Merritt’s face lit up with a smile, a sudden unplanned one that showed a dimple in her left cheek. It was the first time Loralee had seen it, and it made her feel a little better. She pointed at Merritt’s face. “Owen has a dimple there, too. The boys in his class used to tease him, so he tries really hard to hide it now, but every once in a while it comes out. I think it’s pretty cute.”
Merritt nodded, her smile fading. “Something else I guess we got from our dad. Mother used to love it, too. When I was little she would tickle me just so she could see it.”
Loralee shifted, pressing the side of her face against the cool stone, grateful for the shade from the gnarled trees above them. She wondered whether the woman buried beneath her thanked the trees on a daily basis for their shelter. Or whether, after death, any of it really mattered at all.
Closing her eyes, she thought of her mother and her long illness. It had always seemed to Loralee that death had come to Desiree in pieces, taking parts of her until there was nothing left but one last breath. She found herself thinking of Desiree more and more lately, especially about how she hadn’t been afraid at the end. Loralee knew her mother hadn’t had an easy life, but she’d left it with no regrets. She was rich, she said, because she’d loved deeply and knew how to laugh, and that was what life was about. Everybody dies. But not everybody lives. Loralee would write that down as soon as she got home. As soon as she was able to sit upright and hold a pen.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Merritt’s hand felt cool on her forehead.
Loralee opened her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be fine—really.” Thinking that talking might distract her from the more and more persistent pangs in her abdomen, she said, “I haven’t seen Gibbes in a couple of weeks.”
Merritt sat on the ground next to Loralee, avoiding the anthills, taking her time as she brought up her knees before folding her arms neatly around them. She fiddled with the hem of her skirt, looking at it as if seeing it for the first time. The hem had fallen out of it, and Loralee had helped her measure for a new one, subtracting an inch from the length Merritt had given her as she’d marked it with white chalk.
Loralee kept looking at her so Merritt wouldn’t think that she’d forgotten she’d asked a question.
“I’ve been busy with my new job. It’s been only a few days a week so far, but I make sure I’m available just in case they call me and need me to come in. I guess Gibbes has been busy, too. And the house has been full of neighbors dropping by to introduce themselves and bringing me casseroles for some reason—we won’t need to cook dinner for at least a year, I think—so it’s not like we need the company. Besides, now that Gibbes has retrieved all the items from the house that he wants, I don’t really expect him to come around anymore.”
Loralee sighed, her exasperation almost overriding her pain. “Seriously, Merritt?”
Her chin stiffened just like Owen’s did when he was asked to do something he didn’t want to do. “I mean, we still have a few of the nutshell studies up in the attic that need to be brought over to the police department, and a couple for the Heritage Society, but I think Deborah Fuller is taking care of that, so I’m not involved at all.”
“Well, I know he’s called you a few times, so maybe there’s more he needs to talk to you about.”
Merritt narrowed her eyes, her sharp dark brows like bird’s wings. “How would you know he’s called? We don’t have a landline.”
Loralee closed her eyes and rubbed her abdomen, almost glad for the excuse not to have to meet Merritt’s eyes. “You leave your phone all over the place, and when it rings it’s just natural that I look at the screen. I was actually going to suggest you get a landline, so you can call your cell phone every time you misplace it. I’ve never seen a person spend so much time looking for her cell phone.”
Merritt didn’t say anything for a moment, as if trying to figure out when the conversation had become about her inability to keep track of her phone. “Yes, well, he was looking up that plane crash on the Internet and just wanted to share what he’d learned with me. He left a couple of voice mails that didn’t require a call back.”
If Loralee had the strength, she would have reached over and smacked Merritt on top of her head to knock some sense into her. “Well, I’d be interested in learning more. Maybe we should have him over for dinner.”