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A shadow passed over her face briefly, but it was swiftly gone, replaced by a tender smile. She squeezed his arm, a supportive gesture he was sure was meant to assure him she was fine with it. “I was wondering when that was going to happen.”
“You knew that Kelly and I were going to get together?” He was a little surprised by that, considering it had taken them so long to realize it themselves.
“Not before Ray died, but after…it was obvious, at least to me. You took care of Kelly when we lost Ray. We all had our own grief, and supported each other, but you absorbed hers into your own. You were her strength when she needed it and I knew then that eventually, Kelly would realize what an amazing thing it is to find love twice in a lifetime. Like I did.”
Chris stared at her. “I didn’t know you were with anyone but Mr. J.” Her husband had been a P.E. coach at the middle school and everyone had called him that.
“It was before I married. I was a sophomore in high school and he was a senior. I was mad for that boy, let me tell you. But he joined the army. He was supposed to get leave to come to my high school graduation, but instead, his best friend came by to let me know that he had been killed in a car accident on his way home to me.”
Chris was enthralled and wondered if Ray had ever heard this story before. “Oh, man. I am so sorry. Wasn’t Mr. J in the army too?”
She smiled softly. “Yes. He was my sweetheart’s best friend. Neither of us planned it. He sent me letters, at first telling me stories about him and my David. Soon, it became more. Our hopes and dreams. Then, one night, he showed up on my doorstep with his duffel bag and his discharge papers. He told me that he wanted to tell me in person that he was in love with me. A year later, we were married, and then nine months after we had Ray.”
“Wow. Did Ray know?” he asked.
“No, I never told him that story. He knows David was his dad’s best friend, but he didn’t know that my love for David was how we met. Life sometimes has tragic ways of bringing two people together and making something beautiful.”
Chris was blown away by her understanding, and blurted out, “I…I haven’t been able to tell her…that I love her, I mean.”
“Why ever not?”
“I don’t know. I keep dreaming of Ray for some reason and he keeps telling me to man up or let her go.”
She laughed, wiping at her wet eyes. “That sounds like something he’d say.”
“Yeah. I don’t know, I guess I thought maybe visiting him would give me clarity? I know that sounds stupid.”
“Well, I don’t know. I come here to talk to him as well, usually on Sundays. Today I was headed to the market and it was almost as though he was asking me to come.” She stepped closer to the headstone, running her hand over the top as though she was stroking her son’s cheek. “I always feel he’s with me, but there is something about here…I sense him.”
Chris thought about how moments before Grace had arrived, he’d asked Ray for a sign he was listening. Maybe sending his mom had been his way of letting Chris know he was here.
“As to why you can’t tell Kelly how you feel, I don’t have an answer for why, not that you asked. I will tell you that if you can’t give her what she needs, then you should let her go.”
Her advice echoed Ray’s from his dream.
“What do you think she needs?” he asked.
“Why don’t you ask her?”
Chris nodded and leaned over to kiss her brown cheek. “Thanks, Mrs. Jackson. It was good to see you.”
“You too, Chris. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
Chris walked back to his truck and paused on the driver’s side, watching Grace over the hood of his truck. She knelt beside her son’s grave, her head bent. Whether it was grief or prayer, Chris couldn’t tell, but he stared as a surprising summer breeze swung her long hair to th
e side, and ruffled her sunshine-yellow dress.
Chris climbed inside his truck and left the cemetery. He took a turn down Main and headed to the Pocket Full of Posies Flower Shop in the heart of Sweetheart. When he walked through the door, he heard a man and a woman arguing in the back, their voices so loud they were echoing.
“Get out of my shop, Charlie Kent, before I castrate you with whatever’s handy!”
That was Kenzie Olsen. She’d been two years ahead of him in school and had always been loud.
“All I said was that your roses were overpriced!” That had to be Charlie Kent, Dustin’s older brother. The two of them had been lovers once upon a time, but apparently, they were mortal enemies now.
There was a loud bang and the shattering sound of broken glass.
