Pending – Chapter Forty-One

Catch up on the previous chapters here

Gran was generally a practical person, but she agreed to come along with Nell all the same when she went to the cemetery. Nell didn’t think Gran had been back since the funeral, either to place flowers or to make sure the graves were kept tidy. “They’re gone,” she’d told Nell gruffly once. “They don’t know if you’re there or not.”

Well, no, but Nell knew.

Gran didn’t even sigh or roll her eyes when Nell stopped at a florist first, picking a bouquet because it was brightly colored. She couldn’t remember Dad ever buying Mom flowers, so it wasn’t like she could easily name a favorite or anything, but she liked the look of the yellows and reds and purples. The double plot didn’t have a vase on the headstone—honestly, it was a little amazing that Gran had gone ahead and gotten the headstone in the first place, all things considered—so Nell had the florist put it in one of those plastic vases with the spike you could drive into the ground and keep everything upright. Gran didn’t cluck her tongue at the extra expense, but Nell figured that was because Gran was humoring her as much as possible, considering everything else she and Kent were dealing with on this first visit back to Michigan.

Donna insisted on calling it their trip home, of course. Kent wasn’t with them right now because he was doing the whole family time thing with Donna and maybe some of his siblings, which Nell had told him was okay because he’d never known her parents, and it didn’t bother her if he didn’t come. Maybe it bothered him more, because he was stuck with his own family instead, but if Gran thought anything about that, she didn’t say it, either. It was unspoken, but out of kindness. Not to hide something, or keep a secret.

Nell pulled the rented car into the cemetery parking lot, close to the gated entrance but not in the handicap spot, and turned off the ignition. At least this car still had an actual key. When she got out and waited for Gran to join her on the path, though, she saw another car pull up, not into a spot but just enough so Kent could get out of the passenger seat and Owen could wave before he drove away again.

Nell blinked, flowers in one hand and Gran at her other side, but Kent shrugged as he came up to them and slipped an arm around her. “It kept feeling like the wrong choice,” he said simply.

Gran smiled and turned to lead the way.

One thing this visit had cemented was how no, they really couldn’t move back to Michigan. If they did, Nell figured they’d drive Kent’s parents to divorce. Donna insisted on using their old names, which just confused her grandchildren. She kept asking about Mart and Ellie’s plans for their own children, and what school districts were the best, and if they’d fallen in love with any of the incredibly ugly houses she bookmarked on the real estate sites. Nell didn’t actually like any of them, thanks, and they weren’t looking at moving yet, anyway. Their apartment had two bedrooms, so even if she got pregnant soon, they’d be fine for a while. She didn’t know if Kent told his mom that they were actually trying, or if Donna just … assumed.

Gran stopped at the foot of the graves, hands clasped, but at least she didn’t have her arms crossed. She looked at the headstone and read the names and dates, nodding like she had to make sure they were still correct, and waited for Nell to place the flowers. The grass had been mowed recently, and the headstone looked clean. Maybe that was a service provided by the cemetery—Nell had never asked.

Kent put his arms around her when she returned to the path, resting his cheek against her head in silence for a while. Nell ran through her small handful of memories of her parents—Dad’s blue armchair, Mom’s comic recitation of Red Fish, Blue Fish—but more and more these days they felt like memories of memories, honestly and truly from someone else’s life. All the same, she couldn’t not come here, especially when it was a choice again. Nell had to remember them, and maybe she needed Gran to know that her own grave wasn’t going to go neglected when the time came.

When she looked over, Gran raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose, things being what they are, you can keep any names in the family?”

“I like Elsie,” Kent offered. “Probably as a middle name.”

Gran blinked, because clearly she hadn’t meant her own, but then she grinned. “Well. It’s a good name. If you have a girl.”

That made Kent laugh. “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking Elsie for a boy. But we probably won’t really know until it happens and we have to pick.”

If it happens, Nell added silently, because apparently she was a bit superstitious about that kind of thing.

“Penelope?”

Nell nodded. “Yeah, okay.” Because that was Gran asking if it was time to go.

“We should get brunch,” she decided, leading the way back to the car. “Unless you have to go be civil to your in-laws again.”

“I just told Mom flat-out we’re not moving back to Michigan, so …” Kent looked to Nell. “Brunch sounds like a good option to me.”

“She kicked you out, or …?” Nell clicked the button to unlock the doors and handed him the fob, aiming for the back seat.

Kent shrugged. “She wanted to argue. I told her it wasn’t up for discussion. She started insulting you. I asked Dad if he could drop me off here. We left.”

Good thing they were in Gran’s spare room for the visit, then. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t make me call you ‘Penelope.’ You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

Nell wasn’t entirely sure about that, but she got into the car and put on her seatbelt and smiled when she caught Kent’s look in the mirror, trying her best to do as his eyes urged her: to stop thinking about that and concentrate on something good instead, like brunch with her husband and her grandmother, who both wanted to spend time with her and oh so clearly wanted her to be happy.

She could try. For them, she could certainly try.

THE END

---