Page 66 of Whispers of Helena
She only shakes her head before pushing forward through the gate.
I take slow steps behind her, letting my eyes scan the headstones as we drift by. My parents’ names are the first to greet me, their markers standing side by side. My throat tightens as I take them in, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. There is something waiting for me, something drawing me deeper into the graveyard.
Helena walks ahead, passing stones marked with more names I know, my uncles, old neighbors, people who once filled the pews of this church. She stops at the very last row, at the final marker in the back.
She stands between me and the stone, as if shielding me from what I’m about to see.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” she murmurs, her voice thick with emotion. “But let me say it. I love you, Bronco. I always have. I always will. Forever.”
My breath comes sharp and ragged as she steps aside. The large stone consumes my attention, any others fading into the background.
The moon shifts, its pale light falling across the stone.
I see my name first.
Silas & Caroline Hayes
My body locks. My lungs refuse to expand.
My eyes track the words, but my mind fights to process them.
Husband, Father, Son
Wife, Mother, Daughter
Placed into the hands of our Lord and Savior
April 26th, 1982
The world shifts under my feet.
The night air vanishes, replaced by thick and suffocating darkness. My pulse pounds, my ears ring, my vision narrows until all I see is that name.Our names.Together. On a gravestone.
A weight crashes down on me so hard my knees give out and I drop to the ground. The memories, the pieces I had buried, they rip free, shattering the walls I built to keep them at bay.
The hymns. The laughter. The prayers. The touch of her hand in mine. The scent of her hair in the morning.
Kiran’s first steps.
Her smiles at Christmas. Her cupcakes.
Her body against mine.
Then the visions change.
The smoke.
The fire.
The feeling of being pulled away, of the rawness in my throat as I screamed her name, of knowing deep down that she couldn’t hear me.
But I am here.
And she is standing right in front of me.
I suck in a breath, but it doesn’t fill my lungs. It is stolen away by the impossible, by the force of a truth I can no longer deny.
I remember.
