Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

got up and watered the plant and dusted its leaves, carefully plucking off dead ones. Alan came out before I was done.
    "Just can't help yourself?" he asked, shrugging into the denim jacket. "Lukas to the rescue?"
    "I don't like sitting around doing nothing," I said.
    "You're allowed to wash my dishes," Alan said, scooping his keys off the dresser. "Don't touch my laundry or my books, but I'll never get mad if you do my dishes or scrub the bathtub." He grabbed the accordion file that held all his project papers.
    "Noted," I said.
    When we got to the graveyard, Alan led off into the woods a little bit to a small stone I'd never noticed. He bent over the plaque at the bottom, then stepped back and pointed.
    " Josephine Mary Streeter ," Mallory read, her voice rising in pitch. Chills crept up my back. " Here let her lie in peace and honor. Oh my god, is this her ?"
    "I didn't know," I felt the need to say though obviously I hadn't. The grave was outside the remains of the fence, and the stone was small and moss-covered.
    "That's good," Alan said huskily. "I want this, before we clean the stone up." He took the tripod from me and set it up while I prepared the camera.
    "Wait," Mallory said. "Did they bury her here after the church burned?"
    "Outside the fence," Tania pointed out. "Not on holy ground."
    "She wasn't a holy sort of woman," Alan said, his voice flat.
    From the neglected grave we moved to the rest of the graveyard and got some good footage of the remains of the church. Alan was all over the place and I could barely keep up except for a couple times he covered his eyes to think before issuing another spate of directions. Tania grumbled and Mallory laughed as we followed him about, and I was careful to get everything he asked for so I could see what he would do with it.
    "I'm hungry," Tania announced loudly when we'd filmed just about everything from just about every conceivable angle. "And you're insane, Alan."
    "Maybe, but it's a brilliant madness. Camera, please." Alan held out his hand to me. Both Tania and Mallory groaned. "You guys go if you want," he told them. "Lukas— I need you to clean the gravestone now. Neater but not perfect. Maybe leave the moss on the top, but I want to be able to see the name clearly."
    "Good choice," Mallory murmured.
    "We've already got the narrator," Tania objected. "And interviews. With Mallory on camera, and Lukas doing voiceover, that's pushing the edge of too crowded. Put Lukas on camera too, and it's too many people to follow for a twenty-minute segment."
    "It's going to be two," Alan said, "aside from the locals. I'll edit out my questioning them. I want Lukas both on camera and in voiceover, and Lydia's readings of the diaries and letters. Mal, I'm sorry, but you're not star material."
    "Damn," Mallory said with a grin. "The drawbacks of relying on the casting couch."
    Alan snorted.
    When we finally returned to the house, lunch was waiting. Lilia presented a beautiful cake and Alan blew out all twenty-one candles. We all had cake and ice cream, and Lilia brought out her big box.
    She'd gotten him a computer. Not one— two. She'd taken advantage of a "for your student" deal and got him a desktop and a laptop, both sufficiently powerful to run the software needed for video editing. She'd gotten him the software too— one of the best programs out there. Alan hugged her and didn't let go for a long time. Mallory bounced a bit and cried. Tania beamed and proclaimed she'd helped Lilia get exactly what she wanted and Alan let go of Lilia to hug Tania. Then Mallory gave Alan a professional quality digital camcorder better than hers— better than mine.
    I felt a little silly after all that, but I gave him my present too— three of the best rock-climbing cams made. At sixty dollars each, they'd better be the best. I'd chosen sizes to cover what I knew he didn't already have. Alan grinned at them and grinned at me.
    "Cams?" he said. "Is this a hint to go fall off a cliff?"
    "Yes. I've decided to try my hand at villainy."
    He laughed and worked the trigger on each, smiling wider at the easy action. "They're perfect, Lukas. Thank you."
    "Speech!" Mallory called. "Speech!"
    "Fuck no!" Alan yelped and everyone laughed.
    ****

CHAPTER 7
    All that week if I saw Alan at all, it was from a distance. He'd wave if he saw me— after class, walking home from work— but he didn't talk to me, and until Thursday he didn't text. Then as I drove up to the house at nearly midnight on the