Chapter 19: Her Father at the Grave

My mother is buried at the top of the estate, under two old cypress trees, where she could see the whole valley.

I hadn't been there since the funeral.

I went on Saturday morning, alone, with a handful of white roses from the garden.

Malcolm drove me to the bottom of the track and stayed with the car.

My father was already there.

He stood at the foot of the grave in a plain grey jacket, with his hands behind his back, looking at the stone.

I had never seen him without his lawyer, or his phone, or an audience.

"I thought you'd come today," he said, without turning around.

"You sent a note to the housekeeper."

"I did. I'm told I was never to come near you, so I came here instead."

I laid the roses down on the grass.

"You have ten minutes," I said.

"I won't need that long."

He turned.

He looked older than he had at the board, with grey under the eyes and a razor nick on his jaw.

"I wasn't born a Whitman," he said.

I said nothing.

"I was the son of a bookkeeper in Fresno. Your mother's father hired me at twenty-four, and I married his daughter at twenty-six."

"He made me take the name. It was a condition."

He gave a short laugh with nothing in it.

"At every dinner, for thirty years, I was introduced as 'the husband.' Her family never forgot who the vines belonged to."

"They belonged to her, and after her, to you."

"You were not even born when I decided it."

"Decided what?"

"That my children would never be anybody's second," he said.

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