My mother had left a voicemail, letting me know she and my father had decided to go up to their place in Harbor Springs for the week and could I please remember it was trash day on Thursday and not to leave the air conditioning lower than 73 when I went to work in the morning and Sitty had an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday afternoon, would I be available to take her?
The woman exhausted me without even being in the room. I texted back that I’d follow all instructions and yes, I could take Sitty to the appointment.
I had one more voicemail—from Angelina.
“Coco, could you please call me back right away? Thanks.”
Steeling myself for another conversation with her, I returned her call.
“Hello?”
“Hi Angelina. It’s Coco.”
“Oh, hey. I keep thinking about the whole theme thing.”
“I thought we settled this. It’s going to be beautiful as planned, I promise.”
“I know, but it seems a little tame, you know? I came up with some ideas and narrowed it down to two—The Great Gatsby or True Blood.”
My stomach dropped. “Um—“
“I think I’m leaning toward Gatsby though, because of the fun costumes. I’m like eighty, forty on it.”
My head throbbed. “That doesn’t even add up to one hundred percent.”
“I’m not a hundred percent on anything,” she said, like it was obvious.
Oh my God. “Angelina, I’m away for the weekend. Let’s talk again Monday, OK?”
“OK. I’ll keep thinking about it.”
“You do that. Bye.” I ended the call before she could say anything else and turned my phone off.
A moment later Nick came out of the store with a brown paper bag tucked under one arm and a quilt hanging over the other one. “Here’s our lunch,” he said, handing me the bag, “and our four hundred dollar picnic blanket.” He tossed the quilt in the back seat and slid behind the wheel.
My jaw dropped. “Four hundred dollars!”
He nodded happily. “It’s Amish.”
I glanced back at the brightly colored patchwork quilt. “I don’t think you’re supposed to use those as picnic blankets.”
“Hey, listen.” He tapped me on the nose. “I only have so many hours left to impress you. Show you how far I’ve come in life.” He started the car and the engine roared loudly.
About twenty minutes later, he turned onto an old gravel road sandwiched between a cornfield on the left and a forest on the right. A clearing appeared in the trees about two hundred feet down. At first glance it looked like a grassy yard, surrounded by forest on three sides, like maybe a house had once stood there. But when Nick pulled over to the side of the road to park, I saw a little cemetery in one corner of the clearing.
“What is this place?” I glanced around. Not a house or barn or car in sight. Quiet but for the chirp of crickets and the wind in the trees.
“Noni thinks at one time there may have been a little church here. My grandparents’ farm is just up the road and we used to go exploring through the woods sometimes. One day my brothers and I wandered farther than usual and came across this place.”
I got out of the car, carrying the grocery bag in my arm, leaving my purse and phone in the car. It was so serene and pretty here, and it felt so removed from the noise and hustle of my usual life, I didn’t want any distractions from what was right in front of me. Nick reached into the back for the quilt and followed me to a shady spot near the corner where perhaps only twenty old headstones rose from the ground, some tilted and toppling, weeds and wildflowers growing up around them.
I stopped and turned around. “This OK?”
“Sure.” He spread the quilt on the ground and reached for the grocery bag.
After handing it over, I walked among the markers, curious about whose forgotten graves were here. Not a bad place to rest, I mused, taking in the picturesque setting, but it was clear no one had tended to this place in quite some time. While Nick unpacked our picnic, I examined the stones, trying to read names and dates etched into limestone and marble that had eroded over time. Most were small and rectangular, but there were a few larger monuments marked with crosses at the top. From what I could tell, the majority of people here had died between the eighteen forties and the early twentieth century. The names were German for the most part, but there were a few French and Irish surnames as well.
“Anyone you know?” called Nick.
Leaning over, I ran my fingers across the face of a stone marking the grave of a young woman, just twenty-one when she died. A cool breeze fluttered along the back of my neck. “No. Just curious about them, that’s all. I’m a history nerd, can’t help it.”
“I don’t mind. But lunch looks pretty good here.”
Straightening, I walked back to the quilt and dropped to my knees. “It does look good.” Nick had bought two sandwiches made with thick slices of rustic country bread and layered with turkey and cheese and vegetables, a jar of pickles, a container of blackberries, a bag of potato chips, and two bottles of water.
We ate in companionable silence, broken only by the crunch of a pickle or chip, the song of birds in the trees, and the occasional buzz of a fly interested in our lunch.
When I was done, I lay on my back on the blanket, full and warm. A little sunlight filtered through the branches of the birch tree overhead, turning its leaves from green to silver as they fluttered in the breeze. Closing my eyes, I thought about how different life would have been for a woman my age living around here a hundred years ago. At twenty- eight, I’d probably have been married with a whole bunch of kids—if I survived the birth of them all. I wondered about the young woman whose stone I’d seen and hoped she’d had at least some happiness in life.