FRESH ARRANGEMENTS AND BOUQUETS DECORATED THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE the florist. She smelled the hand-tied sunflowers and the amaryllis with baby’s breath as she pulled open the door. Inside, the sweet aroma was even stronger. The scents captured her attention and distracted her from the worry that had settled in since she left the brownstone. Not for the first time, Avery wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into. She was risking everything to pull this off, and the more she allowed the rational half of her mind to consider the possibility of this plan working, the more she worried that her Achilles’ heel—unconditional love—was going to bring her down like the rest of the Montgomery family members. But that unconditional love had forced her to come this far. She knew she could not simply turn it off.

She spent ten minutes in the flower shop, a reprieve where she took in the syrupy scents and admired the arrangements. She finally made her selection, paid at the register, and carried the bouquet of roses out the door. The air was damp with humidity and the sun was warm on this cloudless summer morning. She walked for ten minutes until she came to the entrance of Green-Wood Cemetery. Meandering paths cut through the hills beyond the gate, and the occasional gaudy mausoleum stood out among the headstones that dotted the landscape. Avery walked along the familiar trail until she came to the Plot, as she had come to know it in her mind. It took another minute to gather the courage to approach it. She had traveled three thousand miles—hard, fatiguing miles that took her from one end of the country to the other, making a heart-wrenching stop to see Connie Clarkson along the way, a woman who had been devastated by the Montgomery family—and yet, these last few steps were the hardest part of the journey.

This many years later, it was still a challenge to stare down at a gravestone. It was so nonsensical she could barely read the name it held. She should have cried, but she didn’t. That part of her brain could no longer be triggered. This yearly voyage had become more business than ritual, and mostly she felt the need to get it over with. She stood over the grave for a minute or two before she finally crouched down and rubbed her hand over the front of the tombstone.

She remembered again the day her older brother insisted she take the boat out while storm clouds grew thunderous on the horizon. “Goddamn you, Christopher,” she whispered to her brother’s headstone. Then she stood, took a couple of steps to her right, and laid the bouquet of flowers on the neighboring grave.

“Love you, Mom,” Avery said, before turning and walking back the way she’d come.

* * *