I Died to End Their Lie novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Only Photograph
The office of Evergreen Memorial had a green carpet and a bowl of mints on the counter.
Dad came in on his lunch break with sawdust in his hair.
Mom walked in beside him, holding the cardboard robot box against her coat.
I floated over the counter.
The clerk was a heavyset woman in a green cardigan.
She looked up from her screen and went still.
"Mr. and Mrs. Rittenhouse," she said. "I wondered when you'd come."
"You know who we are," Dad said.
"I saw the news. I'm very sorry."
"We need the contract for plot 14, section C," Dad said. "My son's. Jesse Rittenhouse."
"Of course."
The clerk pulled a thick folder from a drawer and laid it on the counter.
Dad opened it.
The first page was a form in my own handwriting, small and careful, with every box filled in.
At the bottom of the page was a box that read Next of kin.
I had written a single word in it.
None.
Dad looked at it for a long time.
His thumb moved across the ink.
"He came in on a Wednesday, the week he died," the clerk said. "Alone. He said he wanted to pay a deposit on a plot, and I said he was awfully young."
"What did he say?" Mom asked.
"That he wanted to be sure it was done."
Mom held the robot box to her mouth.
"I asked if he wanted to put a family name on the stone, something for his parents. He said he didn't think they'd want it there."
Nobody moved.
"He asked what he owed in total," the clerk said. "I told him eleven thousand one hundred. He said he'd have the rest on his twentieth birthday."
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