Here After

chapter seven

Saturday, June 16

 JUST AFTER SEVEN THAT MORNING, Peter called his mother-in-law. She was a farm woman, wide awake when she answered.

“Hi, Katy, it’s me.”

“Peter. It’s so nice to hear from you. How are you holding up?”

“It’s hard, Katy.”

“I know.”

Peter took a deep breath. For a moment he’d forgotten she’d lost a child, too. And a grandson.

Katy said, “What’s on your mind?”

“There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Fire away.”

“Three summers ago while David was there, do you remember hearing about a Sudbury boy being abducted from his home?”

“Of course I do. David knew him. The news broke his little heart.”

“He knew about it, then?”

“He saw it on TV. I’ll never forget it. It was storming that day and I was making biscuits. David was lying on the couch in the living room. When the segment came on he sat right up, and when they said the boy’s name he screamed for me. Gave me a terrible fright. I was days calming him down.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about it?”

“David asked me not to.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Children are people, Peter. They have their secrets. Maybe he didn’t want to upset you. He was fine after a week or so. He was a very mature boy.”

“I know.”

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

“No reason. Just curious. Something David said before he…”

“I understand.”

“Thanks, Katy.”

“When will we see you?”

“Soon.”

“Okay, Peter. Whenever you’re ready. Bye for now.”

                                                                              * * *

The headstone felt hot under the beating sun. The wind had shifted David’s crystal figurine to the edge of the stone and Peter burned his fingers picking it up. He moved it to the raised base, centering it beneath the inscription, safely out of the wind.

There was a wrought iron vase spiked into the earth in front of Dana’s monument and Peter tucked a dozen red roses into it, Dana’s favorite. Sometimes the ache of her absence ran so deep he wondered if he could ever feel love for a woman again. Dana had been his ideal companion, his refuge, his heart and soul. He missed her humor, her sparkling green eyes flecked with gold, the perfect fit of her body with his own. In this place, the cruelty of her death, and that of his son, weighed terribly on him, making it difficult to breathe.

Eyes glazed with tears, Peter filled the vase with water from a plastic bottle then sat cross-legged on the grass at the foot of the adjoining plots, looking from one to the other in a species of numb disbelief. He’d opted for porcelain portraits on each of the headstones, the one of Dana culled from their honeymoon collection, Dana standing with the ocean at her back, a blush of rising sun soft against her skin. So beautiful. Almost impossible to believe she’d been gone four years. The photo he’d chosen of David was his absolute favorite, the little guy hamming it up in the yard at home, a ball cap flipped around backwards on his head, Terminator sunglasses hiding his eyes, David flexing a bicep in a black and yellow muscle shirt, smirking for the camera.