He silenced his phone, and decided to finish the remainder of the cliff walk before turning back toward Grey Lady.

He scrambled up a short incline, then ducked to get under a wind-bent tree. It was the highest point of the walk, and one of the narrowest sections of the path. A sharp drop led to a cluster of black rocks, green and slick where the seawater reached during high tide. Waves slapped at the rocks, sending out fans of spray. The path was packed gravel, and slabs of shale. It wasn’t slippery, but it wasn’t completely flat, either. He kept walking, and almost missed the small bouquet bunched together and left leaning against the twisted root of a white pine.

He bent and picked up the bouquet; it was made from bittersweet with its familiar red berries, some still cocooned in yellow, that bloomed in the autumn. These had somehow survived through the winter, the berries shrunken and almost black. They had been bound together loosely by a long strand of grass. Harry looked at the stem ends of the bittersweet; they had been broken, not cut. Whoever had put together this bouquet had done it impulsively, without using clippers or proper string. And had it been meant for his father? Was this the place he had slipped? He’d ask Alice if she knew exactly where he’d fallen. It seemed suddenly important. He’d also ask her if she’d left the bouquet, but he doubted it. He put the bittersweet back where he’d found it, some of the wizened berries popping off the vine as he rested it against the tree.

It was fully dark when he reached the driveway of Grey Lady. He paused, wondering if he could get away with entering the house and going straight to his bedroom. He’d brought some cheap bourbon with him from college and maybe he could drink himself into oblivion, stay that way throughout the next few days. There was a soft glow of light coming from the bay windows, the curtains now drawn.