Chapter 12: Camille Cannot Rewrite the Memorial

On Wednesday morning, my photograph is still on its easel at the front of the chapel.

The chapel faces the courthouse across the square.

Nobody has taken the memorial down.

White roses have browned at the edges in their stands.

A black ribbon hangs from the easel, and the card tucked into it is in Adrian's handwriting.

Our beloved Lena.

Petra stands beside me with the archive copy of the vendor file on a laptop under her arm.

"You don't have to watch it here," she says.

"Here is where they filmed it."

The chapel attendant hovers by the pews with a clipboard.

He tells us the remaining items must be collected by noon.

He tells us Ms. Ross has been notified.

"Then she will be along," Petra says.

"She strikes me as a woman who collects things."

Camille comes in at ten past ten, shaking snow from a cream coat.

She sees me beside my own photograph and stops in the aisle.

"You're supposed to be at the company," she says.

"I get told where I'm supposed to be a lot this week."

She looks at the easel, then at Petra, then at the attendant.

She decides to be the reasonable one in the room.

"I came for the frames," she says.

"I paid for them. Adrian told me it was final, Lena. The identification."

"He said the examiner had confirmed it. I only stood with him because he asked."

"Stood with him."

"Yes."

Petra opens the laptop on the front pew and turns the screen toward the aisle.

"Then you won't mind seeing it," she says.

The vendor's camera sits above the chapel doors.

On the screen, the same doors open.

Camille walks through them on Adrian's arm in the cream dress, one hand on her stomach.

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