The Road Not Taken

At the intersection, I could go right and head home — but turning left would take me to the cemetery. I turned left toward the setting sun. Parking the car, I walked along the rows of grave markers until I saw the freshly turned earth over her location. There were fresh flowers there. Some bunches of roses and lilies, and wreaths saying "Beloved Daughter" and "My Love." The permanent marker was not yet installed, so no one could tell who lay there, slowly decomposing. I walked around the mound of dirt, thinking of her. I hadn’t attended the funeral, of course. No one would have been pleased to see me there. Not my parents, not her boyfriend David, not my other sister. I sighed. Home was not really an option for me anymore. She had taken that away from me, as well.

I kicked at the flowers, breaking up some arrangements, spilling them over the patch of dirt, upsetting the neat pile of earth. I spat on the grave. I sneered and laughed my triumph at her. Now neither of us would have David. But at least I still had a life to live. I opened the bottle of Scotch I had brought with me and raised it to my lips. I took a swig, then poured a teaspoonful onto the grave. “Here’s to your future with David, bitch.”

She didn’t reply, of course, but I had forced her to drink the toast. I win again. “Everything’s always easy for you. You’re always pretty, always smart, always the center of attention. I wanted David the first time I laid eyes on him, but you sank your hooks into him, and now he’s yours.” I took another drink from the bottle. “No drink for you this time, bitch. You don’t deserve it.”

I picked up a lily from the ground. So cool and pure white. No one would put lilies on my grave. I poured a measure of Scotch into the flower head, and let it fall down onto the grave, mashing it into the dirt. “Getting sloppy drunk again, huh? If you hadn’t done that, you’d still be alive today.” I threw back my head and laughed again, then took a long pull from the bottle.

“It was all your fault, you know. You decided to surprise David with a visit. You surprised all three of us. Then you had to make it all about you. Pouting, screaming, running out of the house. It was just sex, it didn’t take anything away from you, just gave me a little bit of happiness. But you’re too selfish to just forget about it.”

Tears were streaming down my face now. I punched the ground, crushing more flowers. “Bitch, bitch, bitch! Everything’s always about you.” I lay down on the damp earth, wiping my face with the scattered flowers, throwing them around.

After a few minutes, I heard a noise. A young couple a hundred yards away, making out in the cemetery. Now, that was funny. No sad faces, no pretending to be heartbroken, just honest lust. I cheered them on in my head, but stayed quiet to let them enjoy their fun.

I rolled over to talk seriously to my dead sister. “You see? Just let people get on with it. Easy come, easy go. What’s wrong with you, bitch?” I poured more Scotch down my throat. “But you had to go to a bar and drink till you couldn’t see straight. Called Mom and told her all about it. How your evil sister had messed up your life. As if!”

I felt a pain in my chest. That was it. Her final act had been to destroy my relationships with everybody. I took one more drink. The sun had completely set, and the air was growing cold. There was less than a quarter left in the bottle now. I put the cork back in the bottle and propped it up in the dirt that covered her. “There’s a suitable memorial for you. You killed yourself with drink for no good reason. David will hate me forever, my family blame me for your death, and you get away scot-free.” I giggled then. Scot-free, but certainly not Scotch free. “Goodbye forever, bitch queen!”

It wasn’t easy to get up after so long. My legs were cramped and unsteady. Evening had turned into night while we talked. I tripped a couple of times as I walked back to the parking lot. I was still sniffing, but the tears had stopped flowing.

When I reached the car, I stopped and studied my options. I could go right and head home — but turning left would take me to the beach. I was in the mood to celebrate my win, not to mourn. Home would be sad and angry. There would be recriminations, stories about what a great daughter Elizabeth had been. With a subtext of what a disappointment I was. They would suggest that I had tried to steal David from her, when in fact it was the other way around. David might be there, and I could not see that look on his face again. Of all people, he had no reason to blame me, but he was on his high horse, saying I had caused the accident.

I drove toward the beach. A quiet moonlit swim would clear my head. In the morning I’d head on down the coast, looking for a new life without all that baggage. Farewell to Elizabeth, farewell to David, and farewell to my family. I turned the radio on and listened to Doja Cat at high volume. I wound down the windows to allow the sea air to fill the car.

The bitch is dead. I did take David away from her. I won. So why am I the bad guy in all this? I screamed “I hate you, Elizabeth!” at the top of my voice as I drove down the winding coast road. I screamed “I love you, David!” as I drove off the road at the same place that she had crashed, tumbling down the rocky cliff toward the sea.