Through my viewfinder I see, on the other side of the tree, an old lady with white hair in a bun kneeling over one of these underground graves. She’s clucking her tongue and wiping her hand across one of the stones, and her hand comes up wet and muddy. It’s hard to tell from this distance, but I can just make out the layer of water covering the stone and I realize why most of the cemetery is aboveground. I think the water levels in New Or- leans are high enough that it makes digging graves a problem. I think the ground here is just that wet.

Something about the old woman seems familiar. The angle of her chin, the slope of her forehead or maybe it’s her narrow shoulders that make me think of someone I can’t quite name. I look through my camera again and zoom in on her face. Her look of concentration. That’s when it comes to me. Maybe I’ve got Ruth on the brain (like usual), but it’s my sister the old woman reminds me of, like these are the lines that will be on Ruth’s face when she’s old. Through my lens I watch how carefully she tends the grave, and I wonder whose it is. Her husband’s? Her mother’s?

Her sister’s?

I zoom out slightly to catch the woman on her knees, hand across the stone like a benediction, a jagged tree-branch shadow cutting across her face, and I click. Maybe she wouldn’t want me taking pictures. Maybe there are rules about that kind of thing. I don’t know, and in that moment I don’t care.

“Echoes,” Pink Floyd, 1971.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I photo shoot my way back to the entrance of the cemetery. I exit the cemetery, passing under the stone arch and back onto the street. I’m thinking about later that night when I will download all these pictures onto my laptop and post my favorite of the white-haired lady. Lyrics and captions run through my head.

A few blocks away I see the green awning of the tattoo shop. It’s a reminder that hits me like ice water.

“Oh crap.”

I slip my phone from my back pocket. I have three missed calls and a message. All from Ruth. I hit CALLBACK and start pacing.

She answers after one ring. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

At least she’s okay.

“I’m sorry, I was … distracted.”

How could I have gotten distracted?

“What if you’d been abducted?” she says.

“Like by aliens?”

“Olivia! You know what I mean.”

In my frustrated distraction I’m about to step onto the street but remember the truck and stop. “Hey,” I say into my phone. “You’re the one who ditched me.”

“I did not ditch you,” she says. “And I would have at least answered my phone.”