Chapter 24: The Stone

We went to the cemetery on Sunday morning, after the dew had burned off.

Franklin's grave lay at the top of a low hill, under a maple that had started to turn.

A stone bench stood beside the plot.

Franklin had picked it out himself, two summers ago, and told me it was for visitors who got tired of standing.

Alasdair sat on the left end. I sat on the right end.

We left the middle empty.

The watch was on my wrist.

Alasdair had punched a new hole in the strap with a lab awl on Saturday night, while I slept.

The buckle held at last.

I'd noticed it at breakfast, and I hadn't said anything, and he'd looked at his coffee and smiled.

"Hello, Franklin," I said out loud.

It felt strange for one second and then it didn't.

"I'm loud now. You said I should be."

A breeze moved the maple, and a yellow leaf came down on the grass.

I took a folded page from my coat pocket.

It was the first sheet of the journal proof, printed at the lab.

"They printed it Friday," I said. "Page one, line one. Eleven patients, eleven clear scans."

I smoothed the paper on my knee.

"They wanted a name before it went out. I gave them yours, or close enough. It's called marcutinib."

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