The Leaving Part 66

"Yes, indeed." Ryan attacked his sandwich, then, while chewing, said, "College for me. Senior year for you."

"Will I be able to stand it?"

Avery would be there, one year behind him. That would help.

"It's just one year," Ryan said. "It's better than, you know, getting a job."

"Is it?"

"I don't know, man. But you can meet girls and make friends and get drunk and do something dumb like be in a marching band and go to football games and pep rallies and prom and live it up a little, right?"

"What do I do? Just walk into the office and ask to register?"

"I'm pretty sure they'll know who you are." Ryan looked at his phone. "Break's up. I've got to go." He took one last huge bite of his sandwich and stood. "So we're good, then. This weekend?"

It felt right to scatter Will's ashes at Opus 6; even if Immerso hadn't been caught, the mystery had been solved.

"We're good," Lucas said.

Men with know-how were coming to move the stone in the morning.

AVERY.

Spring breaks across the country ended, and town emptied out. Her flip-flops arrived in a beat-up box, and things got back to normal. Emma got the lead and grew instantly obsessed with the school play; the media stopped being obsessed with the returned kids and were now focused, instead, on Louis Immerso, who was alternately a monster and a genius. Photos had been released of him and his daughter, Lola, but so far . . . nothing.

Avery's mother had had a breakdown after the funeral and was now in an outpatient grief management program. Her father had taken the week off to drive her mom there and back daily in order to guarantee she was actually going, and her mother had actually asked her about the school play auditions, while straightening papers on the fridge.

"Oh," Avery said. "I missed the auditions."

"Well, that's too bad," her mom said. "I always enjoy the plays."

This, Avery decided to take as progress.

Ca.s.seroles had, in fact, started arriving-even Sam had brought one. "Sorry," he'd said, "my mom insisted."

"What is it with moms and ca.s.seroles?" she'd asked.

"I have no idea," he'd said, holding it over the trash with eyebrows raised in question.

"Is it plastic? The dish?" she asked.

"No." He laughed. "Do you really care? I doubt she's going to come ask for it back."

She'd stepped on the lid pedal and opened it. He'd slid it in.

She was pretty sure he'd gone on a date with Emma and was pretty sure she didn't care.

Lucas had asked her to come today for the scattering of Will's ashes. So she put on a dark-gray dress and nice sandals and walked down by the bay, then past the fish market and psychic-again-and arrived at Opus 6.

Something was different.

It felt . . . complete.

Now, at the very apex, at the dead center, stood a tall stone with a long, flat face. It was vaguely head-shaped, in that Easter Island kind of way, and she wondered whether she'd ever go there, or anywhere-Stonehenge?-and whether she'd ever see anything as bizarre and spectacular made from rocks as Opus 6.

Ryan and Lucas stood near the stone, talking to Scarlett and Kristen.

Sarah and Adam had come, too. Avery had had to work hard to convince Lucas that it was right to ask them, pointing to the fact that their names were also on the stone, carved there by Will's hands.

She was the odd man out, or felt that way until Lucas saw her. His eyes ignited. He smiled. She walked to him and he kissed her by the ear and said, "Thank you for coming."

"Of course," she said. Then she said hi to everyone she knew and was introduced to those she hadn't met in person and it felt like she was part of some strange club and she neither liked it nor didn't like it.

It was what it was.

Lucas reached into his suit jacket and said, "I have something for you. I found it in an old box of photos."

He held out a print-an almost identical print to the one she'd burned. Lucas, Max, Smurfette. She grinned and kissed him.

Love was its own happy ending.

After a few more minutes, Lucas took the urn and went to stand by the newly placed stone and started talking about his father, his dedication to his sons, to the investigation, and to the creation of Opus 6 itself. He nodded at something beyond her and Avery turned. Detective Chambers and another man Avery didn't know but whose dreads were longer than her ponytail. Chambers nodded solemnly.

Turning back toward Lucas, watching his lips move, watching his eyes fill with emotion, Avery wondered what she'd remember about this day later, when she'd be home wiping mascara away in black smears in the upstairs bathroom?

And in the morning, how much would be left when she sat in the kitchen doing the maze on the back of the cereal box again?

How much of today would be gone by next week, and the week after?

What would be left next year when she'd inhale air enough to darken sixteen candles?

Ten years from now? What then? And twenty?

What was the exact percentage of this day that had already slipped away?

She wanted this moment, this half of a half of a percent, to stick.

She set out to capture it.

She chased down those vines by the reflecting pool, their orange blooms like bonfires for Barbies.

She caught that tree, the one that had been turned into a wise old woman by long gray braids of Spanish moss.

She scooped up Lucas-so vulnerable, so fully here now, his tie knot all wrong.

She took it all in with her net, knowing that so very much of it would slip through and fall away hard and fast.

That the curve of memory was steep.

Lucas opened the urn and the wind cooperated as he shook it and the ashes swirled high-like in a movie about spells-before settling and disappearing at their feet.

A return to form.

We are all dust.

All dying.

All losing.

All forgetting.

We are all leaving all the time.

David Dunton.

at Harvey Klinger Agency.

(our 10th book together!).

Adrienne Maria Vrettos.

(first reader and ultimate writing dater).

Morghan, Paul, and Rachel.

("my lawyers").

Harvey Fite (for Opus 40).

Anne Ursu.

(for the right lecture at the right time).

Teeny Tiny Filmworks.

(not so teeny anymore!).

Bob (Of course.).

Nick.

(Always.) Ellie (For the idea.).

Violet.

(Just because.).

The amazing Leaving design team:.

Donna Mark, Amanda Bartlett, Jessie Gang, and Kimi Weart (Because, I mean, LOOK AT IT!!).

and Sarah Shumway.

(for always push push pus.h.i.+ng for more) (okay, sometimes less).

end.