Is this all that’s left behind of him? A name. A date of birth and a date of death. A profession.

There’s nothing sentimental about this piece of stone stuck into the earth, not even a nice quote or bit of poetry to make his existence on the planet seem worthwhile. To show that he had a good life, an interesting one. That he had loved and was loved in return. Maybe loved a little too much, actually, given Leo’s mental state after his death.

There’s nothing to show what kind of heart Seb had, which is a shame because, love squabbles aside, he had a good one. It was the one he showed to me. There’s this feeling I can’t shake, that I have let him down somehow by going to Detroit to learn about my father’s life there. I left a dying man alone in order to figure out what happened to an already dead one. What kind of sense does that make?

It was supposed to be me figuring out the headstone. Why hadn’t I thought of this in advance? About what should be included on this ugly piece of stone? The bit of poetry was my responsibility, because I was the one who was with him in what had to have been the most painful year of his life, watching him lose the battle to cancer. He’d chosen me to be with him at the end, and I let him down. And I don’t even know what poetry he liked, if he had even liked poetry at all.

I really shouldn’t be in this nice silent graveyard, making a clear target of myself. But where else am I supposed to read Seb’s memoirs? The snow has stopped falling and the ground has hardened with the cold, so I put down a blanket, which Whisper immediately settles over, and pour some coffee from Seb’s old thermos that I’ve lifted from Leo’s apartment. The temptation to add some whiskey to the thermos is as strong as ever, but thankfully Leo is keeping all his booze to himself these days. I read for a while, nodding at certain passages, my favorites. None of this is new to me because I’d helped Seb craft this book. The stories are his, the life was his, but I had something to do with the organization of it, with the vetting of information.

This book feels like an old friend.

It feels like my friend.

When it gets too cold to sit any longer, I pack everything away and wander farther into the cemetery to a grave I have never visited before, though I have known for some time where it is and who it belongs to.