Excerpt: Rear Window (tentative)

Suz sat with her arms wrapped around her and stared out of the window, saying nothing other than, "Let's go," when she got into my car. The trip from the condo complex to the cemetery didn't take long--we were held up only by the early-morning traffic. I drove carefully and kept my attention on the commuter traffic, only occasionally looking over at Suz. She never looked back at me.
Once I left the interstate and turned onto the quieter streets that led to the cemetery, I relaxed a bit, and tried to rehearse what I wanted to say to her when we got there. All the words I had thought of during the sleepless night before seemed to have deserted me, and I knew I would just have to do the best I could. Convincing her to listen was a miracle in the first place--remembering what I needed to say would be another.
The entrance to the cemetery was open, the iron gates pulled back to allow a funeral procession to enter probably, or maybe the maintenance workers were already on the job. No matter, I drove in and followed the road to the first left turn to where I knew where the grave was located. It was easy to spot. The mound had not settled far in the short time since the burial and the flowers were not wilted.
I parked the car just off the road on the grass and turned off the engine. Suz looked at me before she reached for the door handle, still saying nothing. The look on her face--no smile, said volumes.
"Where?" she asked.
"There." I pointed at the grave site and began walking toward it.
"I still don't know why you want me to see this," she said as she walked by my side, arms still crossed on her chest. "It's just a grave."
I didn't reply, not knowing if this was going to work, and in any case she had to see what I wanted her to see.
Beyond the grave, another was being dug. The mound of dirt was covered with a green tarp and the hole in the ground was set off by markers and yellow tape. If what I wanted to show Suz didn't work maybe I could just dive in and be done with it.
We approached the grave I wanted her to see. The new green sod placed over it was a brighter green than the grass around it, which had not yet recovered from the trampling received by the mourners who had attended--me as one of them.
Once at the grave, Suz looked at me. "What did you want me to see? It's just a grave."
"Look at the marker," I said.
The temporary marker was stuck in the ground at the head of the grave. It was covered with plastic. Suz leaned forward and read it.
"So?" she asked. "Benjamin Collins." She looked back at me, puzzled.
"Look at the dates--when he was born."
She frowned, but bent over to read the dates. "And...?"
"Do the math," I said. "How old was he?"
She read the dates and stood up, looking out into the distance as she figured it out.
"He was that old?" she asked, rhetorically, I suppose. "Wow!"
"How old do you think JoAnna is?" I asked, sensing the lead-in to what I wanted to tell her.
"I don't know. I just met her a couple of times."
"Take a guess," I suggested.
Suz looked at me. I was gratified that she had at least spoken to me in a normal tone of voice, not using "asshole" as she had been doing for the last few days.
"Maybe...thirty-five, six?" she said.
"You're close. She's thirty-four."
"But that means Ben was more than double her age, right?"
"Ben was seventy-two when he died. They had been married for fifteen years."
"I've heard of May-December marriages, but this," she waved her hand over Ben's grave, "one is the most ... ah, whatever."
"Yes, and that's where the problem started."
Suz looked back at the grave and at the temporary marker again before looking back at me. "What else did you want to tell me?"
I pointed to the park bench under a tree beyond the grave. "Let's sit there for a minute and I'll tell you what happened...give you my side of JoAnna and Vicky, okay?"
She crossed her arms again and began walking to the bench with me. "You'd better tell me the truth," she said.