Graveminder

Chapter 14

AS THEY WALKED TOWARD THE CAR, LIZ HELD ON TO HER MOTHER, NOT in a protective way, but as a please-Mama-don’t-make-another-scene measure. The supportive arm she offered was accepted only as long as there were people watching; once they reached the car, Cissy shook her off.

Liz pushed down her guilty relief. There was no good way to handle funerals: each and every one was a reminder of what Liz and her sister weren’t.

Not good enough.

Not chosen.

Not the Graveminder.

Truth be told, Liz had no actual desire to be the Graveminder. She knew all about it, the contract, the duties, but knowing didn’t make her eager to be a Graveminder. Her mother and sister seemed to feel that they’d been slighted, but spending life worrying about the dead didn’t appeal to Liz. At all. She talked the talk well enough—because the alternative was feeling the back side of her mother’s hand—but she wanted the same things that most women in Claysville wanted: a chance at a good man who would agree to enter the birthing queue for the right to be a parent sooner than later.

Not that Byron would be a bad man to bed.

She stole another glance at him. He was lovestruck with Rebekkah, but that was an inevitable result of the whole Graveminder-Undertaker gig. Her grandmother and Byron’s father had made eyes at each other for as long as Liz could remember. Like to like. She shook her head. Despite everything, Maylene had been her grandmother, and she ought to be ashamed of thinking ill of her when she wasn’t even cold in the ground. And for thinking lustful thoughts at a funeral. She shot a glance at Byron again.

“Look at him,” Teresa muttered. “Can’t take his attention off her. I don’t think I’d have any struggle resisting him if I were ... you know .”

Liz nodded, but she silently thought that she wouldn’t want to resist Byron. “Not every Graveminder marries the Undertaker. Grandmama Maylene didn’t. You wouldn’t have to ... be with him.”

Teresa snorted. “It’s a good thing, too. I don’t know that I want a man who has fucked both our 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.”