Page 73 of Unraveled

“Other than the whole drive-by thing,” Cara started to say.

“Keep going.”

“This is mostly an okay birthday.”

“I will save the Quebec trip for another time, I promise.” Gian bent down to kiss the top of Cara’s head. “But it still managed to be okay for you somehow?”

“I didn’t realize it until I was in the hospital, but it’s my first birthday without Lea. I didn’t think about it leading up to today or as I was getting ready this morning. Tommas didn’t mention her when he called this morning to wish me a happy birthday. It wasn’t on my mind. She was the oldest twin by four and a half minutes.”

“You never told me that before.”

“Details,” Cara said flippantly. “She used to joke and say it was the best four and a half minutes of her life. I’m now six months older than she lived to be.”

“Things you don’t really consider, huh?”

“I suppose. I was going to say I think she had to be lying about those four and a half minutes, because these past six months have been the worst of my life.”

Gian stroked her cheek softly. “You have a good reason for that, though.”

“It wouldn’t be entirely true.” Cara smiled up at him, happier and more honest than before. “The last couple haven’t been so bad, really.”

Well, then …

He could understand that, too.

“But with the shooting and all,” Cara continued, “it brought me back down to reality.”

“And what does that mean?” Gian asked.

He wasn’t sure he was going to like her answer.

“I don’t know right now, Gian.”

Yeah, he didn’t like that at all.

The cemetery had a quiet, almost peaceful, quality about it. The usual sadness clung in the air, but it wasn’t as thick as Gian expected it would be. He stepped out of his car, and looked down the way, noting no vehicles but one that happened to be parked there. Checking his watch, he figured that gave him a bit of time before the men showed up.

Quickly, he strolled through the graveyard, passing by shined headstones and cleaned graves. Fresh flowers—some of the winter kind, but most for spring—rested upon the tops of a great many of the headstones.

All too soon, he came up to the one gravestone he was looking for. His grandfather’s. When his grandmother, Aurora, had died, Corrado made sure that the headstone placed on her grave also included his name, birthdate, and a blank spot waiting for his death date to be added. Now, that spot was no longer blank, but rather, carved in identical font and style to the rest of the numbering with his grandfather’s date of death.

His father waited on a nearby bench, a paper in his hands.

“Do you come here often?” Frederic asked.

Gian shook his head. “This is the first time, actually.”

“How does it feel?”

“Odd.”

“Oh?”

Gian bent down to place a handful of fresh flowers along the ledge of his grandparents’ stone. “I thought it wouldn’t feel like he was here, but it does, in a way.”

“Even though he isn’t buried yet.”

“Like I said, it’s odd.”