Chapter 21: Furious and Wanting

Miranda's POV

"You came in," I said again, because I could not think of anything else.

Orson did not turn around.

His hand was flat on the top of my father's stone, and his shoulders were shaking.

I came up beside him and looked at the grave.

The grass was cut short.

The asters stood in Martha's old jam jar.

Under my father's name, the second date had been carved into the granite, clean and pale.

I read it, and the whole night in Pittsfield came up through me.

The vending machine, the hallway and the ten minutes I had been gone all came back.

I let it come.

I had not been able to let it come in five years, and now I had no choice, and I found I could stand it.

"You paid the mason," I said.

"Yes."

"You went behind my back."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it was yours to finish, and you couldn't," he said, hoarse. "I didn't want you to have to do it with nobody."

I put my fingers in the cut of the numerals and traced them.

They were rough and cold, and perfect.

"I'm so angry at you," I said.

"I know."

"I'm angry that you did something kind. I wanted to stay angry in peace."

"I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry. You're relieved."

He laughed, a short, wet sound, and finally turned to look at me.

His face was blotched and unguarded.

I took his hand and held it against the stone with mine.

"Come to dinner tonight," I said. "Martha has bingo. It's just us."

I did not mean dinner, and he knew it.

He came at seven, and we did not eat.

I took him up the back stairs to my room, which he had never seen, and shut the door with my shoulder.

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