The Edge

St. Vincent Cemetery. My father died when I was a little girl, and I have no recollection of him. As a child, I used to sit with my mom at the cemetery, not for a long time, but I remember running through the tombstones, as my mother sat next to his grave. She always looked sad to me, so I'd run around picking flowers. Dandelions were my favorite, but sometimes I'd find a daisy, or a buttercup. With yellow-stained hands, I'd proudly present her with the flowers.

It only takes five minutes to get there. It's still dark, and the entranceway is locked. I jump out of the jeep, and Jax starts wagging his tail. The two of us crawl under the gate. When we reach the grave, it starts to rain.

The bronze plaque is there for both my father and my mother when she dies. It reads: Patrick M. Capots, born Nov. 24, 1938; died April 11, 1974. Kathleen R. Capots, born Dec. 25, 1940, a blank space waiting to announce the date of her death. The words "together forever" sit between their names, linking the two. I light a cigarette and sit down. It's raining harder now, and Jax is farther away, heading over the next hill. It doesn't matter. No one is here.

"Hi, Daddy," I say.

We get back in the car; I'm wet, and Jax is muddy. It's cold, and I'm finally starting to get tired. It's still dark out, but I don't know what time it is. And I don't know where to go. I just want to find a place to sleep where Jax will be safe. I start driving away from the cemetery and make a quick right to put me on a country road that I used to drive as a teenager. I pass a place we used to call Hilltop in high school -- a field off the side of the road where we'd meet every weekend to drink beer. I slow down in front of it, but it looks like a pile of dirt to me. I think again of Jenn. She and her family live not too far from here on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. If I turn left on one of these roads, it connects to Route 22, which will lead me into Murrysville, which will lead me to her house. I turn right and end up on a back road behind Latrobe High School, which is nowhere near the road that will take me to Route 22. I should call Jenn to tell her that I'm coming; she will give me a bed, play with Jax, hide me from my mother. But I talked to her on my drive to Greensburg a few days earlier. Her in-laws are there. Her son, Blake, is 4; Claire . . . well she's younger than Blake, and there is a new baby whose name I can't remember. I can't show up at this ungodly time of the morning looking like this with a big black lab that doesn't like kids, and say: "Hey, good to see you. Can you help me?"

Suddenly I'm on a bigger road. I don't think it's an interstate, but there are two lanes going in each direction, and the cars are speeding by. I look at Jax and smile. "Now we're getting somewhere," I say out loud. If I could just see a sign, the name of a town, the county even, I could figure out where we are. If I find Interstate 70, I can get to Bethany College in West Virginia, where I went to school. There's a lake there called Castleman's Run, where I can sleep and Jax can run free. My thoughts are interrupted as we approach a hardware store, except there are no cars in front of it. It must not be open. I pull off on the side of the road. Behind the store there is a gravel parking lot, or a driveway. Jax runs off into the woods. I light a cigarette and start walking in large circles. I kick a few of the stones out of frustration. I don't have any money, but I do have an ATM card. But if I can't figure out what day it is, how am I supposed to remember my PIN number?

"Hey, you okay . . ." a male voice hollers out of nowhere.

I'm startled.

"Uh, yeah."

"Is that your jeep? You break down?"

"Uh, no."

". . . That your dog? He really should be on a leash. Cars drive by here so fast, and he was getting pretty close to the road. You should keep a better eye on him. You do have a leash, don't you?"