The picture would remind Oliver of the morning when I first spoke out. Or of the day when we rode by the berm pretending not to notice it. Or of that day we'd decided to picnic there and had vowed not to touch each other, the better to enjoy lying in bed together the same afternoon. I wanted him to have the picture before his eyes for all time, his whole life, in front of his desk, of his bed, everywhere. Nail it everywhere you go, I thought.

We stood there for a few seconds where my father and I had spoken of Oliver once. Now he and I were speaking of my father. Tomorrow, I'll think back on this moment and let the ghosts of their absence maunder in the twilit hour of the day.

You never did forgive me, did you?''Forgive? There was nothing to forgive. If anything, I'm grateful for everything. I remember good things only.'I had heard people say this in movies. They seemed to believe it.

...-smells and sounds I'd grown up with and known every year of my life until then but that had suddenly turned on me and acquired an inflection forever coloured by the events of the summer.