The cemetery is almost empty today, even emptier than usual. It’s just me, Jan, and up in the grey sky a bird of prey making its wide circles. Fiona would have been able to tell us what kind of bird. She could point to any tree or bird and say that’s a whatever-it-is, even though she grew up just like I did in a little Connecticut town. Fiona was passionate about nature for some reason, she even had a bird almanac beside her bed. And she had one of the best memories I’ve ever seen. That was in the old days, when we were still kids. Before she grew up, and replaced birds with other things. More dangerous things.

The bird overhead wheels and drops. I wonder what it’s spotted. Rabbit? Squirrel? There’s no point running, little creature. Nowhere to hide now. Life’s not fair, right? Sometimes the cards just aren’t stacked in your favor. We should know by now, it’s always the more powerful animals that win.

I lower my gaze to the grey headstone before us.

Kennedy, Fiona.

Beloved daughter.

Loyal friend.

The familiar nausea churns in my stomach. Beside me, Jan kneels down and starts pulling small weeds from the headstone. The weeds are only ever small ones, because Jan comes here regularly. She watches over this little patch of earth. The lettering on the headstone is sharp and clear - I hear they carve them with lasers these days. I think for a moment what it might be like to be a gravestone carver. Quiet, I decide. Peaceful. The right kind of life for someone like me, the hermit I’ve become.

Satisfied with her weeding, Jan places the little clump of pink freesias underneath the stone. She’s always calm and matter-of-fact when we visit her daughter’s grave, no tears. She just sees to the weeds and clucks her tongue whenever there are signs of youths drinking in the cemetery, empty cans or cigarette butts. She treats it like a living room that needs cleaning but it’s hard to know what she really feels - how much she’s recovered or ever will recover from the loss. Ten years ago now, which is hard to believe. It’s the one thing - okay, one of the two things - that I will never talk to Jan about. I just don’t have the words. And if I’m honest I probably don’t want to know what exactly she feels now. I can’t bear the guilt.

‘Okay love, we’ll be off now.’

I don’t know if it’s me or Fiona she’s talking to. The wind whips around her words, moving across the grass and shaking the spruce trees by the cemetery wall. Jan plants her hands on her thighs and levers herself back up from the ground. We link arms and I steer us back towards the parking lot.