If you’d told me two years ago I’d end up talking to strangers in cemeteries, I would have laughed, maybe even slammed the door.
Now, I don’t laugh much at all.
I was halfway through counting my steps to the grave, 34, 35, 36, when I heard a child’s voice behind me say, “Mom… those girls are in my class!”
For a second, I couldn’t move.
I don’t laugh much at all.
My hands were still wrapped around the lilies I’d bought that morning, white for Ava, and pink for Mia. I hadn’t even reached their headstone.
It was March, the wind at the cemetery was sharp enough to sting, slicing through my coat and carrying memories I’d worked all year to forget. I glanced back, as if the boy’s voice had cracked the air itself.
That’s when I saw him: a little boy, red cheeks, eyes wide, pointing straight at the spot where my daughters’ faces smiled up from cold stone.
“Eli, come say ‘Hi’ to your dad,” a woman’s voice carried over the wind, trying to hush him.
I hadn’t even reached their headstone.
***
Ava and Mia were five when they died.
