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"Well," Jessica said a couple of hours later, "if it's here it's well hidden. This metal detector is supposed be able to find a single gold coin under a meter of earth, or behind a wall not made of concrete or metal. And there don't appear to be any places where it would be if you wanted relatively quick access. We shouldn't be poking around outdoors just yet, have the neighbors seeing us walking around the grounds with a metal detector." "I'll have to look some more," Alex said, "see if I find any notes." "Did the house help any with your memory?" "Maybe, I'm not sure. Whether I know something because I remember it, or think I do because I'm supposed to." "With the house empty, it probably won't. Unless there was something about, something that was a piece of you. But we packed everything up and it's mostly in storage. "We'll have to think about it some more. Want to get something to eat?" "Sounds good." They went to the Olive Garden and had a quiet meal, interrupted only by a couple of messages. Jessica checked them and decided they weren't urgent and they talked quietly. "Maybe going to the cemetery will do something for you." Jessica said. "It's near Wynne, where you grew up and lived until you moved to Paragould. We can visit with Sam and Charlie while we're there." "That'd be good."
"We're going to visit the cemetery," Jessica told Sam, "would you like to go with us?" "Yeah. I need to check on our plot. Let me see if Charlie wants to go." She called, talked for a couple of minutes. "She can meet us there in about an hour." Sam said. "Can I get you some coffee or something? They chatted for a while before departing for the cemetery. Charlie arrived just monents after they did. "Everything looks good." Sam said as they looked over the family plot. "They take good care of the place." "I hope you're sending them a little extra," Charlie said. "They do a good job." "I do. And they do. I talk to Glenda pretty regularly." "I was worrying Mama's might have sunk some." Charlie said. "Being in an urn instead of a regular casket grave. But it looks OK." "When Mama died Charlie was recovering from brain surgery." Sam said. "I don't know how much you remember, if anything. Mama had dementia for years, and it was really bad the last three or so, after Daddy died. We hired nurses to stay with her, until the end. She died on Christmas day, just a few minutes after midnight of Christmas Eve, in her own home. We're thankful for that. "I don't know if you remember any of it." Nothing. Like the rest of my life. Don't even remember Mom and Dad. Will I ever? "No." Alex said. "When I was in the hospital, one of the dreams I had, or whatever they were. Hallucinations really, just happened to have bits or my memory in them. I saw the stones, but they weren't like this. Just the little flat ones, one for each of them. Not the big one like this, with Mom on one side and Dad on the other. Don't know why..." My whole life gone. Somewhere. Is it still there, inside, somewhere? "Alex," Sam said, "there are several spaces left. We thought you might want to be there, by Mama and Daddy, if you never married. Of course that could change, but they're there if you need one. For now we're just thankful we didn't have to make the decision." Jessica. Yeah. What were we going to do? We were talking about getting married, she said. Now... she loves me more than life itself, that's plain enough. How do I get my side of it back on track? "It's a little late to go out to the farm today." Sam said. "If you want to come down tommorow, or sometime later, we can show you around. You grew up there, until your last year of high school." "Tomorrow's good." Alex said. "If I lived there for years, maybe it will help." Of course I lived in Jonesboro and Paragould for another twenty, and don't remember that. Wait and see, I suppose. |
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