Free Here Lies Linc by Delia Ray

locker. It was
mine
.
    I strolled closer, trying to act calm and collected, but Delaney didn’t even attempt to hide her happy smile when she looked up and saw me. “Golly day,” she said, sounding more southern than ever. “You don’t use your locker much, do you?”
    “I guess not,” I said. I was too self-conscious to admit I’d been circling hers like a buzzard all afternoon.
    “Didn’t you want to talk to me about something. After American Studies?”
    “Oh, yeah,” I said, pretending it had almost slipped my mind. I reached for the dial on my locker and spun it round and round. Was it 6–12–21? Or 6–21–12? “I wanted to ask you about the last name on the grave you picked. It’s kind of different, right?”
    She nodded. “That’s one of the reasons why I picked it.”
    “Well, the funny thing is that’s my middle name. Raintree.”
    She let out a soft gasp. “Really? So you’re related to him? Robert Raintree?”
    I stopped spinning the dial. “No.… I don’t think so. I mean, that’s why I was surprised. If we have any relatives in town, my parents never mentioned them.”
    Delaney tucked a stray piece of blond hair behind her ear, thinking hard. “Well, where’d the name Raintree come from? Who were you named after?”
    “My father. Raintree was his middle name too. But Dad didn’t grow up around here. He grew up in Wisconsin. Weonly moved here because my parents got jobs teaching at the university.”
    The little crease between Delaney’s eyebrows deepened. “Well, who was your father named after?”
    I banged my locker with my fist and tried the combination again, stalling for time. It was strange. All these years I had walked around with a funny middle name like Raintree, but I’d never thought to track down exactly where it came from.
    “I think it’s just an old family name that kept getting passed down,” I said with a little shrug.
    Delaney hesitated. “Well, would it be all right if I talked to your father?” she asked shyly. “Maybe he knows more.”
    My locker finally decided to clank open. I stuck my head inside for a second and pretended to hunt for books. “I wish you could,” I said. “But he’s not around anymore. He died when I was seven.” I pulled my head out and slammed the locker shut.
    Delaney stared at me with her mouth open, as if I had reached out and pinched her. “Oh,” she breathed. “I’m sorry.”
    “That’s okay,” I told her. “I don’t even know why I brought all this up. It’s probably just a coincidence.”
    “Maybe so,” Delaney agreed. Her shoulders sank a little.
    “But I’d still like to see it anyway,” I said, just to keep the conversation going. “That grave you picked. Where is it exactly?”
    Delaney told me she wasn’t sure how to give me directions, but then her face lit up. “I could show you, though,” she offered.
    “Great!” My answer popped out so fast, I started to blush for the fifth time that day. “I mean, that would be good. When?”
    “How about tomorrow? I’ll have to go home for a little while after school. But maybe we could meet in the graveyard after that.”
    “Sure.”
    The corners of Delaney’s mouth twitched up in a mysterious smile. “Then I can show you the real reason I picked Robert Raintree’s grave.”
    “The
real
reason?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
    “You’ll see,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

W HEN I CAME HOME from jogging with the dogs that afternoon, our old Electrolux was parked in the middle of the kitchen floor with a repair tag attached to the hose. I found Lottie lodged behind the giant oak desk in her study, sorting through a pile of musty-looking books. She barely glanced up when I came into the room and moved a stack of papers off the tattered swivel chair in the corner.
    I sat down and spun in a slow circle, waiting for Lottie to say something. Her office had been a sunporch before we moved in. But with all the filing cabinets and crowded shelves of