'Then I'll tell you how to get there.' He carried the wreath to the front door. 'I suppose you can find he lake. It is due east.'
We went outside. 'East is to our right,' Alan said.
'Yes, sir,' I said.
He marched down the walkway and veered across the sidewalk to the Pontiac. He got into the passenger seat and hugged the big wreath against his chest.
On Alan's instructions, I turned north on Eastern Shore Drive. I asked if he wanted the little community beach down below the bluffs south of us.
'That's Bunch Park. April didn't use it much. Too many people.'
He clutched the wreath as we drove north on Eastern Shore Drive. After ten or twelve miles we crossed into Riverwood.
Eastern Shore Road shrank to a two-lane road, and it divided into two branches, one veering west, the other continuing north into a pine forest sprinkled with vast contemporary houses. Alan ordered me to go straight. At the next intersection, we turned right. The car moved forward through deep shadows.
Indented orange lettering on a brown wooden sign said FLORY PARK. The long drive curved into a circular parking lot where a few Jeeps and Range Rovers stood against a bank of trees. Alan said, 'One of the most beautiful parks in the county, and nobody knows it exists.'
He struggled out of the car. 'This way.' On the other side of the lot, he stepped over the low concrete barrier and walked across the grass to a narrow trail. 'I was here once before. April was in grade school.'
I asked him if he'd let me carry the wreath. 'No.'
The trail led into a stand of mixed pine and birch trees. I moved along in front of Alan, bending occasional branches out of his way. He was breathing easily and moving at a good walker's pace. We came out into a large clearing that led to a little rise. Over the top of the rise I could see the tops of other trees, and over them, the long flat blue line of the lake. It was very hot in the clearing. Sweat soaked through my shirt. I wiped my forehead. 'Alan,' I said, 'I might not be able to go any farther.'
'Why not?'
'I have a lot of trouble in places like this.' He frowned at me, trying to figure out what I meant. I took a tentative step forward, and instantly pressure mines blew apart the ground in front of us and hurled men into the air. Blood spouted from the places where their legs had been.
'What kind of trouble?'
'Open spaces make me nervous.'
'Why don't you close your eyes?' I closed my eyes. Little figures in black clothes flitted through the trees. Others crawled up to the edge of the clearing.
'Can I do anything to help you?'
'I don't think so.'
'Then I suppose you'll have to do it yourself.'
Two teenage boys in baggy bathing suits came out of the trees and passed us. They glanced over their shoulders as they went across the clearing and up the rise.
'You need me to do this?'
'Yes.'
'Here goes.' I took another step forward. The little men in black moved toward the treeline. My entire body ran with sweat.
'I'm going to walk in front of you,' Alan said. 'Watch my feet, and
I nodded. My mouth was stuffed with cotton and sand. Alan moved in front of me. 'Don't look at anything but my feet.'
He stepped forward, leaving the clear imprint of his shoe in the dusty trail. I set my right foot directly on top of it. He took another step. I moved along behind him. My back prickled. The path began to rise beneath my feet. Alan's small, steady footprints carried me forward. He finally stopped moving.
'Can you look up now?' he asked.
We were standing at the top of the hill. In front of us, an almost invisible path went down a long forested slope. The main branch continued down to an iron staircase descending to a bright strip of sand and the still blue water. Far out on the lake, sailboats moved in lazy, erratic loops. 'Let's finish this,' I said, and went down the other side of the rise toward the safety of the trees.
As soon as I moved onto the main branch of the path, Alan called out, 'Where are you going?'
I pointed toward the iron stairs and the beach.
'This way,' he said, indicating the lesser branch.
I set off after him. He said, 'Could you carry this for a while?'
I held out my arms. The wreath was heavier than I had expected. The stems of the roses dug into my arms.
'When she was a child, April would pack a book and something to eat and spend hours in a little grove down at the end of this path. It was her favorite place.'
The path disappeared as it met wide shelves of rock between the dense trees. Spangled light fell on the mottled stone. Birches and maples crowded up through the shale. Alan finally halted in front of a jagged pile of boulders. 'I can't get up this thing by myself.'
Without the wreath, it would have been easy; the wreath made it no more than difficult. The problem was carrying the wreath and pulling Alan Brookner along with my free hand. Alone and unhindered, I could have done it in about five minutes. Less. Three minutes. Alan and I made it in about twenty. When it was over, I had sweated through my jacket, and a torn zipper dangled away from the fabric.
I knelt down on a flat slab, took the wreath off my shoulder, and looked at Alan grimly reaching up at me. I wrapped a hand around his wrist and pulled him toward me until he could grab the collar of my jacket. He held on like a monkey while I put my arms around his waist and lifted him bodily up onto the slab.
'See why I needed you?' He was breathing hard.
I wiped my forehead and inspected the wreath. A few wires and some stray roses protruded, and a dark green fern hung down like a cat's tail. I pushed the roses back into the wreath and wound the stray wires around them. Then I got to my feet and held out a hand to Alan.
We walked over the irregular surface formed by the juncture of hundreds of large boulders. He asked me for the wreath again. 'How far are we going?' I asked.
Alan waved toward the far side of the shelf of rock. A screen of red maples four or five trees thick stood before the long blue expanse of the lake.
On the other side of the maples, the hill dropped off gently for another thirty feet. A shallow groove of a path cut straight down through the trees and rocks to a glen. A flat granite projection lay in a grove of maples like the palm of a hand. Below the ridge of granite, sunlight sparkled on the lake. Alan asked me for the wreath again.
'That's the place.' He set off stiffly down the brown path. After another half-dozen steps, he spoke again. 'April came here to be alone.' Another few steps. 'This was dear to her.' He drew in a shuddering breath. 'I can see her here.' He said no more until we stood on the flat shelf of granite that hung out over the lake. I walked up to the edge of the rock. Off to my right, the two boys who had passed us at the beginning of the clearing were bobbing up and down in a deep pool formed by a curve of the shoreline about twenty feet below the jutting surface of the rock. It was a natural diving board. I stepped back from the edge.
'This is April's funeral,' Alan said. 'Her real funeral.' I felt like a trespasser.
'I have to say good-bye to her.'
The enormity of his act struck me, and I stepped back toward the shade of the maples.
Alan walked slowly to the center of the shelf of rock. The little white-haired man seemed majestic to me. He had planned this moment almost from the time he had learned of his daughter's death.
