His Password Was Her Birthday, So I Canceled Our Wedding novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Empty Ground

Clive drove me to Queens in the gray before sunrise and did not argue about the text.

"I'll wait at the gate," he said. "If you need me, don't text. Just yell. I'll hear it."

Linden Park Cemetery had iron gates and a long road lined with bare maples.

Brendan's car was already parked in front of the office.

He stood beside it in the same coat he'd worn to the airport.

He looked like he hadn't slept since the wedding hall.

"You brought Clive," he said.

"He's driving. He's staying here."

Brendan nodded.

"Walk with me," he said. "Please. Let me say it before we get there."

We went up the path between rows of stones, our breath showing in the cold.

"Five years ago," he said, "before I knew you, Gianna told me she was pregnant. She'd already left for Florence."

"She called me at two in the morning. She said it was mine."

"I told her I'd come. I got a flight that night."

"She lost the baby at six months. A girl."

I kept walking.

"The doctors said she wouldn't have lived anyway. Something in her heart, her genes, I don't know. Gianna couldn't bear to leave her in Italy, so she brought her ashes home."

"I bought the plot and the stone. She buried her herself the next spring, with her father's priest. She said she couldn't stand to have anyone watching."

"I wasn't allowed to be there."

"Five years," I said.

"I've gone every March." His voice broke. "Just to stand there."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

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