Chapter 20: Poppy

Poppy is buried at the top of a hill in Dayton, under a maple that was bare when we put her there.

It was bare again the Saturday we went back.

The stone is small and gray and says POPPY ANN KESSLING, with one date.

My mother had planted crocuses along the front in October, and green shoots had pushed up through the frozen dirt.

I had not been there since the spring.

I had told myself it was because of the job and the city and the wedding.

It was because I did not want to stand on that grass and know she was under it.

My father parked at the bottom of the hill.

Brendan's rental car pulled in behind us.

He got out slowly and stayed by the car door.

"Come," I said.

He walked up behind us, ten feet back, with his hands in his coat pockets and nothing in them.

My mother knelt and brushed dead leaves off the crocuses.

My father stood with his hat held to his chest.

I stood in front of the stone.

I had a speech.

I had written it on the plane, then on a napkin in the airport, and I had said parts of it into the mirror in the hotel.

All of it left me when I saw the date.

"Hi, baby," I said.

My voice came out small and normal.

"I'm sorry I haven't come."

"I'm sorry about the car. I'm sorry I didn't know where it was going. I thought if I just held still and breathed, it would be all right."

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