Chapter 13: Hillside

Teo's POV

I drove to Hillside because it was the only place I knew to go.

My brother is buried under a gray stone in the cemetery beside the expressway.

For seven years I had come on his birthday and told him the family was fine.

At one in the morning I stood in front of the stone with my coat open and told him nothing.

The police had said a drunk driver crossed three lanes of the Dan Ryan and hit him.

I buried him on a Tuesday and took his chair at the table on Wednesday.

Leandro Bastiani carried the casket at that funeral.

He cried at the graveside, and I had thought it was the first honest thing I'd ever seen him do.

I put my fist into the iron fence post.

I hit it again, and a third time, until the skin over my knuckles split and the post was wet.

"He'd have hated that," a voice said behind me. "Your brother. Fighting a fence."

Cece stood on the gravel path in her sister's leather jacket with her hands in the pockets.

"How do you know what he'd have hated?"

"I don't. I wanted to say something and that came out."

"Who told you where I was?"

"Your driver. Don't blame him. I told him I'd walk from Evanston if he didn't."

"Go home, Cece."

"I don't have one," she said, and she came closer.

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