"What would you have named our baby, Lily?" I muse. My eyelids have grown heavy watching the dying fire, and I struggle to keep them open. It's so cold without the flames.
"Would they have gotten an English name?" I say, a tremble in my voice. "Or a Chinese one?"
A child I will never know, a mother I will never see, and a father I will never be.
I'm trying not to cry, but it's just so hard, Lily.
"If it was Chinese you might've had to teach me to write it," I chuckle. Tears. I wipe them away, and I stare at the three characters, meaningless to me, on the slab of marble.
"I still can't read your name," I mumble, and then the fire finally dies, sputtering a fume of smoke. I glance over at the rising sun, and I know it is time to go.
YOU ARE READING
combustion
Short StoryWhen paper burns, it doesn't just turn to ashes. This is the story of Lily and Keaton. Of the boy who was hopelessly lost, and of the girl who was his oasis in a sea of strangers. Most of all, of how he found himself turning paper to ashes.
