Chapter 23: Santa Monica

The road ended at a wooden pier with a Ferris wheel on it.

We reached it a little before sunset, thirty-one days after I left Chicago.

I parked the SUV and sat there with both hands on the wheel.

Deirdre did not say anything.

She reached over and turned off the engine for me.

"Last line on the list," she said.

"Take a flower."

"Did you?"

I got out and opened the back door.

It had taken Heath three phone calls and a florist in Pasadena to find them.

Black hellebore, in a cold box, in the wrong month.

It was my father's favorite.

He had grown it along the north side of the house, where nothing else would take.

I carried the stems down to the end of the pier.

The wind smelled of salt and fried dough.

Tourists stood along the rail taking pictures of the water.

Nobody looked twice at a man with a bunch of dark flowers.

I stood at the last post.

"Dad," I said.

My voice cracked on it.

"I'm here."

Deirdre stood a pace behind me and did not touch me.

She knew I needed to do this alone, and she stayed close enough that I could feel her.

"You wrote down every stop," I said to the water. "I thought I was doing this to get away. I was doing it to get here."

I opened my hand.

The flowers fell.

They went down dark against the green, and a wave took them and turned them over.

I watched them until I couldn't tell them from the foam.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I let it.

It buzzed again.

I took it out.

It was a message from Sabine.

It was the first one she had sent in a month.

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