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  I got to my feet, dusting off the crumbles of grass from my long skirt. I bent and arranged the flowers in a prettier fashion. I cleared away some weeds sprouting up at the corners of the headstone. I traced the letters of their names with the tip of my finger and thought how insufficient the inscriptions were to describe the lives of the men whose bodies lay beneath the ground.

  “He loved British comedy,” I said aloud, my hand on my father’s headstone. “He loved Irish music. He used Old Spice cologne and liked to fish, and he always ate what he caught. He was born in New York City but moved away when he was three and never went back.”

  There was more. Memories of my dad. My tribute to him, the best one I could give. The one for Andrew I thought would be harder, but maybe remembering about the stars had opened the way for me.

  “He played games with us even when he was too old for them. He taught me how to ride a bike with no hands. He was the first one to tell a story about Princess Pennywhistle.” I spoke on, not caring if I sounded like a loon talking out loud to a grave. I wept again, the tears not so effortless this time. They wet the throat of my sweater and made me cold. “He was my brother, and I loved him. Even when I hated what he did.”

  The something I’d been waiting for happened, though it wasn’t as dramatic as an angel chorus from above or a cheap horror movie thrill. I let go. Not everything, and not all at once, but I took in a breath of crisp fall air that didn’t weigh me down. I wiped my face. I took in another breath.

  Then I walked away.

  When offering an apology, it’s always better to bring a peace offering to smooth the way. For me it was a box of chocolate éclairs and a thermos of hazelnut coffee to replace the sludge we usually had in the break room. I knocked on Marcy’s door, the bright-pink box announcing the arrival of sugar-filled treats.She looked up from her desk with a pinched smile. “Elle. Hi. C’mon in.”

  She’d breezed into my office plenty of times and plopped into my chair. I wasn’t quite as relaxed, but I did slide the box toward her. “I brought you something.”

  She leaned down to sniff the box, then slit the tape with one manicured fingernail. “Oh, God, you bitch. I’ve been on a freaking diet…”

  The moment she called me a bitch, I knew things were all right between us. Coming from Marcy, it was almost a term of affection. I held up the thermos.

  “I brought good coffee, too.”

  “Oh, my God, I love you.” She twirled around on her chair and pulled down a mug from her shelf and held it out. “Caffeine’s supposed to slow weight loss, but I’ll be fucked in fudge if I can understand how.”

  I’d brought my own mug and filled them both. “Wouldn’t that get messy?”

  She gave me a blank look at first, then laughed. “It might.”

  We raised our cups and she pulled out éclairs, one for each. She bit into hers right away and moaned so long and loud I laughed. A moment later, biting into my own pastry, I managed an enthusiastic echo of her exclamation. Together we stuffed ourselves with sugary goodies and strong coffee.

  “Marcy,” I said when the feeding frenzy had eased. “I’m sorry.”

  She waved a hand. “No big whoop, hon. I’m a nosy bitch. I admit it.”

  “No. You were trying to be my friend, and I wasn’t being a very good one. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t fuss yourself!” she cried.

  “Marcy, damn it! I’m trying to apologize, would you let me? Please?”

  She laughed but nodded. “Yes. All right. I was a nosy bitch and you were an uptight shrew. We’re square?”

  “Square.” I sat back in the chair. “I missed your gossip.”

  She clapped her hands. “Oooh, and have I got some for you!”

  She certainly did. A full half hour’s worth of time we both should have spent working, but instead spent giggling over speculation about the new guy who worked in the mail room. Marcy was convinced he was a stripper on the side. I hadn’t noticed him.

  “What do you mean, you haven’t noticed him?” She crowed. “Are you blind? Are you dead? Are your legs glued together?”

  “I thought you were getting married!”

  “I am getting married, but I’m not dying. It’s okay to look, Elle.” She paused. “I wouldn’t tell Wayne, of course.”

  “Of course not.”

  She scraped some chocolate from the side of an éclair and licked it off her finger. “So…how’re you doing? Aside from tempting me with disgusting pastry and trying to make me so fat I can’t fit into my wedding dress.”

  “I’m all right.” I reached for another éclair and bit into it. Yellow cream oozed out onto my fingers, and I licked them.

  “Okay.”

  I pretended not to notice what a good job she was doing about not being a nosy bitch, but after a moment I had to give in. “I’m good, Marcy, really. And no, I haven’t called Dan.”

  She threw a wadded napkin at me. “Why not? Call him!”

  “It’s too late,” I told her. “Some things aren’t meant to work. That’s all.”

  “How do you know if you don’t try?”

  I licked some chocolate and studied her sincere expression and thought back to when she’d told me she’d seen him downtown. “What, exactly, did Dan say when you saw him?”

  “Just that you’d broken up.”

  “Uh-huh. Was he alone?”

  She didn’t say anything at first, then gave a too-casual shrug. “No. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Marcy, I’m sad to tell you, it does.”

  “Elle, it doesn’t. He was miserable with that girl, I could tell.”

  I wiped my fingers with a napkin and warmed my fingers on my coffee mug. “You don’t have to save my feelings. Dan and I broke up. He has the right to go out with anyone he wants to.”

  “But nobody can make him as miserable as you can,” Marcy said with a wicked glint in her eyes. “Elle. Call him.”

  “Marcy,” I said. “I can’t.”

  She sighed and tossed up her hands. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop bugging. I can’t stand not having you to talk to around this place. Nobody else gets me.”

  “I’m the only lucky one?” I gathered up the trash and tossed it in the pail, then grabbed my mug and the thermos. I left the other éclairs for her.

  “I like you,” she said without a hint of teasing or mockery. “That’s something.”

  I reached over to squeeze her shoulder. “I like you, too, Marcy. And yeah. It’s something very good.”

  We smiled at each other. I slid the box toward her. “You keep these,” I said, and ducked out of the office with Marcy’s epithets following me down the hall.

  Chapter 20

  My street had been turned into a scene from a crime television show, with the whirling red and blue lights of a squad car and the harsher red strobe of an ambulance. I hurried closer to my house, my eyes scanning Mrs. Pease’s windows, but the light shone in the living room as it always did at this time, though it looked dim compared to the bright lights outside.

  I jogged up her stairs and knocked on her door, which she opened immediately to expose her worried face. It smoothed a little when she saw me, and she reached out her arms. I let her hug me, relieved to find her all right.“Oh, Elle, it’s not you.”

  “No, Mrs. Pease, I thought it must be you.” I looked her over. “The ambulance is parked right out front of your house, and I was worried.”

  “No, they showed up about forty minutes ago and ran up and pounded on your door,” she told me.

  “My door?” I turned to look onto the street. No police officers or emergency personnel maintained stations at their vehicles. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “They pounded and pounded, but I guess you didn’t answer. They must have gone next door to the Ossleys.”

  My stomach sunk. “Gavin.”

  “Oh, I hope not,” Mrs. Pease said.

  We didn’t have to wait long to find out, because the Ossleys’ door opened and the par