The Sick Wife, Lost Loretta [top 10 motivational books .TXT] 📗

to her at the cemetery. I wish I could introduce him to my mother, too. I don’t know why, but it feels so unnatural not being able to call him in this moment and share these thoughts and feelings with him. Make some stupid and inappropriate jokes so that everything feels okay. I really got used to him being my person.

I guess you know you really love a guy if you want to call him from the graveyard.

Staring at the tombstone, I start to feel really annoyed. It has always bothered me that my father purchased a couple’s headstone for my mother and himself to share. His name and year of birth is already on there, etched beside hers. Why did he do that? Who was he trying to fool?

If he had treated my mother better when she was around, she might be here now. Not six feet below where I stand, decomposing in a pretty box. She could have been part of my life. She could have guided me and loved me. Maybe I would be a better, stronger person, and less of a pathetic, needy mess. I needed her. She was my only real parent. She was the best part of my life—he was utterly useless as a father.

I have always blamed him for taking her away from me. Even if she took her own life, it was his fault, his behavior, his cruelty, and carelessness that led her down that path. And now he gets to share a grave with her body forever? He gets to be buried beside her, all comfortable and cozy like nothing bad ever happened?

Something seems really wrong about that.

She wanted to be dead to escape him... and me, I guess—I definitely wasn’t the perfect teenage daughter. But mostly him. Now that he is also dead, and supposed to join her in this grave… how will she rest peacefully? It just seems like a huge invasion of privacy and sacred personal space. She deserves better. She deserves her little plot of earth to be undisturbed, not dug up to dump in a man that she despised.

“Sorry for your loss, Miss,” says a voice from the side.

I look to my right, startled. I see a man standing there, leaning against a tree. He has a bag of tools with him, and he looks to be the cemetery groundskeeper.

“My father died today,” I explain to him. “I guess he’s supposed to go into this grave, beside my mother.”

“On top of your mother, technically,” he explains.

“What?” I ask, horrified.

“The second casket goes on top of the first casket,” he tells me.

“No way, that’s even worse,” I say, making a face of disgust. “They didn’t even like each other. Why should they be stuck in the missionary sex position for the rest of eternity?”

The groundskeeper laughs. “I didn’t make up the rules, that’s just how we’ve always done it for couples’ graves. Besides, I’m sure that’s what your parents wanted, if that’s how they set it up.”

“No… it’s what my father wanted, maybe. Maybe just out of guilt when she died, he thought this would look better to friends and family… making up for the fact that he was a jackass when she was alive. But she hated him. She would have wanted to be far, far away from him.”

“Are you sure about that?” the groundskeeper asks.

“Yes. Of course! She killed herself to get away from him.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “I’m so sorry to hear that. But still… you can’t presume to know anything about their marriage, even if you are their daughter.”

“What do you mean?” I ask him, feeling the rage rising in my breast.

“Lots of married couples hate each other,” he says with a shrug. “They still want to be close to each other anyway. I bet most of the couples buried in this cemetery had difficulties, probably mistreated each other, cheated on each other tons—maybe some were even violent to each other. They still stayed married for their whole lives, and chose to end up here, cozied up together for hundreds of years, until their bones turn to dust.”

“But what if they didn’t want to? What if they just felt forced to stick with their stupid marriage because of social constructs and responsibilities, but they actually wanted to leave the whole time, and tried to leave, but they ended up buried here with the person they hated for so many years anyway? Because they were too afraid to make a change?”

“I don’t know,” the groundskeeper says, shrugging nonchalantly. “I guess that’s possible. But it’s kind of depressing to think about, and not very romantic.”

“Nothing is romantic! Because love is dead,” I inform him. “And the institution of marriage has no place in modern society.”

“I mean, yeah,” he says with a shrug. “Isn’t that why we hook up using Tinder? Because our generation is more honest? By the way, are you on there?” He pulls his phone out of his pocket, as if to literally go on Tinder and see if he can find me. Right now. While I’m at my mother’s grave. “Maybe you can just give me your number.”

I stare at him, my eyes open so wide that they hurt. “Is this your schtick? You find women who are crying by a tombstone and ask for their number?”

“I mean… yeah. They are usually really vulnerable and needing comfort. It’s a great way to score. The main reason I took this job.”

I keep staring in disbelief. “You—you remind me of my father. At least you’re honest about being slimy. He is not going into that grave.” I look down at the man’s big bag of tools. “Do you mind if I borrow a sledgehammer?”

“Uh… it depends on if you’re intending to murder me or not,” he answers awkwardly, stepping away.

I move forward and rummage around in his bag of tools for any kind of hammer. I find one that seems sturdy enough for what I need, and I walk back over to my mother’s