Chapter 17: One Hour

The files on the drive would not open.

Connie's husband tried them on the diner laptop, and on his phone, and on the little television in the kitchen.

"It's the box's own format," he said, standing in the kitchen doorway with his cap in his fists.

"What does that mean?"

"They only play on the clubhouse computer, with the club's software."

"Then I'll play them there."

"Diana, it's Vernon's computer."

"Then he can watch it with me."

He looked at his wife, and she looked at the ceiling.

I put the drive in the toe of a sock and the sock in my purse.

By the first Sunday of December the doctor had cleared me to walk.

I called Dean for the first time in three weeks.

"Meet me at the cemetery at seven," I said. "Today."

"Di, is the baby..."

"The baby's fine. I'm asking you for something."

The line went so quiet that I checked the screen.

"Anything," he said.

"Don't say that yet."

He was already there when I came through the gate.

He stood by the small gray stone in his old canvas coat, with his hands in the pockets.

He had shaved.

There was frost on the grass again, and the sun had not come over the church.

I stopped a few feet away.

"What do you want me to do?" he said.

"Sit with me."

"That's all?"

"That's all. An hour. I don't want to be here alone, and I don't want to be here with anybody else."

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