The first night, all he could do was stare from across the street from the mayor’s house. And then, he went home. His body was more sick than stunned, and he was feeling better than he had in the last near week. For the first time in days, he was able to eat, or rather drink, food. Clear broth. Then came sleep, but he was up again at one in the morning. Pacing.
By two in the morning, he was back in his car and, being the middle of the night, was back in Cedar Point inside of half an hour. He parked beside the cemetery, and entered, taking some of the hand gardening tools he had in the back of his truck, which had been clattering around for almost a year and a half, bought shortly after his ex wife Sara bought her house and he helped her with the flowers under her windows.
At five, he was satisfied with his work. And a little hoarse, as he has been talking in a near whisper and, in spots, crying softly, from the moment he approached the grave until he finally stood, brushed off his jeans and then the coffin and looked with some satisfaction on the now well tended plot under the weeping willow tree.
Going home would have been a waste of time, so he simply “arrived” at work early, claiming that he could not sleep, which at least wasn’t a lie. Still on desk duty, he was able to work automatically. At lunch, he bought something simple from the bakery, where the evening before, he’d met the most important person in Cedar Point, and took it to the private beach near the cemetery. Sitting on the steps to the breakwater, he ate and talked “to himself’ softly until the lunch break was over. He went straight home after his shift and slept deeply until his alarm went off on Saturday morning.
He ate lunch more often than not at his new spot whenever he could get away with it.
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