My pruning shears were still beside Edward’s headstone, but the sunflower I’d placed there for his birthday was in a stranger’s hand. Her bag held fresh flowers from several graves. When I demanded she return them, she pointed across the road and opened a locked back room bearing my late son’s name.
Yesterday would have been my son’s thirty-fifth birthday.
Instead of a cake, I bought sunflowers.
Edward always brought me sunflowers when he visited.
Never in a vase, never arranged nicely. Just a bunch wrapped in grocery-store plastic, tucked under one arm beside his toolbox.
“For the prettiest girl on the block,” he’d say.
“You’re only saying that because you want lunch.”
Usually, I’d make him a sandwich.
***
Seven months ago, Edward died in a car accident on his way home from work.
I still sometimes reach for my phone when something breaks.
Yesterday, I stood beside his headstone, arranging sunflowers in the little vase I’d brought.
“The kitchen faucet’s leaking again, Eddie,” I told him.
I could almost hear his answer.
“Mom, why didn’t you just call me?”
I stayed until the wind grew cold.
Then I went home.
It wasn’t until evening that I realized I’d left my pruning shears beside the grave.
I returned the next morning.
I was halfway along the gravel path when I noticed a woman in a worn gray coat.
She carried a large shopping bag.
Flowers spilled over the top.
Roses. Carnations. Lilies with their buds still closed.
Then I watched her bend over a grave and remove a pink carnation from a fresh bouquet.
She slipped it into her bag.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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