Chapter 9: After Queens

Justine's POV

Clive met me at the shed door with a black marker stain across the inside of his wrist.

He didn't say a word.

He just held out his arm, and I read it under the work lamp.

Section 9, Lot 14.

"Linden Park Cemetery," he said. "In Queens. Brendan has paid for that lot every March for five years."

"Five years," I said.

That was before he'd ever met me.

"It's closed until eight tomorrow," Clive said. "We can go then."

I sat down on the bucket because my legs told me to.

"You wrote it on your arm," I said.

"I couldn't stop looking at it."

"That's a very good way to lose a pen, Clive."

He laughed, and then he stopped, because I was close to crying and we both knew it.

"I can't go back to the hotel," I said. "My mother will make tea until I tell her everything, and I don't know everything."

"There's a cot in the office," he said. "It's clean. I'll sleep on the floor of the shed."

"The boat is in the shed."

"Then I'll sleep in the boat."

We ended up on the office floor with a blanket between us and the space heater clicking.

He had his back against the wall and I had mine against the cot.

At one in the morning I told him about the ride.

I hadn't told anyone, not even the grief counselor my mother found.

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