Here Lies Linc (20 page)

I scrolled my finger toward the top of the page, scanning each entry. My grandmother had been a Wickham before she got married. “Wickham … Bell … Hollingsworth,” I whispered to myself as I backtracked through the record, whispering each new name I spotted. “Barnes … Caldwell …”

Where was the Raintree we were supposed to be named after? I combed back through the entries to double-check. But besides Dad and me, I couldn’t find a single one. I let out a growl and heaved the Bible back into its box. I should have been studying for my American Studies test tomorrow instead of searching for imaginary ancestors.

As I reached for the papers that went on top of the Bible, I caught sight of Dad’s old address book buried in the pile. I quickly skimmed through the worn pages, smiling faintly at his messy scribbles. Dad’s handwriting had been worse than mine. A pang went through me when I got to the J’s. Jeeter, with his phone number at the cemetery office and his home address, was listed right in the center of the page. Was this some kind of sign that I was supposed to return Jeeter’s call and hear what he had to say for himself?
Not a chance
, I thought, with the last words he had said to me still echoing in my head.
Get out of here, Linc. Just go home
.

I was flipping past Jeeter’s name when an envelope fluttered
from between the next pages. I let out a startled breath of air. The envelope was addressed to my grandmother—Ellen Crenshaw in Verona, Wisconsin. I squinted at the return address. It said 266 Fulton Lane, Iowa City, Iowa.… What if this was the mysterious letter that Lottie had told me about? The one Dad had discovered when he was in the midst of cleaning out his parents’ house and trying to decide among job offers around the country. I slipped the thin sheet of stationery out of the envelope. Just like my mother had described, the typewritten note was odd in every way—from the stiff apology in the beginning to the curt initials at the end:

My thoughts were still whirling when I heard a loud creak on the stairs.

“Linc?” It was Lottie, standing at the top of the ladder. I jerked up straight.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked.

When I didn’t answer at first, she ducked her head under the low rafters and picked her way toward me, past the box of Christmas ornaments and a stack of shutters. I could see her
face fill with dismay and something else—was it anger?—as she stood under the peak of the roof surveying the piles of paper, the mug, and Dad’s rocks and other treasures spread in a messy circle around me.

“What—” she started to ask again, her voice breathy with disbelief.

I cut her off. “Look what I found, Lottie! It’s that letter you told me about! I found it in Dad’s old address book.” Lottie was still staring at me with a baffled expression, so I kept trying to explain.

“Remember? The one that convinced him to move to Iowa? Whoever wrote this letter signed it ‘A.R.’ See?” I held up the letter and pointed to the initials with a giddy laugh. “I’ve got so much to tell you, Lottie! A lot of crazy stuff happened yesterday. But first of all, you know how my friend adopted a grave with the name Raintree on it for our project, and I was joking about finding a long-lost relative in Iowa City? Well, maybe my idea wasn’t so far-fetched after all. Maybe this
R
stands for Raintree. And now that we have an address, we can find out for sure.” I thrust out the letter so Lottie could see for herself. “If Dad hadn’t had his heart attack, he probably would have done the same thing.”

Lottie didn’t reach out to take the letter like I expected. Instead, she winced and blinked her eyes shut as if she had walked into a spiderweb. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Linc,” she said. “And you should have asked me before you came up here and started rummaging through these boxes.”

Resentment prickled up inside me. “Why? Dad’s stuff belongs to me just as much as it belongs to you.”

Her gaze landed on the Ziploc bag lying on the floorboards next to me. “Those are
our
wedding rings. I put them up here for safekeeping because I didn’t want them touched,” she said in an accusing voice. “Wait, where’s your father’s watch?”

“Here it is,” I said weakly, holding up my wrist for her to see. “I thought that … that maybe it would be okay if I wore it once in a while. It’s a little too big for me, but I could poke another hole in the wristband.”

“No!” Lottie cried out.

“Why?” I asked with shock rising in my throat.

Lottie’s eyes were wild. “Because,” she stammered, “because he
always
wore that watch, even before I met him, until they took it off and gave it to me when he died … and I don’t want to be reminded.”

I looked down at the Three Stooges mug that had made me smile a few minutes ago, and I thought of how good it had felt when I had taken Delaney to see Dad’s grave. “Is that such a bad thing?” I asked in bewilderment. “Being reminded once in a while?”

“Yes,” Lottie said in a strangled voice. Her face twisted. “All this”—she flung her arm out at Dad’s boxes—“it just hurts too much.” She swiped her sweater sleeve across her eyes, fighting back tears. “It’s not healthy to keep living in the past, Linc. We have to move on.”

I scrambled to my feet, scattering Dad’s address book and
papers across the floor. “How can you say you’re moving on, Lottie? You’re not moving on. You’re stuck!” I kicked at one of the papers under my foot in frustration. “I’ve been stuck too. I mean, no wonder! There wasn’t a chance to say goodbye or
anything
. Dad’s here one day and then,
poof
, he’s gone. We didn’t even have a funeral because … because … I’m not even sure why. I just remember you telling me he would have hated all the fuss. Well, it was
you
, Lottie! You’re the one who didn’t want the funeral. But you can’t keep trying to make things better by pretending Dad never existed.”

“Be quiet!” Lottie snapped. “You have no right to talk to me that way. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of making everything work on my own.” She lunged forward and snatched up the Ziploc bag that was lying nearby with the wedding rings inside. When she stood up, her face had frozen into a cold mask. “I want you to put everything back exactly the way you found it,” she said. “Right now.”

I saw her glance at Dad’s watch still hanging on my wrist. I yanked it off and pushed it into her hands. Then I bent down and started shoving things into the open boxes. The letter from A.R. had landed at my feet. I found its envelope nearby.

