Chapter 23: Her Question

I picked a Thursday, because nothing had ever happened to me on a Thursday.

It was a clear, chilly October dusk with no moon at all.

The green was nearly empty.

A few people came out of the diner with paper cups, and two kids ran circles around the war memorial.

The Stone sat in the middle of it, flat and gray and ordinary, with a leaf stuck to its top.

I had asked Orson to meet me there at six.

He was ten minutes early, standing beside it with his hands in his pockets.

He was trying to look as though he had come by accident.

He had put on a clean shirt.

He had shaved twice, I thought, from the nick on his jaw.

"You asked me to come," he said.

"I did."

"Is something wrong?"

"Something is right," I said. "Wait."

Gillian had followed me out of the diner, and I could hear her trying not to breathe.

Martha had found a bench by the war memorial and sat down on it with her coat buttoned to her chin.

A long grey car idled at the far curb by the church, with the driver's window down.

I did not look at it.

I walked up to the Stone, climbed the step, and stood where he had stood.

My knees were not steady.

"Miranda," Orson said. "What are you doing?"

"Be quiet. I'm doing the old thing."

I reached down, and he took my hand without thinking, and I pulled him up beside me on the granite.

He stood there, looking from my face to the empty green, and I saw the exact moment he understood.

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