Chapter 23: The Good Scissors

We went to see Katie on a cold Sunday in December, five weeks after the operation.

The cemetery sat on a hill above Marblehead harbor, and the wind came straight off the water.

I walked up the path on my own.

Donovan walked beside me with his hands in his pockets and did not offer an arm.

He had learned that about me.

The headstone was plain grey granite.

Someone had left a ball of red yarn on the top, held down with a stone.

"Dermot," Donovan said. "Every week. He thinks I don't know."

I knelt, slowly, because my chest still pulled when I bent.

I took the blue bracelet off my wrist and held it a moment in my fist.

Then I put it back on.

"I'm keeping it," I told the stone. "You can have it back when I'm done."

Donovan made a low sound that might have been a laugh.

He took the envelope out of his coat.

It was cream-colored and soft at the corners, and on the front it said DEIRDRE in round blue handwriting.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked.

"Stay."

I opened it with my thumb.

There was one sheet inside, covered edge to edge in the same blue ink.

I read it aloud, because I thought she would want me to.

Deirdre,

If you're reading this, I guess I'm dead and you aren't.

I'm sorry about the first part, but I'm pretty happy about the second one.

I signed the form today, and it took me four tries to spell Kilbride.

You should get a name that's easier to write.

Maybe I'll live to be ninety and this will be a funny story.

But if my heart gets to be yours, I want you to do three things.

One, cut your hair. You've been hiding behind it for a year.

Two, be nice to my brother.

He is the best person I know and also an idiot, and he says "not yet" about everything he wants.

If he says it about you, don't wait. Ask again.

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