Graveminder

cousins.”

“ She is not your cousin.” Cissy dabbed at her eyes. “Your uncle married that woman, but that doesn’t make her brat your cousin. Rebekkah isn’t family.”

“Grandmama Maylene thought—”

“Your grandmother was wrong.” Cissy held her lace-edged handkerchief so that it covered the ugly snarl that twisted her mouth.

Liz repressed a sigh. Their mother, for all of her strengths, had an old-fashioned notion of family. Blood first. Cissy hadn’t approved of Jimmy taking a wife with a child, and she certainly hadn’t approved of Rebekkah’s continuing to visit a few years after that wife left him. Rebekkah had arrived during her freshman year of high school and left before graduation, yet she’d continued to visit Claysville after Jimmy and Julia divorced and then after Jimmy died. Whether or not anyone liked it, Rebekkah was as much Maylene’s granddaughter as the twins were—which was the issue.

Blood-family matters, especially for a Barrow.

Unfortunately, Liz suspected that her own blood made her the next likely candidate for the very thing that both Teresa and their mother wanted, and she was torn between the desire to please her mother and the desire to have her freedom. Of course, she wasn’t fool enough to admit that. She knew better than to call Rebekkah family; she knew better than to admit that she wouldn’t mind getting to know Byron Montgomery.

With a determined look, Cissy started across the cemetery.

“She’s in a mood,” Teresa muttered.

“Our grandmother, her mother , just died.” Liz wasn’t sure whether following or staying out of it was wiser. Years of trying to play peacemaker in the house made her want to go after her mother, but just as many years of trying to dodge her mother’s vitriol attested to the wisdom of letting someone else be the target.

“She’s not crying, Liz; she’s itching for a fight.”

“Are we going after her?”

Teresa rolled her eyes. “Shit, I don’t want to be the one she sets her sights on. You know she’s going to be a bear once Rebekkah finds out that she’s the Graveminder. Every council meeting will end with a tantrum then. You’re welcome to go after her, but I’m staying right here.” Teresa leaned on the car. “We’ll get plenty of time listening to her rant after the funeral breakfast.”

“Maybe—”

“Nope. If you want to go after her, you go ahead, but she’s about to be face-to-face with the both of them. Grandmama Maylene isn’t here to calm her down. You think you’re able to?” Teresa shook her head. “I don’t need to draw her temper. Neither do you. Let them handle her.”

Chapter 15

BYRON HAD BEEN SO FOCUSED ON WATCHING REBEKKAH THAT HE’D ASsumed that all of the mourners had left. He bit back a decidedly uncharitable remark as he saw that Cissy was marching back toward him. Behind her, the twins stood—and were apparently arguing, from the looks of it—beside the car. Liz threw her hands in the air and followed her mother. Teresa leaned on the car and watched.

Cissy had a determined look on her face, and he braced himself for her temper. However, she passed him without a glance, heading for Rebekkah.

“Cecilia!” Byron grabbed her arm. “She needs a moment.”

Cissy’s eyes widened; she moistened her lips. “But she needs to know. Someone ought to tell her about the ... what happened, and I’m Maylene’s family—”

“You needn’t worry about it,” he interrupted. He put an arm around her and steered her back toward the car. “You’ve had enough to deal with, Cissy. Let your girls take you on home. I’ll bring Rebekkah back to the house.”

Byron looked back at Cissy’s daughters. Teresa still watched from beside the car; Liz stood anxiously behind her mother. “Elizabeth, please help your mother to the car.”

Cissy glared at him. “I really should talk to Becky. She needs to know what happened, and I doubt that you’ve told her. Have you?”

“Told her ...” Byron shook his head at the unpleasant realization that of all the people in Claysville, it seemed that Cissy was the only one other than him who thought the circumstances around Maylene’s death warranted discussion. “This is not the time or place.”

“Mama,” Liz started.

Cissy stepped to the side to go around Byron. “I think Becky should hear what happened.”

At that, Liz held her hands up in defeat. She was the more reasonable of Cissy’s daughters, but she also had the sense to not want to be the object of her mother’s temper.

“I said no . Not here, not now.” Byron clamped his hand on Cissy’s elbow and steered her toward the car.

Cissy glared at her daughters—who remained motionless, one at the car, one beside her—before giving in. “Fine. I’ll see her at the house, then.” She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “You can’t keep me away from her, boy.”

Byron knew well enough that responding wasn’t going to get the result he wanted, so he forced a polite smile to his lips and stayed silent.

Liz shot a relieved look at Byron and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Byron turned his back on them and returned to the gravestone where he had been waiting before Cissy had approached. He was trying not to watch Rebekkah, but he couldn’t leave her here alone. He wished he didn’t have to tell Rebekkah about Maylene’s murder, but he wasn’t willing to let her hear it casually—or cruelly—spoken.

A black blur to his left drew his attention, but when he turned, he didn’t see anyone or anything. So he leaned on the tree beside the grave and waited.

He’d never realized that the ways of death in Claysville were peculiar. When he’d moved to Chicago, he was surprised that there was no designated final mourner. He’d decided then that it must’ve been a trait of small towns, but eighteen months later—after living in Brookside and Springfield—he’d realized that it wasn’t the size of the town. Claysville was simply unique in the way it mourned the dead. He’d watched carefully as he traveled, becoming almost a funeral-tourist of sorts for a few months. Nowhere else was like Claysville. Here, graveside services regularly had several religious representatives in attendance. Here, the graves were meticulously kept in order: graveyards and cemeteries mowed, trimmed, and planted. Here, a woman walked in funeral processions ringing a bell.

Once, as a child, he’d thought Maylene worked for Montgomery and Sons. As a teen, he simply decided that his girlfriend’s grandmother was a little odd. She had her own way of saying good-bye, and folks in town just accepted that she would be the last mourner for each and every person who passed. Now he wasn’t sure what to think, especially as Rebekkah seemed to be standing in for the last Barrow woman.

What am I missing here?

Once she stood, Rebekkah composed herself and turned to walk away. Only then did Byron step out from the shadow of the tree and move toward her.

“I didn’t know anyone was still here until”—Rebekkah motioned up the hill—“I heard the disturbance.”

He rubbed his hand over his face. “Cissy and the twins were here and ...”

“Thank you.” Rebekkah blushed. “I doubt that any conversation between us could go well just now. I was a bit less than patient with her.”

Byron hesitated. “She wanted to tell you ... to be the one to ...”

“To tell me whatever you’ve been avoiding.” She lifted her chin and looked pointedly at him. “You haven’t mentioned anything about Maylene’s being sick ... I know it was sudden. You didn’t want to tell me last night, this morning. William didn’t mention it. No one at the wake did. So, what are you not telling me?”

He’d been trying to come up with a way to tell her since it had happened. There was no nice way to say it.