“Your office will be waiting,” I said.

“Frank already had the second-floor suite painted.”

At half past three that afternoon, I walked through the iron gates of Oak Lawn Cemetery.

The spring air was warm and still, sweet with the smell of honeysuckle blooming along the fence.

I stopped at a quiet bench beside my wife Martha’s grave.

The dark gray granite headstone sat in the shade of the new green leaves of a big live oak.

I laid a bunch of fresh yellow chrysanthemums at the foot of the stone, setting the stems neatly against the trimmed grass.