Silent Fall

drowned."
    "Maybe she was on a boat or something, or she got caught in a riptide, had an unexpected cramp."
    "Or someone killed her and made it appear as if she had drowned." He waited for Catherine to challenge his words, but her silence told him she was thinking the same thing. He looked into her eyes. "If she never came back, no one would ever challenge his story; no one would ever know the truth about his marriage, or about me."
    "Except your real father," she pointed out.
    "If he knew. Who’s to say my mother told him? He could have been left in the dark. He certainly never came looking for me."
    "He had to know if he gave blood when you were sick, if that’s when the truth came out."
    "Right. So he just didn’t want anything to do with me." He shrugged. "Well, I’ll think about him later. I have to find out what happened to my mother."
    "Dylan," she said, cutting him off, "don’t you want to take a minute?"
    "To do what?"
    "To grieve."
    "I already mourned her leaving."
    "But it’s different now. You know she didn’t willingly leave you."
    "Yes, she did. Okay, maybe she got kicked out, but she did leave. And she came here."
    "But she didn’t stay away all this time. She might have intended to come back. She just didn’t have the chance."
    "We’ll never know," he said flatly. "I can’t trust this newspaper because too many lies have already been told."
    "Do you think someone planted it here?"
    "It’s certainly not a coincidence that a newspaper from twenty-three years ago is conveniently found in a drawer in an open house. Someone wanted me to see that. It has to be my father. He kept this house and rented it out to make money, because that’s what he does."
    "Or because he felt some guilt at your mother’s death," Catherine interjected.
    Dylan immediately shook his head. "Richard Sanders doesn’t feel guilt. He doesn’t feel anything. He has no heart."
    "I’m sure you’re right, but you’re the logic guy, Dylan, and it isn’t logical for your father to hang on to a piece of property that belonged to your mother, a woman he supposedly hated."
    "I guess I won’t know the answer to that until I confront him, but first things first. If my mother died here, then she’s buried on this island. I want to find her grave. I want to see it for myself. I want to make sure this isn’t just a fake obituary."
    "There’s a cemetery on the island?"
    "For the longtime residents, yes. It’s by the church. We used to walk by it every Sunday. Jake told me that the ghosts would come out and grab me if I was bad."
    Catherine smiled. "Nice big brother."
    "That was before he knew that I really was the bad kid."
    "No, you weren’t. Your father hated you for reasons that had nothing to do with you. None of this was ever about you. It was about them -- your parents, their messed-up relationship."
    "Whatever. I just want to find her grave. I want to see her name written in stone. Only then will I believe she’s gone. Otherwise this could all be part of his plan to torture me." Dylan didn’t think that was really the case, but he had to make certain of each fact as it came to him. And to be honest, it was easier to concentrate on the facts than the feelings swirling inside him. He’d deal with them later.
    As they left the house and walked out to the street, Dylan paused, trying to remember which way the cemetery was. Down the street to the right, he thought. "We can walk. It’s not far. Just a couple of blocks."
    He’d thought it would be an easy walk, but each step forward took him back in time. He remembered the cracked sidewalk where he’d fallen and broken his little finger, the bushes he’d hidden behind when they’d played hide-and-seek in the twilight hours. He remembered learning how to ride a bike, stopping his downward speed by running onto the lawn of the house at the end of the block.
    There had been few rules on the island. Everyone had known one another, left their doors open, shared meals. The kids had run together in a wild pack. He wondered if it was still so idyllic, so close-knit, or if the renters had taken over, turning it into a tourist destination more than a real family neighborhood.
    "I want to talk to some of the neighbors when we come back," he said. "Someone might remember my mother and might know more about what really happened to her."
    "She died, Dylan. That’s what really