122.

In the morning the three of us drove out to the beach below the meetinghouse and shook her ashes into the wind with some sentimental hope that she would return to my father, or he to her, or both of them to God, or whatever it is one hopes for the dead.

And because we couldn’t help ourselves, or really, because I, forever my father’s son, couldn’t help myself, we drove slowly past his house. There were purple pig lilies in the garden and a boy on the front step with a yellow Tonka truck upside down across his knees.

We stopped on Mott Street and watched for a while, but only saw a shadow pass in the upstairs window.

There was no sign of the Night Gardener.

At the Young house nothing moved. The trampoline was gone.

We didn’t visit Hank. I can’t remember why.

We dropped Seymour off at the prison.

“See,” he said, leaning down to us and pointing to the far basketball court, “it was there. She was right there.”