Brooklawn Memorial Cemetery, Portland, Maine
Two months later…
Hew zipped his leather jacket as far as it would go under his chin in an attempt to keep the cold Maine wind from tunneling down the collar of his thick, wool fisherman’s sweater.
It was only the end of October. But fall was on the way out and winter was quick on its heels. The trees were still festooned in their autumn finery, burnt orange, fiery red, and cheery goldenrod. But the branches grew barer with every gust. And soon they would be completely naked.
Stick season.
When the tourists fled to warmer climes, and the locals buckled down, hibernated, and dreamed of when the spring daisies would push through the frost in…five to six months.
“She should be here,” Sabrina said as she studied the map the cemetery manager had printed for them when they stopped in to get directions.
Hew halted his slow trudge and glanced around.
The place where his parents and grandparents were buried wasn’t like other cemeteries. There were no mausoleums or headstones. Each grave was denoted by a simple, in-ground marker, which made the whole area appear like a well-manicured park rather than a graveyard.
There was nothing to block the view of the green, rolling hills or the brightly seasoned trees. And the hush of the wind through the dry leaves, the rustle of their boots on ground, as well as the distant cry of a gull riding the current…it all lent the place a serene stillness. A tranquil kind of beauty.
He’d only been there once before.
He’d asked his social worker to bring him on his sixteenth birthday. After a few eye rolls and much huffing and puffing, she’d loaded him up to make the short drive.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find, what he’d been looking for. Connection, maybe? A sense of self and belonging?
He’d found none of that. Just cold stones and the chiseled names of people he’d never met.
Maybe that was why he’d balked when Sabrina had originally suggested they make a trip. He hadn’t wanted a repeat of the disappointment he’d felt the first time.
Although, as he watched her walk down the row of markers in her navy coat with a plaid scarf looped snug at her throat and her gloved hands clutching two riots of bright flowers that seemed to defy the gray day, he couldn’t help thinking this time might feel different.
He felt different.
Sabrina had done that. She’d changed him. Her love had changed him.
“Here she is.” She breathed reverently, staring down at the grave marker that read simply: Natasha Smith, April 2nd, 1972—May 28th, 1990. Beloved Daughter. Loving Mother.
There were tears in Sabrina’s big, brown eyes when she glanced up at Hew from where she’d crouched to lay one of the two bundles of brightly colored mums next to the marker. Her voice sounded watery as she reached for his hand and whispered, “Her parents made sure the world knew she loved you even though she never got to meet you.”
All the emotion he hadn’t felt before, all the gratitude and love for the woman who’d harbored him safely inside her body for nine months, welled up and filled his eyes.
“Tasha…” Sabrina whispered reverently. “I promise to give him all the love you never got the chance to. I promise to spend the rest of my life making up for the time that was stolen from you.”
Hew couldn’t speak past the lump clogging his throat. And a single tear slipped from the corner of his eye, carving a cold track down his cheek. But he didn’t brush it away.
There was no reason to hide with Sabrina. No reason to tuck his feelings deep where no one could see.
With her, he was safe. Safe to feel every sharp edge of grief and every warm swell of love without judgment or ridicule.
He squeezed her hand, feeling the shape and solidity of the ring on her finger. The ring he’d placed there just last week.
Not a diamond.
Sabrina had wrinkled her nose at every clear, flashing stone they’d looked at in the high-end jewelry shop on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Instead, she’d chosen a square-cut emerald.
“To match your eyes,” she’d said. “And it’s your birthstone. It symbolizes renewal and hope and loyalty. If that’s not you…not us…I don’t know what is.”
Now, he managed only, “I love you, Sabrina.”
