Chapter 7: Her Own Headstone

"I'll take your five million," I told Neal, "when I've seen the policy and the payout letter."

He beamed at me.

That night Calvin drove me to a cemetery.

I had not asked to go.

He parked his dented gray sedan at the bottom of the hill below the Congregational church, killed the headlights and handed me a flashlight.

"You should see it once," he said, "so it's yours and not theirs."

We climbed in the dark between old stones, through wet grass that soaked my shoes.

The Underhill plot sat at the top, under a bare maple, behind a low iron fence.

There were three stones.

My grandfather's, my father's, and a new gray granite one with fresh cuts in it.

GILLIAN UNDERHILL WELDEN.

BELOVED WIFE AND DAUGHTER.

TAKEN BY THE WATER.

I stared at the last line for a long time.

"They spelled his own last name wrong," I said.

"It's Weldon."

"That's the first thing I noticed too."

"Neal paid for this."

"Your mother picked the wording," said Calvin.

"Neal picked the font."

A laugh came out of me, short and ugly, and then I couldn't stop it.

I put my hand over my mouth and bent forward with my shoulders shaking.

He did not touch me.

He stood two feet away with his hands in his coat pockets, and waited until I'd finished.

When I straightened up, the flashlight beam had wandered over the grass.

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it.

"For what?"

"For not saying I'm sorry."

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