Chapter 24: Stay

A year later, on the Friday of the anniversary, I drove to Marsh Road Bridge at midnight and didn't go alone.

Camille sat in the passenger seat of Dean's truck with her boots on the dash and a thermos on her knee.

She wore a Tierney Garage jacket with her name stitched on the pocket in red.

Dean had had it made in March, the week she changed her first transmission without help.

"You're quiet," she said.

"I'm thinking."

"Is it the verdict?"

"No."

Gerald Ashworth had been sentenced in September to six years.

The lawyer had taken four.

Preston, who had quietly pleaded to the part about the invoice, was selling boats in Florida, according to the Larkmont paper.

Camille had read the clipping once and put it in the garage's stove.

Lucille wrote every Sunday from Maine.

Her letters were short and careful, and they ended the same way each time.

She wanted nothing back.

Camille wrote her anyway.

I parked on the shoulder where I always did.

The rain had stopped an hour ago, and the river was black and still.

We walked out to the rail, the two of us, over the damp iron planks.

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