He skipped one final rock, then took my hand.
We made our way up the hill at the back of the cemetery, past the mausoleums. When the bench came into view, my eyes fell on a little girl sitting there with long chestnut hair and the most beautiful dark eyes, a book in her lap. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Daddy!”
She jumped up and ran to me, wrapping both arms around my legs.
From the opposite side of the bench, her mother looked up at me, too.
She smiled.
Somehow, Stella became more beautiful with each passing day, and my heart never tired of quivering at the sight of her.
She too was reading a book. She turned it over and showed me the cover. “This is utterly fantastic!”
The title wasGlimmer in the Devil’s Eye. The author was Darby Brotherton.
Darby never learned to speak, but she found her voice. At twenty years old, this was her second bestseller. Cammie had called us last week to tell us the news.
Stella walked over, her white sundress fluttering in the late summer breeze. The weather today couldn’t be more perfect.
She ruffled Dalton’s hair and kissed me, her lips electric against mine. “Did you boys have fun?”
“It was nice to see everyone. You?”
She knelt and stroked our daughter’s cheek. “Clara here readCharlotte’s Webfor the umpteenth time, then set about to find a word in every spider web in those mausoleums over there.”
I smiled down at Clara. “And what did you find?”
“Pittsburgh spiders are dumb. They can’t spell.”
Neither of our children had demonstrated an ability, a gift, a curse, or anything out of the ordinary for a six-year-old girl or a seven-year-old boy, but I’d be lying if I said we didn’t watch for one every day. I think we both knew it was coming, probably sometime soon, and we’d be ready for it, whateveritwas.
I took Stella’s hand and wrapped my fingers around hers. She didn’t wear gloves around us. There was no need.
That night.
The kiss.
The approaching train.
When our lips touched, I thought I would die. I expected to meet the same fate as Leo Signorelli and all the others who met Stella’s touch, her kiss. I figured I wouldn’t even feel the train when the impact finally came, I’d be gone that fast. I didn’t die, though. I felt no pain at all.
My gift, my curse, my condition, whatever the shot did to me… Dunk called me the boy who could not die. Whether just from luck or some odd manipulation of my DNA as a result of my parents receiving the shot, there was some truth to that. Through the course of my life, I should have died many times over, Charter’s attempts alone should have been enough, yet I hadn’t. I figured one day I probably would. Nobody lives forever, but I had no idea how my particular condition impacted those final laws of nature, the ones enforced on all living things.
Stella and I learned there was an odd byproduct to my particular gift, too. Her need, her hunger—she found the sustenance she required in my touch. The boy who could not die,couldshare. When August 8 of 1999 came around, she demonstrated no signs of her previous illness. The date came and went like any other, and each year passed much the same.
If she and I were a battery, one would be positive, the other negative, and combined we canceled out. We completed each other.
When I told Fogel I hadn’t had a drink in twelve years, that was true, too. I never craved alcohol when Stella was near. Since she and I were completely inseparable, that particular need never reappeared.
We married on August 8, 2000. The date held so much meaning for the two of us. There was never a consideration of another date, it had to be August 8. The day became one of celebration.
“What are you thinking about?” Stella asked, shielding her eyes from the unusually bright Pittsburgh sun.
“You,” I told her. “How much I love you.”
Stella smiled and kissed me again. “And I love you, too, Pip.”
“Yucky,” Dalton said, frowning.
