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When he pulled his Impala up to the gates of the cemetery it was after midnight. The place was locked up tight, and snow and fog were blowing in off the lake.

It was a huge cemetery right in the middle of the city, a beautiful place for what it was, large and well-kept and overlooking the water. He remembered standing at the grave during the service and staring out across all those gravestones at the sailboats that were gliding around out on the lake.

That had been August, the week before Labor Day. It had been hot and clammy, and he’d felt badly hungover and queasy in one of his brother’s old suits. He had thought hard and couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn a suit.

There was a small gathering of people at the cemetery that day, and he’d been embarrassed and angered by the turnout. He was also puzzled by the fact that he didn’t recognize a majority of the people there, including a woman with two young girls. Probably, he’d assumed, the girls had been classmates of his daughter.

The lock on the cemetery gates was one of those security boxes with push buttons. There must have been some code. The walls on either side of the gate were high, and made of stone. He put the white stuffed bear he was holding in his arms on top of the Impala and tried to scrub the vomit from the front of his nylon parka with fistfuls of snow.

He returned to the car, turned off the lights, and sat there for a moment finishing a can of beer and listening to Ray Price.

Then, in a burst of inspiration that emerged from out of his mind’s muddle, he eased the Impala up against the cemetery gate. Holding the bear in one hand, he managed to climb up onto the hood of the car. He tossed the bear over the gate and proceeded to scramble his way to the top, where there were sharp iron points that dug into his flesh. As he attempted to feel his way down the backside of the gate he lost his grip and fell halfway down to the pavement.

The cemetery was covered with deep snow. After tromping around for a time in what he thought was the general direction he managed to locate the gravesite. His ex-wife’s parents had paid for the headstone, and its plainness struck him as horribly inadequate.

He brushed the snow from the marker and discovered, standing there, that he didn’t have anything to say. He propped the white bear up against the gray stone and turned away.

When he reached the path and turned back for one last look the bear had already been entirely swallowed up by the fog and swirling snow.