To the Grave Read Free

what made me want to become a good photographer. I want to leave a record of our lives, just like Mom and Dad left for us. And we’ll want a whole separate album for baby pictures.”
    Marissa raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
    â€œNo, but someday I will, and someday you’ll have something to tell me, and then I’ll take hundreds of pictures of our children.”
    Marissa laughed. “Pictures that will mortify them when they’re teenagers and we drag out the albums and show the photos to their dates.”
    â€œ I won’t. I’ll make a point of never embarrassing my children.”
    â€œCatherine, all parents embarrass their teenagers sometimes.”
    â€œI’ll prove you wrong.” Catherine gazed up at the crystalline blue sky, smiled, and headed for her white sedan. “It’s an absolutely beautiful day. Come on before we lose the whole afternoon.”
    â€œUh, how about taking my car?” Marissa watched her sister’s smile fade. “I know you aren’t crazy about convertibles, but like you said, this is a beautiful day. We won’t have many more until winter.” Catherine’s gaze grew stubborn. Marissa walked behind her and started pushing her gently and relentlessly like a tugboat nudging a steamship into port. “This is the kind of day God made for rides in candy apple red Mustang convertibles! It’ll be fun.”
    Catherine sighed. “Okay, but don’t drive like a bat out of hell like usual.”
    â€œI won’t,” Marissa said solemnly. “I don’t want to wreck my car and destroy your wonderful camera. I’ll drive just like you do.”
    Marissa put on her large sunglasses and started out at a snail’s pace, looking vigilant as she hunched over the steering wheel she clutched with both hands, not reaching for a CD, and braking with exaggeration at every stop sign.
    Catherine finally burst into laughter. “I feel like I’m with a hundred-year-old chauffeur. I don’t drive like this.” Marissa said nothing. “Okay, maybe I do sometimes, but I can’t stand it when you do. Put on some music and pick up the pace!”
    Marissa grinned, slipped in a Natasha Bedingfield CD, and pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. Catherine tipped back her head, letting the wind lift her long, honey brown hair. She closed her heather green eyes, listening to “Pocketful of Sunshine” and letting the gentle late October sun warm her face.
    Catherine knew family and friends considered her the sensible, cautious sister versus free-spirited Marissa, and during her late childhood she’d started trying to live up to their image. Few people realized how often Catherine had wanted to give in to her own devil-may-care impulses, but after years of constant levelheaded behavior letting go was hard. Ever since she’d moved into the Gray family home left to the sisters after their mother’s death, though, Catherine had felt her restraints loosening and a different side of her personality creeping out to greet the sun.
    â€œI told you it would be fun!” Marissa shouted over the loud music.
    Catherine merely smiled and then raised her arms, swaying them in time with the music as if she were at a rock concert. Marissa laughed.
    They drove south, away from the city and the Aurora waterfall. Catherine remembered that when Marissa was eight she’d begun telling the story of Sebastian Larke, who’d discovered the falls in 1770, which she’d called ancient times. Sebastian had named the waterfall for a Greek goddess, she’d explained. Catherine had listened patiently to Marissa’s remarkably accurate lectures about the wide, horseshoe-shaped falls that measured 124 feet high and cascaded into the Orenda River, the third-largest river in the “United States of America,” Marissa had always announced proudly. Then, with