Chapter 21: The Honest Answer

Claire's POV

Quentin did not answer me with a word.

He reached across the passenger seat, opened the door, and waited with his hand on the handle.

"Get in," he said. "Or don't. It's twenty minutes."

I got in.

I did not know why.

It was still dark when he drove through the gates of a cemetery on the north side.

He parked on the gravel and walked ahead of me, and I followed him between the rows with my coat held shut.

His father's stone was gray and small.

It had a name, two dates, and a line from a hymn.

Quentin stood in front of it with his hands at his sides.

"I haven't come here in four years," he said. "Gilbert always drove me."

I said nothing.

Rhiannon's paper bag was in his hand.

He took a sealed envelope out of it, and I knew the handwriting on the front before I could read it.

"Your father wrote this at two this morning," Quentin said. "He gave it to Rhiannon for me. It's addressed to my father. I haven't opened it."

I looked at the word on the front, in a blocky, shaking hand.

Old friend.

"I'm going to leave it here," Quentin said. "He asked me to. He's twelve years late, and he knows it."

He knelt and put the envelope against the base of the stone and weighed it down with a pebble.

I watched his back.

He stayed there a long time, and when he stood up his face was wet, and he made no move to hide it.

"You asked me a question," he said.

"I did."

"The honest answer is yes."

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