Memories Without Him novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Man Who Kneels
I told Vincent about the watch at five in the morning.
He listened sitting up in my narrow bed with the sheet around his waist, and he did not interrupt me once.
"Aldo was kneeling by my father's head," I said. "He was bent so low his ear was at my father's mouth. I was in the back seat. I can see the snow on the glass."
"Do you hear what your father said?"
"Not yet. It comes up and goes away again."
He put a hand on the back of my neck, careful of the scar over my ear.
"Don't force it."
"I'm not forcing it. It's forcing me."
He kissed my temple.
I closed my eyes and let myself lean.
Other things had been floating up all week, small ones and without warning.
A plastic chair in a hospital room.
A rough warm hand wrapped around mine.
A man at a long table in a ballroom, saying to a hundred people, "That's my wife."
I had told Vincent about each of them, and each time he had gone very still and said only, "Yes. That happened."
The phone on the pillow rang at eight.
It was Aldo.
I answered it on speaker, with Vincent's hand flat on the mattress beside me.
"Honey, it's Sunday." His voice was warm. "You haven't forgotten."
"Forgotten what?"
"Your mother and father. Seven years this week." He sighed. "I'll pick you up at ten. I've got the flowers already. We'll go together, like every year."
Vincent shook his head.
I held up a hand.
"I'll meet you there," I said.
"I'd rather drive you."
"I'd rather meet you there, Aldo."
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