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In bed beside her sister, Josie wakes from another fitful night. The relentless rain against the windows brings the raw, wet earth of the burial site into the room. The loneliness of Miles, left to the elements, loneliness that chills her bones.

With all the wailing, weeping people at the funeral, their mouths contorted in pain, there seemed no room for her anguish. Tears fell from her eyes, yes, but it wasn’t Miles she was viewing; it was a body in a coffin, his spirit his essence gone, and it frightened her. When her father died, for days, maybe weeks, after, she’d have to remind herself that he was dead. A sense of numbness filled her then. Not so now. Miles enters her mind as soon as her eyes open, and she wants to reach out to him.

Quince and Sam asleep in the next room have quietly taken over food shopping and cooking, though no one is particularly hungry. Guests still arrive and sit for a while but only in the kitchen. The rest of the house holds a silence so complete it seems as if each room has been sealed off in Saran Wrap.

She watches Celia manage the empty hours of the day with an emotional strength that can only be assigned to her role as mother. Though during the night when Celia weeps quietly, she’s there to encircle her shoulders. Unable to abandon her sister, she will stay a while longer. More than a generous impulse, it’s also out of a hope that remaining here will somehow lessen her misery.

The small bedside clock tells her it’s nearly dawn; she’s made it through another long night.

Heading to the Bronx Zoo, Josie walks past the shuttered houses, the bike-strewn lawns, and a few sad-looking trees. The dimming streetlights emit a foggy orange glow, the damp air cool, somewhere the faint rumble of a garbage truck digesting. The sky is cloudy, the gray-pebbled sidewalks cracked and uneven. Soon the early morning rush to work will fill the empty streets with cars and buses.

Only a week ago she and Ben stood outside Attica waiting, hoping for a positive solution. Though it was September, a nasty wind blew, and rain turned the rutted lane muddy. More and more people collected outside to support the striking prisoners. While she envisioned Miles huddled with the strikers, others saw him on TV within the semicircle of those who were negotiating demands. Demands so reasonable she thought it had to be settled peaceably. After two days the rain stopped; the crowd grew. She and Ben inched closer and closer to the prison. Then on the fifth day, as the first flecks of light appeared in the predawn sky, the air exploded with the noise of helicopters. Lines of uniformed men ran shouting toward the prison yard. The sounds of gunshots and hideous shrieks went through her like electric currents. Her legs gave way, and she slid to the ground. Ben knelt beside her, tears streaming down his face.

The last time they spoke Miles had explained the upcoming strike, the growing relationship between white and Black prisoners, and how much he was learning, his voice soft yet insistent. Thinner than ever, growing a beard, his eyes rapt with concentration. Inmates in the visiting room had stopped to whisper in his ear, drop a handshake, slap his back; he was one among a community of men in sync with one another. No doubt he remains in many hearts. There’s relief in not being the only one carrying him.

Reaching the park, she climbs the hidden alley-slim path into the main road of the zoo. Once inside, she feels disconnected from all who know her, a sense of aloneness as visceral as the slick black macadam beneath her feet.

The surrounding bushes surrender rainwater as she pushes past to climb the stones. At the flat top of the rock, the usual vista appears and for a split second so too the old memory of anonymity.

She sits on the edge of the rock, legs dangling, the ghost of him beside her. “Miles,” she whispers, “was the bombing worth it? Dying so young, what good can come of that?” She can almost hear him say it’s the wrong question. But he risked his life so easily. Didn’t he think about those left behind? Didn’t they matter? Surely he couldn’t have known he’d be caught; surely he couldn’t have known he’d die. So why blame him for the outcome? Though something in her does. He was her confidant, an alter ego, the one who absorbed all she was learning. When he refused to share his secrets, she felt betrayed, not protected. But with him it was always about results being loftier than process. Mao said a daily teaspoon of earth removed from the mountain would reduce it in time or something to that effect. But that was too slow for Miles, who needed change then and there. She shares his impatience, doesn’t she? His death a lesson she still has to learn.

Taking a last look at the swath of park below, the shimmering wet leaves, the distant houses, each with its own story, she can’t imagine coming here again and wonders how many endings occur in a lifetime.