He put the truck in park and pulled out the bag from the back. “I wanted to make sure and give her some of her favorite candy.”
“Oh my.” My heart plunged into my stomach and dove back up, and then it did it again.
Was this okay? Should we be doing this?Do I want to share this with him?
“I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure I can do this.” Inhaling a large gulp of air, I coughed and sputtered, “Why do you want to do this with me?”
Profile-to-profile, neither of us making eye contact, he said, “You’ll see. I need to do this as much as you. Trust me.”
Aiken got out of the cab and came around to my door. Opening it, he leaned in and whispered close to my face, “I can’t bring Abby back. I sure wish I could. I would’ve loved to meet her, hear her, laugh with her. Sometimes, I can feel her energy through you, but I can’t change history. But what I can do is make some happy memories with her and you…now…in our own way. Come on.” He grasped my hand and helped me out of the truck.
I pulled the aviators out of my jacket and placed them over my eyes. I was going to need them, even though it was dusk.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yeah, Mary told me.”
“What else did Mary tell you?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He squeezed my hand once, twice, and then settled our fingers together.
He held my hand tight and zigzagged over to Abby’s tombstone. There were a few vampire-clad teenagers in the corner of the cemetery with a six-pack. The girlish giggles wafting from their group only heightened my awareness of what we were about to do. Visit my dead daughter—who would’ve been about the age of the teens carousing. Otherwise, the place was all ours.
Aiken knelt on the ground and took out a packet of M&M’s and a jumbo bag of mini Twix and set them on top of the grave, his hand firmly planted next to them on the granite. “Hey, Abby, I’m Aiken. Your mom’s told me all about you. I wish I could’ve met you. We would’ve been close, I know it. Your mom only tells me the good stuff, but I bet you and I would’ve had a little fun teasing your mom.”
A tear fell from underneath my glasses and ran down my cheek as I stood over the man I was falling for, while he leaned on the ground in front of my dead daughter’s tombstone. It was an unparalleled experience—one there was no words for, at least ones that made sense.
“Also, I heard you used to save all the Reese’s for your mom.” He pulled a king-size bag of Reese’s from the bag and turned to me.
“Come here,” he beckoned, and I sleepwalked toward his legs.
“Sit down.” And I did.
He cracked open the package and held a Reese’s to my mouth. “Come on, it’s tradition.”
My lips parted. The chocolate melted on my tongue, the salty peanut butter making me moan. “I love these,” I said with tears dripping down my cheeks. Wrung out on emotion, I was literally coming undone from a single bite of candy.
“I love you.” He cradled me close, my tears falling onto his shirt, my hiccups coming faster.
“Aiken.” It was a whisper and a roar.
He was telling me he loved me in front of Abby’s grave.
“Don’t Aiken me. Don’t say anything. Have another bite of candy, cry, laugh, just feel. I wanted her to be with us, so she can know someone loves her mom, wants to take care of her mom.”
He leaned back and brought his candy-filled hand back to my lips.
“Are you going to have some?”
“That’s up to you. If you want this tradition to stay between you and Abby, I’m cool with that.”
My head and heart ached equally for the man in front of me. The young man, wise and old beyond his chronological years, who innately understood my need for my dead daughter to be a part of our growing relationship.
“She’d want you to have some.”
After that, we sat there in silence, munching on Reese’s, the teenagers laughing and making howling noises in the background, until my tears dried up.
“You tell me when you’re ready. We can stay as long as you like, but I have more planned.”
“More?”
“You know it, Richards.”
I hope Mary didn’t tell him all my vices.
