Annabel Lee ─ emily prentiss

thirty

This is a long one. My apologies.

★★★

THEY set out on their drive to New York at seven-thirty in the morning. Just under six hours and an argument over lunch (Bel firmly believed eating crap food at a service area was part of the road trip experience, but Emily, who won out, disagreed) later, they crossed into Dutchess County, New York. Emily soon turned off the highway into the town Bel lived in until her mother died when she was ten.

"There," Bel said suddenly as they drove through the center of town. Emily glanced over.

"Hm?"

"That restaurant." Bel pointed to a bar and grille called Jordan's. Memories flooded back. "I used to go there with my parents. I mostly went with my dad when I was younger, but after he died, my mom took me every once in a while. I guess we felt closer to him there."

She and her mom found that sometimes, it was easier to be close to Bel's father at their special places than it was at home. It sounded counterintuitive to go elsewhere to remember him rather than to do it at home, where they'd spent the most time with him. Bel supposed it was because they got used to life in their house without him. They still felt his absence, but there were new memories attached to some things, and some things just became neutral because they saw them all the time. Their house couldn't be steeped in all-consuming grief for two years. But the special places they went to with him could be his places with memories that wouldn't be written over by daily life. They could go just to remember him.

"Do you want to get lunch there?" Emily asked. "It's almost one. They're probably open." She saw hesitation on Bel's face. "We don't have to."

Bel hadn't been anywhere with strong memories of either of her parents in over three years. The thought of going in freaked her out a little, especially with Emily. Her parents' memories felt so intimate, like they should belong just to her. Would she be violating something by letting Emily in?

That was stupid. Her parents were dead. They wouldn't know the difference.

"I want to." She nodded. Emily parked in the first space she saw and they headed into the restaurant.

It looked exactly as Bel remembered it. Dimly lit, deep purple walls, dark wood floors, wood tables, a row of booths against one wall and a bar against another. A younger guy wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and an apron around his waist approached them.

"Two?" he said, holding up two menus.

"Yep." Emily squeezed Bel's hand, sensing some anxiety. She murmured into Bel's ear, "We don't have to be here."

"I want to," Bel repeated. They followed the guy through the mostly empty restaurant to a booth. He handed each of them a menu before going to check on someone else. She opened her menu. It had definitely been updated over the years, but it still triggered a memory. "When I was like five or six, I came here with my dad and decided to order a cheeseburger from the adult menu. My dad told me it would probably be too big for me to finish and maybe I should get a kids' burger instead, but I insisted. I tried so hard to finish it and prove him wrong, but I barely ate more than half of it. He'd ordered this little salad, and he winked at me and said it was a good thing that he was still hungry so the burger wouldn't go to waste."

The most insignificant, unspecial memories became so precious when someone was gone.

Emily smiled halfheartedly, caught between being happy Bel could reminisce and being nervous about the toll this trip would take on Bel. After this, they were going to the cemetery where Bel's parents were buried, the first time Bel would be going since her mom's funeral almost four years ago. This trip needed to happen. Bel needed to do this. That didn't make it any less painful for her. It was probably a good thing that Bel said they could get a hotel room with just one bed because it was cheaper and neither of them minded sharing—she usually handled rough nights better when she wasn't alone but was sometimes too anxious to ask Emily to stay with her. This way she wouldn't have to ask.