I Died to End Their Lie novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Three Years Later

On the day I would have turned twenty-two, the grass at Evergreen Memorial was wet with spring.

I hung over section C, where the pull had finally led me.

Three years had gone by since the cemetery office.

I had not counted them.

I had watched, and I had waited, and I did not know what for.

A maple stood at the head of my plot now, thin and young, with its first leaves open.

A bronze plate was fixed to the foot of the trunk.

It said, Planted by Dylan Hurley, who saw it first.

The stone beside it was gray granite, plain and square.

Three lines were cut into it.

Jesse Rittenhouse.

Paid in full.

Son of Russell and Phyllis Rittenhouse.

A gray Ford pulled up at the end of the gravel path.

Dad got out first.

He wore a clean work shirt and a jacket that no longer fit him in the shoulders.

He ran a small crew now, building garages and porches for families who didn't know his name.

He walked around the car and opened Mom's door.

She stepped out with her hair gone white at the temples.

She carried a grocery bag in one hand and a cardboard box under the other arm.

The robot box.

It was creased and soft at the corners, and the cellophane had yellowed.

A second car stopped behind them.

Dylan climbed out of the driver's seat, nineteen now, taller, with his glasses pushed up on his forehead.

He didn't hug them.

He never did.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello, Dylan," Mom said.

"I only came for him."

"We know."

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