?” she said. 

“Christmas will be fine.”

I took what I thought was the same path to get out of the cemetery as I’d taken to get in but quickly realized it wasn’t. There were statues I didn’t recognize. Ones I would have noticed coming in. I’d somehow driven us into the wealthier section of the cemetery where every other grave was either in a mausoleum or marked by a life-sized humanoid statue. One, in particular, seemed to depict a clown in full makeup, juggling three gray balls that hung in the air by some illusion of stonework. Glancing into the rearview mirror, I saw the girls had their heads resting on their respective windows like bookends. They didn’t realize we were lost yet.

“Did either of you see where Aunt Alyssa’s car went?”

“What?” Stephanie said. I heard her head unstick from the window as she lifted it to speak. 

“Nothing,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep either,” Lindsey said.

What type of car did Alyssa drive anyway? I tried to picture her climbing into it in that awkward way she always did. It must have been something big and obnoxious—too big for her anyway. A yellow Ford something? It was yellow, right?

“Are we lost?” Stephanie said. 

“Where are we?” Lindsey said. 

“We’re not lost,” I said. “We’re the opposite of lost.” It looked like it was going to rain, and I said a silent prayer that it would at least hold off until we’d made it back to the main gate. My cataracts made it difficult to see in the rain, and the roads were uncomfortably narrow. I made a quick turn to tail a blue Subaru, hoping it was on its way out and not in. I looked for any type of landmark I could find to orient myself, but there were graves extending to the horizon in every direction. I felt as close as I’d ever been to being lost at sea. 

After a while, the Subaru stopped, and an old woman got out. Definitely not Alyssa.

“Shit,” I said. I heard both heads unstick. 

The woman hobbled over to a grave, flowers in hand, and tossed them down as if she didn’t care exactly where they landed. She stood there for a moment, head bowed, and got back into her car. How many times had she done this? Was it ever anything beyond transactional? I promised myself I would be better, but what did that mean? What could you do? 

“Are we leaving?” Stephanie said.

“We’re leaving,” I said, and I kept behind the woman in the Subaru, hoping she’d lead me out.

+++

Nicholas Bacci Siegel is a writer from Louisville, KY who holds his MFA in creative writing from Spalding University. His stories have been published in Palooka, Bourbon Penn, and 7×7 LA, among other places. In addition to writing fiction, he has published articles with many local, Louisville magazines and has experience as a professional copywriter, serving clients such as Sullivan University, Standlee Forage, and more. You can find his work at nabsiegel.com.