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now the right time to do this?”
    My arms burned under his touch despite the layers of clothes between our skin. His lips taunted me. No. I’d rather spend the night in your arms than bury my granny and search for long-lost secrets. I shook away the voice. “I only have a week off of work. It’s now or never.”
    “What about asking your parents?”
    “Hello, have you met my parents?” A rhetorical question like a thousand others we’d exchanged, but this one felt loaded.
    “Hurt my daughter, and I’ll hurt you,” had been the extent of my dad’s pleasantries the day Travis got his driver’s license and came to pick me up for the first time. While my dad had no problem inflicting deep emotional wounds upon me, he didn’t seem to want anyone else to hurt me. Or maybe he just wanted to do it all himself.
    Pain flashed across Trav’s face, and he opened his mouth to say something. The shrill call of the phone cut through the house, freezing the words on his lips, saving me from things I might not want to hear.
    The phone rang again. And again.
    Travis squeezed my shoulders before letting go. “It won’t answer itself, Gemi.”
    I made my way to the phone, hoping the ringing would stop before I got there. I couldn’t bear someone asking to talk to Granny. The answering machine picked up.
    “Hello. You have reached Sophia Baker. You just missed me, but I will call you back as soon as I get your message.”
    Her voice startled me. When the machine finished beeping and the telemarketer left his message, I replayed the recording, over and over, mesmerized by the only connection I had to my grandmother. “You just missed me.”
    “I still miss you,” I whispered back. “Forever and always.”
    Travis slipped his hand into mine and tugged me away from the counter. “I think it’s time for us to go, Gem. We can look through the house another day.”
    We washed the dishes, and I gathered my things. Before leaving, I made one last trip to Granny’s room and picked up the picture of us on the swing this summer. We had been reading Little Women when Travis stopped by to pick me up on his way home from work.
    He’d snapped the picture, surprising us with the flash. In it, straw sun-hats covered our heads, bent together. Granny laughed as I finished off one of the berries from her garden. Her skin glowed a healthy golden brown, and her eyes sparkled. Travis had framed it for me, but I passed the picture on to Granny.
    Not knowing what would happen to the house or all of her belongings, I stacked the picture on top of my birthday books. On my way out of the kitchen, I played the answering machine one last time.

Chapter 6
     
    The day of the funeral dawned gray and cold. The church filled with Granny’s friends, people I’d met through worship with her or at the Farmers Market. They swept in on the wind and carried empty words as an offering.
    “Sophia was a special lady, so full of life.” Not anymore.
    “What a beautiful urn.” Granny was beautiful too.
    “She fought a good fight.” Yeah, but she lost, so what’s the difference?
    Gnarled hands pressed to my cheeks, followed by awkward embraces. Peppermint and Bengay filled my nostrils, hitting my gag reflex. Each new exchange unraveled my tenuous grip on sanity. Hysteria bubbled up in my throat, and I clapped my hand over my mouth before it could spill out.
    I retreated to the youth room where I’d spent hours in Bible study. Even with the door shut, the hum from down the hall pounded in my ears. Rows of confirmation pictures filled the farthest wall from the door. I’d always been drawn to them, and now, the familiar faces soothed my nerves.
    Granny’s picture hung in the second row, her class being one of the first confirmed at Holy Redeemer. She stood awkwardly in a pair of heels and a crisp white dress. A single red rose nestled in her curly hair. Like all the confirmands, she held a Bible in her hand. Next, I tracked down my dad’s class. He stood