I started bringing crimson roses every Sunday, without fail. Always seven, always wrapped in paper like she liked. But by Tuesday?
Gone. Not wilted—gone. No petals, no stems, no trace.
At first, I thought maybe the grounds crew tossed them early. Or maybe animals. But week after week, same thing.
Other graves still had weathered lilies and half-dead tulips rotting in their vases. Only hers was bare. So I bought a little camera.
The kind hunters use for deer. I wedged it low in the hedges behind her headstone, pointing right at the marble. I didn’t tell anyone.
Just waited. The first two days, nothing. Then, on the third afternoon, I nearly dropped my coffee watching the footage.
A boy. Maybe eleven. Skinny.
Hoodie too big for him. He crept up around 3:30 p.m., looked around, and gently plucked every rose. One by one.
He didn’t rip them. He held them like they mattered. Next day, he came back.
Not to take more—just to sit. Cross-legged, facing the stone. He stayed for twenty-three minutes.
I counted. He didn’t talk. Just sat there with the roses in his lap.
I zoomed in on the frame. His face looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Until I spotted what was hanging around his neck.
A silver locket. Oval-shaped. Scratched.
But I knew that thing. I bought it for Malini on our twentieth anniversary. It had a little engraving on the back.
Her initials, and mine, in Tamil script. My stomach flipped. It couldn’t be hers.
Hers was buried with her. She wore it every day for thirty-two years, even when the clasp broke and I had to fix it with fishing line. I watched them lower her into the ground with it on.
So how did that boy have it? I paused the video and stared. Then I grabbed my keys and drove straight to the cemetery.
I sat on the bench across from her grave for hours, like I was waiting for a ghost. And at 3:34 p.m., there he was. Same hoodie.
Same awkward walk. Thin legs poking out of shorts too small for fall weather. He was carrying something today—looked like a notebook, held tight to his chest.
I didn’t say anything. I just let him approach her grave. He crouched beside it, gently touched the edge of the stone like it was skin.
Then he opened the notebook. He started to read out loud. Softly.
It took me a minute to catch the words. But when I did, my heart punched against my ribs. He was reading one of my poems.
I hadn’t written a poem in years, not since before Malini got sick. But she had a whole collection in her nightstand. Stuff I scribbled back when I thought I had a shot at being a real writer.
I took a breath and stood up. My knees creaked. The bench had gotten harder with age.
“Hey,” I said quietly. He startled like a deer. Looked like he might bolt.
“I’m not mad,” I added quickly. “I just… I saw you reading.”
He clutched the notebook tighter. “Sorry.
I didn’t know anyone else came here.”
“You know her?” I nodded toward the grave. He hesitated. “Sort of.”
That stung.
“Sort of?”
“She told me stuff. I mean, I talk to her. I don’t know if she hears me, but… she helps.”
“She?”
He nodded.
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