“That’s one reason we all took it so hard, when her husband had the stroke last month. While driving her to the hospital for her treatment. It’s bad enough that she lost her son. But to lose her granddaughter the same way, in the very same accident that claimed the life of the man she had loved and cherished for over fifty years…”
Dirk watched the nurse lower the old woman to the grass that was just starting to sprout, young and green and vital, from the mound of fresh soil. She leaned forward against the gravestone, resting her weary head against the uncaring granite as if communing with the loved ones who had left her behind.
“She’ll be joining them soon enough.”
Dirk had forgotten the old man was there. “Eh? What what?”
The priest shook his head. “The treatment. Sometimes it doesn’t take, and the Lord calls the faithful back into his loving arms.”
The old woman – Rae, that was her name – was frozen in place. She might have already gone to seek her final reward. Dirk saw now that there was more than one headstone, more than one plot set aside for this family. She knelt between two fresh mounds, forehead pressed against the larger piece of ebony granite guarding two graves, with a hand stretched out to rest atop the smaller monument. The space in the middle was undisturbed except for collateral damage from recent excavations on either side.
“The end comes to us all, my son. It’s how we accept it that makes the difference.”
Dirk was surprised to find he’d been thinking the same thing. But he hadn’t been able to say it out loud. There was something in his throat, struggling to escape into the crispness of the day. He forced it back down.
Gruff, now, in self defence – “I hear there was another vehicle involved, father? A bike, maybe?”
The old man nodded. “That’s right. Colin’s stroke made him lose control of the car. I believe it swerved into a motorcycle, then carried on till it ran off the road and into the tree that finally stopped it. Rae was wearing her seatbelt. She was always careful that way. But young Caitlin, in the back seat…”
Now the child had a name. Now she was real.
“This is the first time I’ve seen Rae here at the gravesite. She was just released from hospital yesterday.” He shook his head. “A temporary reprieve, I’m afraid.”
Dirk had seen enough. He brushed the old man’s hand off his shoulder as he turned and stalked back towards the parking area. The lump of steel in his pocket bumped cold and hard against his ribs, reminding him that it was still there, still ready.
But he didn’t feel the bumps. That thing in his throat was back. And now he seemed to have something in his eye.
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