It was padlocked, and Miles reached above the door and found the key. The lock opened with a click. He opened the door and was greeted with a musty smell. There was a flashlight on the shelf, and he reached for it. He turned it on and looked around. A spiderweb that started in the corner stretched toward a small window.
Years ago, when his father had left, he’d given Miles a few things to keep. He’d packed them away in a large metal box; Miles hadn’t been given the key. The lock, though, was small, and now Miles reached for the hammer that hung on the wall. He swung the hammer and the lock popped open. He lifted the lid. A couple of albums, a leather-covered journal, a shoebox full of arrowheads that his father had found near Tuscarora. Miles looked past them to the bottom and found what he was looking for. His father had kept the box, and the gun was neatly tucked inside. It was the only gun that Charlie hadn’t known about. Miles knew he was going to need it, and that night he oiled the gun, making sure it was ready to go.
Chapter 36
Miles didn’t come for me that night.
Bone tired, I remember forcing myself from my bed at dawn the following morning to shower. I was stiff from the accident, and as I turned the faucet on, I felt a shooting pain from my chest to my back. My head was tender when I washed my hair. My wrists ached when I ate breakfast, but I finished before my parents made it to the table, knowing that if they saw me wince, they would ask questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. My father was heading into work; because it was nearly Christmas, I knew my mother would head out for errands as well. I would tell them later, after Miles came for me.
Sarah called that morning to check on me. I asked the same questions of her. She told me that Miles had come by the night before, that they talked for a minute, but that she didn’t know what to make of it.
I told her that I didn’t, either.
But I waited. Sarah waited. My parents went on with their lives.
In the afternoon, Sarah called again.
“No, he still hasn’t come,” I told her. He hadn’t called her, either.
The day passed, the evening came. Still no Miles.
On Wednesday, Sarah went back to school. I told her to go, that I’d reach her at the school if Miles came. It was the last week of school before Christmas break, and she had work to do. I stayed home, waiting for Miles. I waited in vain.
Then it was Thursday and I knew what I had to do.
In the car, Miles waited as he sipped a cup of coffee he’d picked up at a convenience store. The gun was on the seat beside him, beneath a fold of newspapers, fully loaded and ready to go. The side window was beginning to steam with his breath, and he wiped it with his hand. He needed to see clearly. He was in the right place; he knew that. Now all he had to do was watch carefully, and when the time was right, he would act.
That afternoon, just before dusk, the sky was glowing red and orange over the horizon as I got in the car. Though it was still chilly, the bitter cold had passed and temperatures had returned to normal. The rain over the previous couple of days had melted all the snow; where I once saw lawns blanketed in white, I now saw the familiar brown of centipede grass, gone dormant over the winter. Wreaths and red bows decorated windows and doors in my neighborhood, but in the car I felt disconnected from the season, as if I’d slept through it all and had another year to wait.
I made a single stop on my way, my usual. I think the man there had come to know me, since I made the same purchase every time. When he saw me come in, he waited by the counter, nodded when I told him what I wanted, then returned a few minutes later. We had never shared small talk in all the time I’d been coming to his shop. He didn’t ask me what they were for; he never did.
He did, however, say the same thing every time he handed them to me:
“They’re the freshest I’ve got.”
He took my money and rang up the purchase. On my way back to the car, I could smell them, their sweet, honeyed fragrance, and I knew he was right. The flowers, once again, were beautiful.
I set them on the car seat beside me. I followed roads familiar to me, roads I wish I’d never traveled, and I parked outside the gates. I steeled myself as I stepped out of the car.
I saw no one in the cemetery. Gripping my jacket near the collar to pull it tighter, I walked with my head down; I didn’t have to watch where I was going. The ground was wet, clinging to my feet. In a minute, I was at the grave.
As always, I was struck by how small it was.
It was ridiculous to think this, but as I stared, I couldn’t help it. The grave, I noticed, was well tended. The grass was neatly trimmed, and there was a silk carnation in a small holder in front of the headstone. It was red, as was every other carnation near every other headstone I could see, and I knew that the groundskeeper had placed them all.
I bent over and propped the flowers against the granite, making sure not to touch the stone. I never had. It wasn’t, nor had it ever been, mine. Afterwards, my mind drifted. Usually, I thought about Missy and the wrong decisions I had made; on that day, I found my thoughts drawn to Miles. I think that was the reason why I didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until they were already upon me.
“Flowers,” Miles said.
Brian turned at the sound of his voice, half-surprised, half-terrified. Miles was standing near an oak tree whose limbs fanned out over the ground. He was wearing a long black coat and jeans; his hands were buried in his pockets. Brian felt the blood drain from his face.
“She doesn’t need flowers anymore,” Miles said. “You can stop bringing them.”
Brian didn’t respond. What was there really to say?
Miles stared at him. With the sun sinking below the horizon, his face was shadowed and dark, his features hidden. Brian had no idea what he was thinking. Miles pushed the coat outward with both hands, as if he were holding something beneath its folds.
Hiding something.
Miles made no move toward Brian, and for a fleeting second, Brian had the urge to run. To escape. He was younger by fifteen years, after all-a quick burst might be enough to allow him to reach the road. Cars would be there, people would be all around.
But just as quickly as the thought came, it left him, draining whatever energy he had. He didn’t have any reserves left. He hadn’t eaten for days. He’d never make it, not if Miles really wanted to catch him.
And more than that, Brian knew he didn’t have any place to go. So Brian faced him. Miles was twenty feet away, and Brian saw his chin rise slightly. Miles met his gaze. Brian waited for him to do something, make a gesture; perhaps, he thought, Miles was waiting for the same thing. It struck Brian that they must have looked like a couple of gunfighters in the Old West, preparing to draw.
When the silence became too much to bear, Brian looked away, toward the street.
He noticed that Miles’s car was parked behind his, the only two he could see.
They were alone here, among the gravestones.
“How did you know I was here?” Brian finally asked.
Miles took his time in answering. “I followed you,” he said. “I figured you’d be leaving the house sometime and I wanted to be alone with you.” Brian swallowed, wondering how long Miles had been watching him. “You bring flowers, but you don’t even know who she was, do you?” Miles said quietly. “If you knew her, you would have been bringing tulips. Those were the ones she would have wanted here. Those were her favorite-yellows, reds, pinks-she loved them all. She used to plant a garden every spring with tulips. Did you know that?”