He did not turn around as she came up. He must have heard her; the snow squeaked under her boots like Styrofoam. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, bareheaded, and his ears were red with cold.
She stopped beside him. The stone said MARCHETTI and below that FRANCIS JOSEPH and the dates, and below that a space for her mother that was not filled.
"She told me," Lena said. "My mother. About January. About what she said to you."
He was quiet.
"Why didn't you tell me? Yesterday. In the yard. In the garage. I said you weren't at the funeral and you just said no."
"I wasn't at the funeral," he said. "Not really. I was at the back of the church by the pamphlet rack. I didn't sit with anybody. I didn't go up. I didn't go to the luncheon or the house. That's not being at a funeral, Lena. That's watching one." He looked at the stone. "And she was right. I'm not family. He was the best man I ever knew and he gave me twelve years and a trade and a bus ticket and his Saturdays, and I didn't give him anything back but tapes. I said I'd come home next Christmas. I said it every year. I didn't come home for my own father's funeral, did you know that? I sent flowers. I kept thinking I'd come back when I was somebody. When I had something to show him." He laughed, not quite. "I was going to drive up in my own boat."
"Ohio doesn't have a lot of harbors," Lena said.