Chapter 16: The Grave

Graham's POV

By Thursday I had cleaned out an office I'd held for nine days.

It took one cardboard box. The associate chief's nameplate had never been screwed to the door.

I handed my badge to the unit clerk, who said, "Doctor, you're still on the call list for consults."

"Not this month."

"What do I tell the residents?"

"That the schedule is wrong, and that I'm sorry."

I walked out of Lakefront at eleven in the morning with nothing in my hands.

I had not been outside at eleven in the morning on a weekday since I was twenty-six.

I didn't go home. I drove to the cemetery in Oak Park where Tom is.

I had been there every January for eight years, and every time I had come to be punished.

The stone was the plain grey one his mother picked. It had snow along the top.

I stood in front of it with my hands in my coat.

"Hey," I said.

A man was raking leaves two rows over, and he didn't look up.

"I found out what happened," I said.

"It wasn't what I told you every year. I'm sorry I got it wrong for so long."

The wind moved a wreath against the stone.

"I'm not here to ask you for anything. I just didn't want to come as the guy who owed you."

I had called Daphne once, the night before, and said only that I would be here at noon.

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