Page 87 of Look, Don't Touch

An hour and a half drive, one as long as the plane ride, gets us into the thick of cornfields and soybeans. It’s brown as far as the eye can see since everything was harvested just last month. All the warmth and joy I felt just a bit ago has been overshadowed by the gloom of what’s to come.

“It is fitting that we return when everything is dead and desolate,” I whisper.

Nat interlaces her fingers with mine. “Not everything.”

“Even the mice who’ve lost their ground cover from the hawks and owls.”

Gosh, I’m being quite morbid and dramatic.

“We’re not,” she says, smacking my hand in rebuke.

“No, we’re not.” I pull her close and kiss her head, which she lays on my shoulder as we meander through the few traffic lights Paton, Iowa, has to offer. The population is steady around the two hundred mark. Equal to the population of the single floor of my old apartment building in New York.

So few people, and still my mom managed to find trouble.

We push past the place some call a city and turn off the main drag onto another bleak highway. Just a few miles down the road, Nat straightens. I do too. My heart beats in my throat. Cold clings to my skin, along with incongruous sweat.

The house I grew up in stands proud, flanked by barns, silos, fields, and one large tree in the front and another in the back. It’s an off-white two-story. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it’s white with a layer of grime. It has a covered front porch with a swing, black shutters, and a blood-red front door.

“Why no one thought to paint that door in the last decade is beyond me,” Nat gripes.

I can’t say a word. My hands have started shaking. At least my legs are okay, so far. Hotaru slows down past it. I wish he’d step on it. Luckily, we can’t stop. Another family lives there now. Their purchase paid for my parents’ funerals and my education.

Not soon enough, the house is in the rearview, and I’m glad I can’t see the mirror. We push on another ten minutes and several turns until the car stops at the gates of a small cemetery.

Hotaru opens the door for us, and we heave ourselves out the back. Sunlight blasts overhead in a way I haven’t seen in a long time. There are minimal trees or buildings to block it. The temperature is mild for November. I squint at the horizon. It’s dotted with headstones, large and small, old and new.

“We’ll stay as long as you need.” He bows and then retreats toward the driver’s door.

“Thank you,” I call after him, wishing I could say I’m ready to leave now.

“Tondemonai.” He nods before disappearing inside.

“I fucking hate this.” I take a step forward and realize I have no idea where I’m headed. My memories of the last time I was here are blurrier than a blackout drunk’s.

I look over my shoulder toward Nat, my mouth open to ask if she knows where to go. As soon as my gaze finds her, I stop. Her beautiful face is contorted. Silent tears slip down her cheeks. Her whole body rattles with sorrow.

“Do you want to go home?”

Her head shakes.

“Do you need to grab a room overnight? Try again tomorrow?”

Her head shakes.

“Okay.” I loop an arm around her elbow and meander us through the maze of memorials to well-lived lives and lives cut short. We pass the heartbreak of little ones with no chance to explore the world. We pass couples who died in their hundreds. I wonder if they loved each other or just made it through the best they knew how.

Several stray rows through, and Nat’s breathing returns to normal. The set of her shoulders lowers. A breeze kicks up, and our hair dances in the slow currents.

“You know, by the time we were eighteen, both our parents were dead,” Nat offers, speaking about her and my mother. “We were their late-in-life miracle babies.”

That I knew, but I hadn’t thought about it in a long time.

“They tried for decades. In fact, I’m sure I have more than one sibling buried here.”

“Jesus.” The thought pits my stomach.

“We’re lucky, you and I.” My aunt squeezes my arm in hers. “Even though it doesn’t seem like it right now. We are. We were given a chance to live while so many weren’t.”

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