“I know.” He closed his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want you to see it. It’s that I want you to see it at the right time.”
“What does D.H. stand for?”
He didn’t answer.
I told myself it was probably an old girlfriend. Someone he’d loved and lost. It would explain why he’d never married. It would explain why he was so desperate not to die alone.
That was the story I chose to believe. It made sense.
It was wrong.
On the fifth day, a woman showed up on the porch.
She was around forty-five, with Julian’s dark eyes and a Kroger employee badge still clipped to her jacket. She didn’t knock. She just stood on the steps with her arms crossed until I opened the door.
“So you’re the wife,” she said.
“I’m Claire.”
“Marissa. His sister.” She looked me up and down—my messy bun, my scrubs from work. “Arthur told me he got married. To a hospice volunteer he met in June.”
