The walk was longer than she had anticipated, and of course the rain got worse the farther she got from her van. After ten minutes of following what turned out to be a very inaccurate map, Lydia realized she was lost. She took out her phone and Googled the information again. Then she tried to map her location. The flashing blue dot said she needed to go to the north. Lydia turned north. She walked a few feet and the blue dot indicated she needed to go south.
“For fucksakes,” Lydia mumbled, but then her eye caught a headstone two rows over.
SCOTT.
Paul had grown up just outside of Athens, but his father’s people were from Atlanta. His parents were buried alongside Scotts going back several generations. He had once told Lydia that Scotts had even fought on both sides of the Civil War.
So, he came by his duplicity honestly.
Paul’s grave had a tiny marker that looked more like a stake you’d use to label a vegetable garden. Sugar Snap Peas. Cabbage. Sadistic Prick.
Lydia supposed his headstone had been ordered. Something large and garish made of the finest marble and phallic-shaped because being dead didn’t stop you from being a dick.
Last night while Lydia was watching TV with Rick, she had zoned out, picturing herself standing by Paul’s grave. She hadn’t anticipated the rain, so in her mind, the sun was happily shining in the sky and bluebirds sat on her shoulder. Likewise, she had never considered the freshly dug red Georgia clay would be covered by Astroturf. The fake grass was the kind of thing you saw at a putt-putt course or on the balcony of a cheap motel. Paul would’ve hated it, which is why she couldn’t help smiling.
“Okay,” Lydia said, because she hadn’t come here to smile. She took a deep breath and slowly let it go. She pressed her hand to her chest to still her heart. And then she started talking.
“You were wrong,” she told Paul, because he had been a pedantic asshole who thought he was right about everything. “You said I would be dead in a gutter by now. You said I was worthless. You said that no one would believe me because I didn’t matter.”
Lydia looked up at the dark sky. Drops of rain tapped insistently against the umbrella.
“And I believed you for so many years because I thought I’d done something wrong.”
Thought, she repeated silently, because she knew that no one could punish her as viciously as she punished herself.
“I didn’t lie. I didn’t make it up. But I let myself think that you did it because I asked for it. That I’d sent you the wrong signals. That you only attacked me because you thought I wanted it.” Lydia wiped tears from her eyes. She had never in her life wanted anything less than Paul’s advances. “And then I finally realized that what you did wasn’t my fault. That you were just a cold, psychotic motherfucker, and you found the perfect way to push me out of my own family.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “And you know what? Fuck you, Paul. Fuck you and your stupid piece-of-shit Miata and your Goddamn graduate degree and your blood money from your parents’ car accident and look who’s standing here now, asshole. Look who got gutted in an alley like a pig and look who’s dancing on your fucking grave!”
Lydia was practically breathless from finally getting it all out. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She felt hollow, but not from her outburst. There had to be something else. For so many years, she’d dreamed of confronting Paul, taking him down, beating him with her fists or kicking him with her feet or stabbing him with a rusty knife. Words were not enough. There had to be something more to do than just scream at his grave. She looked out at the cemetery as if an idea would strike her like lightning. Rain was coming down so hard that the air had taken on a white haze. The ground was saturated.
Lydia dropped her umbrella.
The ground could probably be wetter.
Her bladder was still full. Nothing would give her greater pleasure than pissing on Paul’s grave. She yanked back the green carpet. She hiked up her dress and bent over so she could pull down her underwear.
And then she stopped because she wasn’t alone.
Lydia noticed the shoes first. Black Louboutins, approximately five thousand dollars. Sheer hose, though who the hell wore pantyhose anymore? Black dress, probably Armani or Gaultier, at least another six grand. There were no rings on the woman’s elegant fingers nor a tasteful tennis bracelet on her birdlike wrists. Her shoulders were square and her posture was ramrod straight, which told Lydia that Helen’s admonitions had been followed by at least one of her daughters.
“Well.” Claire crossed her arms low on her waist. “This is awkward.”
“It certainly is.” Lydia hadn’t seen her baby sister in eighteen years, though in her wildest imagination, she had never dreamed that Claire would turn into a Mother.
“Here.” Claire snapped open her two-thousand-dollar Prada clutch and pulled out a handful of Kleenex. She tossed the tissues in Lydia’s general direction.
There was no graceful way to do this. Lydia’s underwear was down around her knees. “Do you mind turning around?”
“Of course. Where are my manners?” Claire turned around. The black dress was tailored to her perfect figure. Her shoulder blades stuck out like cut glass. Her arms were toned little sticks. She probably jogged with her trainer every morning and played tennis every afternoon and then bathed in rosewater milked from a magic unicorn before her husband came home every night.
Not that Paul Scott was ever coming home again.
Lydia pulled up her underwear as she stood. She blew her nose into the tissue, then dropped it on Paul’s grave. She kicked the Astroturf back in place like a cat in a litter box.
“This was fun.” Lydia grabbed her umbrella and made to leave. “Let’s never do it again.”
Claire spun around. “Don’t you dare slink off.”
“Slink?” The word was like a match to kindling. “You think I’m slinking away from you?”
“I literally stopped you from pissing on my husband’s gave.”
Lydia couldn’t talk in italics anymore. “You’d better be glad I didn’t take a shit.”
“God, you’re so crass.”
“And you’re a fucking bitch.” Lydia turned on her heel and headed toward the van.
“Don’t walk away from me.”
Lydia cut between the graves because she knew Claire’s heels would sink into the wet grass.
“Come back here.” Claire was keeping up. She had taken off her shoes. “Lydia. God dammit, stop.”
“What?” Lydia swung around so fast that the umbrella swiped Claire’s head. “What do you want from me, Claire? You made your choice—you and Mom both. You can’t just expect me to forgive you now that he’s dead. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Forgive me?” Claire was so outraged that her voice trilled. “You think I’m the one who needs forgiveness?”
“I told you that your husband tried to rape me and your response was that I needed to get the fuck out of your house before you called the police.”
“Mom didn’t believe you either.”
“Mom didn’t believe you either,” Lydia mocked. “Mom thought you were still a virgin in the eighth grade.”
“You don’t know a Goddamn thing about me.”