To Light and Guard

Chapter Eleven

The frigid breeze through the cemetery sent shivers up Mary Eunice's spine, sunlight and bright blue sky incongruous with the temperature; she flanked Lana, who wore a hat and dark sunglasses and glanced over her shoulder as they climbed the grassy hill to the mausoleum. Lana clutched a bouquet of pink carnations and white orchids. Her other hand wrapped around the strap of her purse with her knuckles whitening. I wish I could see her eyes. But Lana's face had become unreadable as she searched the deserted grounds for any sign of stalkers.

Leaves had accumulated in the open gray hallways of the mausoleum, but the walls shielded them from the wind, encroached upon them. These walls are weeping with forgotten souls. Many of the monuments did not have flowers or bore decayed stems with flaked petals on the cement floor. What will become of me? Would she, too, fit in a cheap box above ground with no one to mark her with flowers or remember her name? With no one to visit or mourn? The childish thought brought tears to her eyes. It won't matter. You won't care. You'll be dead. And the fewer people you hurt, the better.

The internal monologue quieted when Lana lifted her head and removed her sunglasses and hat, and Mary Eunice followed her gaze to the engraved name, Wendy Elaine Peyser. The wind outside echoed through the halls, straining the silence until Lana broke it. "Her real name was Winifred." She tucked the bouquet into the silver ring and crossed her arms tight; a shiver tossed her shoulders, but Mary Eunice held back, reluctant to intrude in Lana's personal space, her intimate moment with her lost lover. "She hated it so much. The day she turned eighteen, she told everyone—her family and her friends and her teachers—that if they called her Winifred, she would never speak to them again."

A smile quivered upon Lana's lips, wavering into a grimace and then back into the smile, fondness and grief mingled into such wretchedness that Mary Eunice tiptoed nearer. "I called her family the day I got home." The smile vanished, and her eyes closed against the pressure. "Her father answered the phone. I told him—" Her voice choked, but she hadn't begun to cry. She's trying so hard to be strong. Mary Eunice softened, tears upon her own cheeks. You're already the strongest person I've ever known. "I told him she was gone—she'd been murdered—" Lana shook her head. "He went all quiet. Just dead silent. And then he asked me if I was kidding, and I said, 'No, sir.' He didn't say anything else for awhile, and then he said, 'Okay,' and he hung up on me. Just like that. Just—okay."

Mary Eunice's tentative hand pressed to the small of Lana's back, fingers chilled and slow to bend; she could not feel Lana's body heat through her fleece jacket. "But if her mother knew it said Wendy, instead of Winifred—she would lose her mind. She would be furious." The red lower lip trembled. "She was always Wendy to me. I don't know how her family couldn't see her as that—as what she was—couldn't love her the way she came. She was never Winifred. I don't understand—as much as I loved her, as much as she was worth loving, why they couldn't see how amazing she was."

With the backs of her hands, Lana wiped her eyes, smearing the wet tears away from their corners across the bridge of her nose. "I don't understand family—how they love you so much one minute, and one thing changes, and suddenly they don't love you at all. You realize they never loved you. They loved the image they had created of you." She gulped and pinched the end of her nose. "They may have had you your whole life, but they don't know you. And their affection crumbles so easily."

A bitter curve sucked downward at Lana's lips. "The Peysers never loved Wendy. They loved Winifred. Winifred never existed. She was always my Wendy—my goddamned beautiful, perfect Wendy." A shudder wracked Lana's body, a suppressed sob, and she curled into the front of Mary Eunice's habit; Mary Eunice swept her into a hug and held her. "And I miss her—so much." Her choked voice coughed its last pathetic, weeping note as she brought the knuckles of her fist to her lips to stifle her cries.