Girl Eight_A Mercy Harbor Thriller by Melinda Woodhall

Author:Melinda Woodhall [Woodhall, Melinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creative Magnolia
Published: 2019-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Wind gusted through the Sacred Heart Cemetery, rustling the calla lilies in Barker’s arms, and covering the headstone with dead leaves. He knelt and put the flowers into the bronze vase, before brushing the leaves aside to reveal the name etched into the marble: Caroline Ferguson Barker, Beloved Wife and Mother.

“That’s better,” Barker said, keeping his voice low but cheerful. “All clean now, baby. Just the way you like it.”

He sat back on his heels and looked around at the other graves. Most were covered with leaves and debris that had blown in from the forest beyond the wooden fence, where palm tree fronds shivered in the wind as they towered over a motley collection of cabbage and scrub palmettos.

Sacred Heart was the oldest cemetery in Willow Bay, and its age showed in the cracked wooden fence and overgrown lawn. But Caroline had thought the place had character, and an interesting past which went all the way back to the town’s founding, unlike the carefully manicured Bay Haven Memorial Park on the other side of town. She’d made all the arrangements herself, and now here she was, part of the town’s history.

“You always did manage to get your way in the end.”

Barker studied the marble headstone, pretending everything was all right, just as he did most Sundays, but this time his mind wouldn’t play along. A little voice kept asking him what Caroline would say if she could see him there alone at her grave.

Where’s Taylor? Why isn’t she with you? Why hasn’t she come to see me?

They were questions he didn’t want to answer. What could he say to himself or to his wife’s memory that would make sense? Did he even know the truth?

Taylor left. She doesn’t want to see me. She doesn’t want to remember.

Barker kissed the tips of his fingers and touched them to the cool marble next to Caroline’s name. He held them there for a long beat, wishing everything had happened differently. Wishing he could do it all over again. Slowly he stood and walked across the lawn, toward the overgrown path that led to his car.

He sat in the blue Prius and stared out at the cemetery, the graves and the trees replaced by visions of Caroline, gone now for three years, but still so vivid in his mind. Caroline on their wedding day, stunning in white satin. Caroline in the car as they brought baby Taylor home from the hospital. Caroline dry-eyed and stoic after finding out the cancer had returned. Caroline in their bed, that very last night.

He shook himself and dried his eyes.

Three years of grieving is long enough, Barker.

But somehow he didn’t believe it. How could twenty-five years of marriage be forgotten in only three years of mourning? The math didn’t work. Forgetting didn’t work. Nothing seemed to work without Caroline. But he had no one to blame but himself.

At least that’s how Taylor had seen it, and her accusing words still stung after all this time.

“You caused Mommy’s cancer.

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