Lottie was already making her way down the ladder. “Wait!” I called out, holding up the letter. “Didn’t you hear anything I said? Don’t you want to find out who wrote this?”

Lottie stopped with her hands gripping the highest step. I could barely see her face in the shadowy light, but I didn’t need to. I could hear the hollowness in her voice. “I don’t see
the point, Linc. Finding who wrote that letter won’t bring your father back.”

Of course he’s not coming back! He’s dead!
I wanted to yell into the dark peak above me as she disappeared through the trapdoor.
But what about you, Lottie? What’s your excuse?

But I bit my tongue. Obviously
nothing
I said, no matter how blunt, could chip through the layer of ice that had grown over my mother like a second skin.

I finished repacking the boxes. In two minutes the bits and pieces left over from Dad’s life were closed up again under the cardboard lids—all except for one. I folded up the letter and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans. If Lottie wouldn’t go with me, I’d have to find A.R. on my own.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I told Delaney all about what had happened in the attic. I made her late for science class, but she didn’t even seem to care once I showed her the letter I had found. “Wait a minute,” she said, ignoring the other kids scurrying into the classroom. “So you think A.R. might be the lady from the graveyard?”

“I guess it’s a possibility.” I shrugged. “If she never got married, her name would still be Raintree.”

“But this note sounds more like something a secret boyfriend would write, doesn’t it?” Delaney ran her fingertip under the lines of neat cursive. “ ‘I apologize for
breaking my promise
and writing’? ‘I’ve been
tormented
with worry ever since your letters stopped coming’?”

I found myself nodding. Then I remembered how serious and straightlaced my grandmother had looked in those pictures
up in the attic. “I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “My grandmother didn’t really seem like the type to have an old boyfriend hidden in another state. She was more of the …” I floundered for the right description. “More of the farm lady type.”

Delaney laughed as she handed back the letter. “Well, there’s only one way to find out, right?” she said. “We’ve got to go to Fulton Lane.”

“Really? You’ll go with me?” I wanted to fling my arms around her in gratitude. “You think we could go today after school?” I asked in a rush. “I checked the map last night. It’s not far and we could catch the city bus.”

Delaney thought for a second. “I guess I could call Mama at lunchtime and ask.”

Delaney’s lab partner poked her head out of the science room. “Hurry up,” she said in an urgent voice, reaching for Delaney’s arm. “We’re dissecting owl pellets today, and we need to get going.”

“Oh, Lordy,” I heard Delaney say as the girl pulled her around the corner. “I’m not sure I’m ready for an owl pellet first thing in the morning.”

I didn’t see Delaney again until American Studies class. Since we had a big test that day, there wasn’t time to talk, but she gave me a cheerful nod on our way into the classroom and whispered that she’d meet me by my locker after school.

But for some reason Delaney’s mood had turned somber by the time we boarded the crosstown bus that would drop us off near Fulton Lane. I knew something had to be wrong. She
didn’t say thank you when I paid the fare for both of us, and she began staring out the window before the bus had even pulled away from the curb.

I peered around her curtain of blond hair so I could see her expression. “Is everything still okay with your mom?”

She nodded, watching the streets flash by. “She’s doing fine.”

“Are you worried about leaving her by herself this afternoon?”

“No, Daddy’s with her. He’s taking her to her checkup at the hospital.”

“So nothing’s wrong with the baby?”

Delaney shook her head with a small, impatient sigh.

“It’s just that you’re kind of quiet. I thought maybe something had happened.”

She swiveled around to face me. Her eyes were wide, glassy pools. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about the Ransom vault when we were in the cemetery?” she demanded.

I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came out.

“You told me you were gonna tell Jeeter the truth and give the key back,” she rushed on. “Then today when I was leaving American Studies, I heard Beez bragging about how y’all are planning to open the vault the night after Halloween. And Amy was asking if she could go too.”

I groaned and clapped my hand across my eyes. “Oh, no! I told those guys that they needed to keep this quiet.”

“So it’s true? You’re really going? Then why’d you lie to me the other day? Why’d you say you were taking the key back as soon as you could?”

I glared straight ahead, as if I could bore a hole into the seat in front of me. “That’s what I meant to do. Until Kilgore and Jeeter decided they wanted to kick me out of the cemetery. Forever.”

“Wait,” Delaney said with a muddled shake of her head. “What in the world are you talking about?”

I told her the quick version of what had happened in the cemetery office after she and her mother had left me in the parking lot. Although I’d had two days to mull things over, it still stung to say the details out loud. “He kept saying how weird I was,” I muttered.

Delaney’s brow furrowed. “And Jeeter didn’t stop him?”

“Nope. He didn’t even try.” I thumped the plastic seat with my fist. “That’s why I don’t feel bad about using that key. It’s not like we’re going to damage any property or steal anything. We’ll take one look in the vault and lock it up again. Then I’m going to drop the key off on the doorstep.” I leaned back against the seat. “My parting gift.”

We watched another round of passengers climb on board at Third Street. When Delaney spoke again, her voice was prim. “So is Amy really going with you?”

“Amy?” I scoffed. “Are you kidding? I might as well bring along a couple of reporters and a camera crew.” Delaney sniffed and focused on her hands in her lap, trying not to look pleased.

“What about you?” I asked suddenly, remembering how one glimpse of the Ransom vault had piqued her curiosity the other day. “You wanna come? Actually,” I added before I could stop myself, “I’d feel a lot better if you were there.”

Saying those words would have set my face on fire a week ago. I waited for the blushing to erupt just like Old Faithful, right on cue. But miraculously, nothing happened.