Page 77 of Ebbing Tides

It was nice to feel cared about, even if I did ignore his messages.

He’s going to show up if I don’t answer him, I warned myself as I walked through the house to my bedroom, where my laptop sat waiting.

Irritated, I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and typed out a quick message.

Me:I’m fine. Something came up. I’ll let you know later if we can make it.

It was vague, and I knew he wouldn’t be satisfied, but it would do for now.

The laptop, often left untouched, booted up slowly, but eventually, the screen glowed with life. I brought it into the living room, where Lido waited with a curious tilt to his head.

“Time to do some research,” I muttered aloud, as if he needed the explanation, and opened a browser window.

Lilly Meyer.

I typed her name, knowing damn well I was unlikely to come up with much of anything, and I was right. Thousands upon thousands of results came up, hundreds of pages’ worth, and I quickly refined the search.

Lilly Meyer, Revere, MA.

It was a long shot. I didn’t know if she’d lived in Revere or only worked there, and as luck would have it, I was once again unsuccessful.

“Fuck,” I muttered, wiping a hand over my mouth.

It was only a name, one that wasn’t uncommon, and finding one woman in a sea of thousands was going to be like finding a single crow in an unkindness of many ravens. Fuck, it had been forty-eight years since I’d been born. The woman could’ve married someone by this point, could’ve changed hername, could’ve moved to a whole other state or country, for all I knew.

“But Dad knew she was dead,” I said, glancing toward Lido.

He groaned and dropped his chin on the edge of my thigh, as if to say,And you think he’s telling you the truth?

“I probably shouldn’t,” I replied. “But for some reason, I don’t think he’s lying about this. I—”

A thought struck me. I knew it was a long shot—it was insane really—but …

Lilly Meyer, Salem, MA, cemetery plot.

I typed the words and let the search engine run. Then, lo and behold, there it was.

Lilly Jean Meyer.

Buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Salem.

One I knew all too well.

***

The cemetery was old, some of the graves dating as far back as the 1700s. Burials back then hadn’t always had a rhyme or reason. People were buried wherever the families saw fit. Not like a national cemetery, which was as orderly as the military itself. There were maps, sure, but they weren't that easy to understand or follow, with the winding roads and paths cutting through the grounds this way and that.

Honestly, I couldn't understand how Charlie kept it all straight sometimes, but I guessed after calling the place home for years, it became as much like the back of your hand asanything else. That wasn't so much the case for me though. Even in the thirteen years or so I'd spent as the night watchman, I had explored the land very little.

In fact, I thought this was the first time I'd found myself meandering along one of the well-kept, groomed walkways, checking the names etched into the headstones.

My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked in a hurry, desperation pushing every step. It was Sid, or it was Lucy, or it was Grace or Ricky or whoever the hell, and I'd get back to them—I would—but this seemed so much more important than bringing the woman I was sleeping with over for a bit of ridiculous and pointless familial interrogation.

I winced at that thought. Fuck, she was far more than that, and shame on me for lumping her in with the dozens of meaningless one-night stands I'd engaged in during my years overseas. Shame on me for not checking my phone to see if it was her texting. Shame on me for not making her feel important.

But, oh God, I needed to see it. I needed to know the headstone of the woman who might or might not have brought me into this world. Someone I had never been given the chance to call Mom.

And as I slowed at the site of her burial, I knew I never would.