Read Alexandra, Gone for Free Online Page B

but she was sure that whatever it was her sister was looking at, it was real and interesting to her. Weirdo.
    “Morning, soldier,” she said affectionately while patting her sister’s back before crossing her arms, hugging herself tightly, and waiting for the ceremony to commence.
    Elle saluted Jane while holding the shovel in one hand and a cigarette between her lips. Jane waited for Elle to begin shoveling dirt, but Elle was slow to start.
    “What are you waiting for?”
    Elle dropped the shovel and walked backward toward their mother’s rosebushes. “I’m just double-checking. I know the spot should be five feet from Mum’s rosebushes and eight feet from Jeffrey’s grave, but five feet from Mum’s rosebushes appears to be only six feet from the bloody grave.”
    She began walking forward toe to heel and counting.
    “But those aren’t proper feet,” Jane said. “As in twelve inches, one foot.”
    “I’m not taking about ‘proper’ feet—I’m talking about my feet,” Elle said.
    The recount was the same. Elle was displeased.
    “Well, does it make a difference? Just dig a bigger hole,” Jane said.
    “Can’t,” Elle said, circling the point where she believed her box to be buried. “Last year I nearly lopped off Jeffrey’s head.”
    Jane laughed. “Jeffrey died when you were six.”
    “So?”
    “So that was twenty years ago.”
    Elle pretended to be confused. “What’s your point?”
    Jane spelled it out. “Jeffrey’s head is long gone.”
    “I’m telling you it was Jeffrey.”
    “Not Jessica, Judy, or Jimmy?” Jane asked, laughing.
    “Definitely Jeffrey,” Elle said before counting her steps again. After a third recount she was utterly baffled. “It should be five feet from Mum’s roses and eight feet from Jeffrey’s head, so how the hell did the garden lose two feet all of a sudden?”
    “Maybe it’s the shoes you’re wearing,” Jane said helpfully.
    Elle considered this and took off her shoes. In socks she re-counted and bizarrely gained one foot. Christ, no wonder my toes look like stumps.
    “You need to get your feet seen to,” Jane said, staring at her sister’s hammertoes.
    “Will do,” Elle said, nodding and flexing them, hoping they would stretch back into toe shape. They didn’t.
    “And you need to give up wearing high heels.”
    “Won’t do,” Elle said before refocusing on the ground.
    After another minute or two of standing around and arguing over the lost foot, she carefully shoveled out dirt, retrieved the old biscuit tin, and walked the short distance to her small cottage situated at the very back of the long garden with Jane in tow. They headed into the kitchen. Jane made coffee while Elle battled to open the rusty old tin.
    “You need a new tin.”
    “No way. It’s this vessel or no vessel. It’s all about tradition, Jane,” Elle argued before screaming “Bollocks!” after nearly losing her middle finger to a sharp end of the rusted vessel.
    A few minutes passed before the coffee was made, the tin was open, the girls were sitting opposite each other, and Elle was reading silently. Elle always read the letter silently while sipping her coffee before reading aloud the parts she was happy to share. Elle laughed, and Jane smiled although she didn’t know what she was smiling at, and it was always at this point in the procedure that she remembered that sometimes she didn’t like what she heard. Elle put down the letter and nodded to herself with a sheepish grin.
    “Well?” Jane asked a tad nervously.
    Elle began reading:
“Sunday, December 31, 2006
“Dear Universe,
“What in the name of fuck is wrong with you? …”
    “Strong start.” Jane laughed.
    Elle read on:
“The icecaps are melting, the ozone is burning, and species are actually dying out, the golden toad gone, the West African black rhino gone, the baiji dolphin gone …”
    She took a breath long enough for Jane to interject, “God, that’s awful!” Jane was referring to the