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Big trees cast long shadows across engraved names so you’re left bending down to read if you want to know who’s buried under your feet. I bend down a few times before Margie’s ready to go.
    “Are you okay?” she asks.
    “Yes,” I say.
    We walk back toward the road. Margie’s rental car sits on a long stretch of asphalt cutting through the old graveyard. A trail right through the dead that leads to somewhere I can’t see.
     

 

Part II
     
    At fifteen, life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.
    - Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
     

 
One
     
    Margie keeps her word and we leave for Seattle on Friday. We let Goodwill take the rest of the stuff from the house. It’s not much. I have my books, the sweater Mom knitted, my rug, our pictures—everything important.
    It’s too long a drive, Margie says, so we’re flying. It’s my first time in an airplane. I’m not nervous. There’s no room inside for nerves. All seats taken.
    It’s a short flight and pretty soon we’re walking through the airport, yanking suitcases off the carousel. I’m watching Margie pull on the bag that holds my books when whiskey and paint fill my nose. He’s on the other side of the rotating luggage. He’s wearing the same jeans with red stains, has the same booze belly hidden underneath the same flannel shirt, same paint and blood-splattered work boots. Margie doesn’t notice, probably wouldn’t recognize him. Twenty years ago Hank was a kid, in better shape and handsome in the few pictures I saw. Now he’s all spindly arms and legs with a skeletal, triangular head and glassy, black eyes. A praying mantis with hands instead of pincers. A praying mantis with a gun.
    Mint joins the crowd and the bees start buzzing their broken song. I know what it means, the buzz-buzz-buzz . It means silence and peace for a little while. It means nothingness—something I don’t mind so much. Not here, though. Here there are too many people, too much bustle. Here there’s Margie with her worry.
    Someone brushes me where I’m standing at the carousel, brushes me hard because I’m frozen staring at not-Hank or Hank, taking up space and not moving. Both of us watching, not moving, fixed in this here-and-now moment. Margie’s voice is next to my ear, but I can’t make out the words. The bees are too loud. People are bustling all around and the quiet place is a blink away. Don’t go. Don’t go. Stay. Please stay.
    I can’t.
     

 
Two
     
    When I come back we’re still at the carousel and Margie’s standing in front of me. She’s not embarrassed even though people are staring. She’s scared. Plenty. But not embarrassed. This helps.
    “Hi, Aunt Margie.”
    “Hi, Lilybeans. How ya doin’?”
    I look over Margie’s shoulder. There’s no more Hank or not-Hank across the way, no more mint or whiskey, no paint either. Everything is the way it’s supposed to be. Margie glances over her shoulder at where I’m staring.
    “I’m okay,” I say. “Should we go?”
    Her skin is creased between her eyebrows, but she doesn’t ask anything. We get the luggage and head to the parking lot.
    We’re driving away from the airport, through the city, and I’m remembering when Mom and I came to stay with Margie last summer. I remember the shabby brick wall we’re passing now painted bright with a Seahawks logo, how the new paint made the brick look even more worn out. The Seahawk is faded now, a year and a thousand storms gone by.
    I remember the Space Needle, the downtown buildings made of glass and brick and metal, towering over a city people say is emerald, but right now is gray. It was sunny when we visited Margie last summer. Now there are no fluffy clouds, no warmth. Everything is dull and dim. Foggy.
    I look out my window and see a harbor through the rain drops sliding down the glass. The water out there looks mad, waves crashing one way, waves