She Discovered Too Late novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Dull Week

I came back on Easter morning, the way I had promised.

Nobody had told me what the hill would look like in April.

The slope behind the water tower was yellow and blue from the road to the top.

There were oxeye daisies and cornflowers and a few red poppies, and the wind moved all of it at once.

The grass had been cut back along a narrow path, wide enough for a wheelchair.

They were already up there.

Arlene had set out a folding table with a thermos and a box of doughnuts.

She was trying to keep the paper napkins from blowing off.

Her hands were bare. There was no ink on them.

Teddy stood beside her in a clean shirt, holding a kite he did not know how to fly.

Our uncle had brought his own folding chair, and he sat in it very carefully with a cup of tea.

The cook from the hospice, still in her hairnet, was pushing a wheelchair up the path.

The small woman in it wore a coat, a hat and a look of great satisfaction.

"I told you," she said to the cook. "It's Easter. He said he'd stop by."

"Yes, ma'am," the cook said. "You told us."

I stood at the edge of the path and watched my sister come up from the road with a trowel in her hand.

She wore jeans and a green sweater, with her sleeves pushed to the elbow.

Her left wrist was bare, and she did not look at it once.

She had put on a little weight, and there was color in her face.

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