Chapter 24: Bannerman

In December, on a cold bright Tuesday, I drove to the cemetery in Queens with a paper bag and a coat that had been my father's.

Rory drove his truck behind me, because he had the day off and said he'd rather follow than be told where to sit.

The grass around the stone had been mowed for the last time that year.

It was a plain gray marker with his surname cut into it, and a place beneath for mine, someday, a long way off.

I stood in front of it with my hands in the flannel pockets.

Rory came up beside me and said nothing, which is what he does best.

"I finished the rail," I said to the stone. "Two coats. The neighbor's husband says it's the best it's ever looked."

A crow shifted on a branch nearby.

"The divorce went through on Friday. It took ten minutes." I looked at my boots. "Bea cried more than I did."

I opened the paper bag.

There was the last of what I'd been carrying around since October.

His reading glasses, folded.

The crossword from the Sunday he died, three squares from done.

A bag of the hard peppermints he used to bring on Tuesdays, the kind in the red wrappers.

I set the glasses on the stone, and the crossword beside them, and I weighted the paper down with a small round pebble.

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