forms.
“Abby?” Ellie was tugging on her arm.
“You find something, Ellie?”
“Yeah. Come see.” Ellie all but dragged her back to the counter. “Look at this,” she said, picking up a camera about the same size and shape as Abby’s, but with more buttons and dials. Ellie confidently explained what most of them did, holding the camera up now and then so Abby could look through the viewscreen. Abby had only a vague grasp of what Ellie was talking about, but she knew one thing: she’d come to the right place, and Ellie was more than ready to leapfrog right over a starter camera.
When Ellie finally ran out of steam, she said, “Is it okay? I mean, can you, we, afford this?”
“Let’s find out.” Abby turned to the salesclerk. “How much is it?”
“All in? I mean, with a rechargeable lithium battery, and a card that holds lots of pictures, and a case?”
When Abby nodded yes, he named a figure that made her gulp, but only once. The camera looked so deceptively simple. Maybe she could tell Leslie it cost only half the actual price? And Ellie seemed so at home with handling it.
“Okay, let’s do it.” Abby swallowed again as she fished in her bag for her wallet and credit cards.
Five minutes later they emerged blinking in the bright sunlight. “Thank you, thank you, Abby,” Ellie said, almost bouncing with excitement. “This is so cool. And I promise I’ll take good care of it. Can we go somewhere and take pictures? And can I use your computer when we get back?”
“Sure, why not? You hungry yet?”
“Kind of. Where are we?”
“Newton. Any place you want to go, or should I pick?”
“You can pick.” Ellie turned back to exploring her new toy, but Abby was pleased to see that she handled it delicately.
Where to? She had a sudden brainstorm: Wellesley was just down the road. Wellesley was where she and Ned had run into a few shared ancestors in the cemetery, not long after they’d first met. Maybe Ellie would like to meet them too? She started the car and went around the block to get onto Route 16.
When they arrived, Abby went straight to the parking lot behind the main street and pulled into a space. “Don’t leave your camera in plain sight, Ellie. Under the seat, or I can put it in the trunk, okay?”
“Okay. Trunk, please.”
Abby unlatched the trunk from inside, and Ellie went quickly around to tuck her precious package away out of sight.
“Where are we going?” Ellie asked.
“That place over there has sandwiches and drinks, I think.” She pointed to the shop visible from the corner of the parking lot—and across from the cemetery. She and Ned had stopped there once. It seemed so long ago now, and so much had happened since.
“Do they have cookies?” Ellie interrupted Abby’s reverie.
“I’m pretty sure they do,” Abby told her, then led her to the crosswalk.
Inside, they ordered at the counter, and Abby added a couple of pounds of coffee beans to take home. When their food was ready, they went over to a table by the front window, and Abby carefully maneuvered Ellie into the seat with the better view of the cemetery. Then she just watched.
For a couple of minutes Ellie just prattled on about her camera, between bites of a stuffed croissant. And then her gaze drifted across the street. Abby had to suppress a smile: if Ellie had been a cat, Abby would have said that her ears pricked up. Ellie stared intently for perhaps thirty seconds, then she turned back to Abby. “Are they . . . ?”
Abby smiled and nodded. “They are.”
“Are you testing me or something?”
“Maybe. I hope you don’t mind. Ned and I came here a while ago, when I was first learning about . . . this thing. And I found them right away, just like you.”
“Okay. So Ned sees them too? I mean, these particular ones?”
“Yes, he does. He and I are related a lot of generations back, and we’re both related to them.” Abby nodded toward the cemetery.
“How come I see
Patricia Haley and Gracie Hill