The Urn Carrier Read Online Free PDF

eyes
solemn.
    “Do you know she’s not here anymore?” Tessa bends down and hugs
him. “Do you know it’s just you and me now?”
    “Part of me wants to go with you . . .” Her mom is petting Murphy
too.
    “Mom, I want to do this alone.”
    “I know, baby. Some of it is selfish and part of it is . . .
worry.”
    “I have Aunt Sadie’s shotgun.” Tessa grins.
    “Oh no.”
    “Oh yes, I do. Mr. Forsythe insisted.”
    “But you don’t know how to . . .”
    “Paul took me to the gun range.”
    “Paul?”
    “The cute garage delivery guy.”
    “Tessa you haven’t done anything with anyone have you?”
    “Oh my god, Mom. I’m not going to tell you if I did or didn’t.
Wow. You’re not like, channeling Jill are you?” Tessa sucks in her breath,
immediately regretting her words.
    “It’s just hard for me to realize you’re an adult.”
    “Everyone else sees it.”
    “And I promised I wouldn’t cry.”
    Tessa hugs her. “It’s only twelve weeks, mom. A school semester is
longer. I’ll be back the end of July, mid-August the latest. And we’ll talk
every Wednesday. We can FaceTime. It was cool of Mr. Forsythe to give you Aunt
Sadie’s iPad.”
    For a creepy dude, he was thoughtful.
    “Come in and have some food before you go.” Her mom puts her hand
on Tessa’s shoulder and turns her toward their home.
    Impatient to start, Tessa wants nothing more than to be on the
road right now, but what’s another hour with her mom in the scheme of things?
     
    BETH WATCHES HER only daughter leave. She tries not to cry. She
puts on a brave face and hates her relatives for forcing this issue. Damn them
and their greed. This one pure soul, who wouldn’t hurt anyone if she could help
it, sent out, alone, on a task any of them could have done easily.
    She knows their whispers, how her daughter has taken a leave from
school, how Beth works two jobs while this girl fritters away her time. Beth
remembers being nineteen. She remembers the angst of learning about her body,
about college, about Gabe.
    Her first meeting with Gabe had been so innocuous. She had been
lying on the sheet she dragged everywhere so she could flop it on the ground
and study in the sunshine. So she could flop it in someone’s living room and be
at home. Wherever this sheet was and she on top of it, she was at home. It was
her place in the world, this sheet.
    She and her sheet were in the middle of the
gardens at the university and someone blocked out the sun for the briefest
second.
    His smiling eyes, the curly topped hair, and his infectious
gap-toothed grin caught her immediately.
    “Mind if I sit?” he asked. “You know, I see you all over campus,
and you never sit in a regular chair unless the teacher asks you to. Why is
that?”
    “I like to be grounded.” She laughed. “This blanket grounds me. I
like being down here, next to the earth, my feet bare, the scent of the earth
rising up to me.”
    Gabe smiled. “My mom always called me a little
heathen, because I’m the same way. I like being on the ground, or outdoors.”
    It was that moment that Gabe caught her heart. There was no Mark,
or any of the other boys she’d been dating. Within three months they married.
    Beth finished Occupational Therapy school. Gabe finished his
wildlife degree, but jobs were at a premium, so he worked construction, till
something in his field opened.
    But then, Beth was pregnant, and construction was paying more than
any seasonal wildlife job.
    When the twins were born, Beth insisted she wanted Mark as the
godfather. Gabe agreed.
    As the twins grew, Gabe noticed T was the most athletic. The most
agile, the one most willing to climb a tree. Gabe couldn’t wait to take them
hunting and fishing. To show them all he knew about the woods.
    He was always in the leaves with them, tussling and shouting. Beth
watched from her blanket as she read and heard their shouts of glee, and
laughter and love.
    Tessa always rose early, practically leaping out of bed