A book is a coffin because it holds a body, sometimes more than one, and we readers are there to witness, mourn, and celebrate. I like the idea of people (Yes, you. Hi, there!), no matter how small the number, lifting and carrying this casket for a time, honoring it with their attention, experience, memory, and melancholic wonder at what was, at what might be. When you put it down, when you stop carrying it, you’ll move on, like you must. And who knows, perhaps years later a snippet of the book’s memory will unexpectedly alight and linger; a memory of a time and place and of the person you once were, if you allow it.

Thank you for volunteering to carry me to the end. And welcome to the Pallbearers Club.

I’ve written and rewritten and crumpled and I’ve recrumpled so many notes regarding this last chapter. I didn’t get through any of them without crying. Stupid crying. So, I’m going to just plow ahead with this one and not stop to make it pretty. I’ll write down everything I want to, even if maybe I shouldn’t.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think what you wrote should be the end of this book. Never mind that it strikes me as a wee bit sentimental, certainly and surprisingly more so than you ever were in life. Unless you were keeping that deep, dark secret from me all this time. Possible, I suppose. More to the point, the end you wrote is not the end, not the real end, even if it’s the one you wanted.

When we publish this, I won’t cut or edit your ending—I made a promise I wouldn’t rewrite your stuff—but we’re going to include my notes, all of them. I do feel bad that I have the last word, or I’m taking the last word. If I was a bigger person, maybe I wouldn’t need to.

I’m not a hundred percent clear on how and when this manuscript was finished and then printed out. Let’s work out the timeline. I didn’t find the book until after the cops came by the house to tell me they’d found your body. You’d been missing for more than two days at that point. After the cops left, I drifted upstairs in shock, and I don’t know why, but I was afraid/freaked out. It was like that instant blast of grief was too much to handle, so I had to convert some of it to irrational fear, or the not-so-irrational fear of being alone. It took all I had to work up the courage to go into your music/writing room area. The printed-out, neatly stacked manuscript was on your desk.

The night you stormed out of the house, I stayed up as late as I could, like a nervous parent waiting for you to come home. I fell asleep eventually, and then later, God knows what time, I heard you come in through the front door and shut it quietly, and then you pattered up the creaking stairs, and man, I was so relieved. You came back. I was convinced that you wouldn’t. But the next morning, you and your car were gone again, so at the time, I assumed I’d dreamed your late-night return.