Free Fallen by Erin McCarthy

that,” he said, showing Sara the busted pieces, before shoving the gate open. “Guess we can go in after all.”
    Sara made a sound of protest. “Gabriel! It was locked for a reason. They don’t want us in there.”
    He was already moving inside, knowing she would follow him. Her fear of the cemetery, of breaking the rules, wasn’t nearly as great as her fear of being left alone. The shells crunched under his feet as he walked, and pausing at the first tomb on the right, he turned back to her. “Come on, Sara. It’s not a big deal.”
    “The gate was locked.” She had inched forward, just inside the gate, but she was peeking around like she expected to get arrested for trespassing, or maybe to encounter either a mugger or a ghost.
    “I’ll replace the broken lock. But since it’s open, we might as well take some pictures. I’ll show you Anne’s tomb.” He wasn’t sure why he didn’t just let the whole thing drop. Why he didn’t just turn around and take Sara back to his apartment. But he thought she needed to be pushed. Or maybe he wanted to be pushed, and if he pushed her, she’d push back.
    They had a lot in common. Both living in a precarious little isolation tent, struggling to survive, to be normal. Kidding themselves. Lying and ignoring the blatant truth—that they were clinging to the edge, one stumble short of going over the side.
    “Come on,” he said again, and this time he reached out, took Sara’s hand in his, and pulled her forward into the cemetery.
    She sucked in a quick breath and looked up at him with luminous blue eyes. Her head went back and forth, a protest, but at the same time, she walked forward, settling in beside him, her hand light and warm in his. It had been a long time since he had touched anyone, and the sensation of warmth, of her hand lightly shifting in his, their skin caressing, felt so acutely good, so intense and real, that painful longing rose up in him. The desperate need for someone to share pleasure, conversation, time with. Futile, ridiculous wants that he had no business entertaining.
    So he let go of her hand and moved forward at a pace he knew she couldn’t match.
    He was standing in front of the tomb he had paid for, that held the remains of Anne Donovan, when Sara stopped next to him and said, “It’s very peaceful in here.”
    “Yes.” It was. The cemetery was quiet, the sun silently beating down on the many white tombs, casting a shadow over the front of Anne’s tomb. “This is where Anne Donovan is buried.”
    “How do you know? There’s no nameplate.”
    “It fell off. Marble tends to crack from the moist climate, and then it just drops off without warning.” And he hadn’t replaced it. Wasn’t exactly sure why not, but he hadn’t. “But church records indicate this is the correct tomb. She’s interred in it alone.” Another point about which he felt some guilt. It made no logical sense, given that he knew her soul didn’t reside in the brick structure, but in New Orleans tombs were crowded, families buried together, the bones of three, eight, twenty people, all together in one tomb. It seemed a comfort, an appropriate display of connectedness to other mortal beings. Anne lay alone. In death as she had in life.
    “I read that John Thiroux paid for the burial.”
    “Yes. She was cremated first.”
    “I wonder why.”
    Because he hadn’t been able to handle the image of her body, once so young and beautiful, decaying beneath its brutal wounds.
    “I don’t know.” It was an attractive tomb, with a wrought iron gate around it, tidy and recently painted, a weeping angel statue resting pensively on top. Gabriel hadn’t wanted that damn angel statue, had been appalled when he’d first seen it a hundred and fifty years ago, but he had given his lawyer at the time the funds for the tomb and had him handle all the details. He’d been too grief- and guilt-stricken, too chronically drunk to make the arrangements on his own, and it was of