Not a small one. Not a gardening one, either. It was a deep, dark, human-sized pit with a mountain of fresh earth beside it.
“What in God’s name…” I breathed against the window. I stumbled around the house toward the backyard. The hole was even bigger than it had looked through the window.
Dark soil was scattered everywhere. A shovel was thrust into the dirt pile like a gravestone marker. That’s when I heard the scraping of metal against earth.
Someone was still digging. “Adam?”
The scraping stopped. Then Adam’s head appeared over the edge of the pit.
Dirt was streaked across his forehead. Sweat soaked his shirt. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Or maybe like he’d become one. “MIA?? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?
What are YOU doing here? You’re supposed to be in Portland!”
He scrambled out of the pit, clutching the shovel like a weapon. His hands were still shaking.
“Mia, don’t come any closer.”
“Adam, what are you hiding? I stepped toward him. “You lied to my face and drove off with your suitcase, and now I find you here digging holes in our backyard like some kind of…”
“Mia, please.
Just stop. Don’t come closer.”
“Why not? What’s down there?”
“Nothing.
Just trust me, okay? I’m trying to fix something.”
“Fix what?”
I hurried straight past him to the edge of the pit. I looked down into that dark earth, and froze.
Bones… old and yellowed, wrapped in what looked like ancient cloth lay there. A skull rested near the edge, grinning up at me through the shadows. “Oh my God!
Oh my God, Adam. What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Adam dropped the shovel and reached for me, but I jerked away. “Mia, listen to me.
I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Then whose human remains are those?” I pointed at the pit with a trembling finger. “My great-grandfather’s.”
“Your what?”
“My great-grandfather. Dad told me last week when I visited him at Sunset Manor.” Adam wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving another streak of dirt.
“You know how his memory comes and goes. Most of what he says doesn’t make sense anymore. But last week, he grabbed my arm and said something that’s been eating at me ever since.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he remembered watching her bury his grandfather.
Right here. In this yard. He was 12 years old.”
“Who?”
“His grandma.”
“What??
This house has been in your family for decades. Someone would’ve mentioned…”
“Would they? Would they mention that my great-grandpa was buried in shame?
That the town cemetery wouldn’t take him because of some scandal nobody talks about?”
“What scandal?”
Adam looked down at his dirt-stained hands. “He fell in love with the wrong woman. Someone’s wife.
Someone important. When it all came out, he lost everything. His job, his reputation… and his right to be buried with decent folks.”
The pieces started clicking together in my mind.
“So your great-grandmother…”
“Buried him herself. Right here where he could still see the water he loved. Dad said she never forgave this town for what they did to him.
Said she took the secret to her grave.”
I sank down onto the grass, my legs finally giving out. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why lie about Portland?”
“Because I thought Dad was losing his mind!” Adam knelt beside me, his eyes desperate.
“I thought it was just another one of his stories. The man thinks the nurses are stealing his socks and that Roosevelt is still president. How was I supposed to know this one was real?”
“But you came here anyway.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
So I started digging through Dad’s old things. I found letters and photographs he’d kept in a wooden box for 60 years.” Adam pulled a folded paper from his pocket with shaking hands. “Including this.”
The letter was yellowed with age, written in careful cursive that belonged to another era.
Adam’s great-grandmother’s handwriting, delicate but fierce:
“They can keep him out of their precious cemetery, but they can’t keep him from watching over the lake he loved. Let them whisper their gossip. Let them point their fingers.
Samuel rests where he belongs, and someday the truth will set him free.”
Tears burned my eyes. “Oh, Adam.”
“I was going to tell you everything once I knew for sure. I thought I could dig him up, move him to a proper cemetery, and give him the burial he should’ve had.
I never meant for you to find out like this.”
“Why this weekend? Why lie about the conference?”
“Because you said you were helping your friend Emily with wedding preparations all weekend. I thought I’d have time to handle everything quietly.
I didn’t want to drag you into this mess until I had answers.”
“Emily got food poisoning Friday night. The whole thing got postponed. I tried calling you.”
“My phone died.
I forgot the charger in my rush to get here.” He gestured helplessly at the pit. “I’ve been digging since yesterday morning. I finally found his remains this afternoon.”
A cold silence engulfed us as we stared down at the remains of a man who’d been forgotten by everyone… except the woman who loved him enough to bury him with her own hands.
“What do we do now?”
“We call the authorities. A historian. Someone who can help us do this right.” Adam reached for my hand.
“We give him a proper burial. A headstone. And a place where people can remember his name instead of just the scandal.”
From the front yard, I could hear Kelly calling us.
“Mommy? Daddy? Can we come out now?”
“Just a minute, sweetheart!”
Adam squeezed my fingers.
“I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I scared you. I just wanted to make this right.”
I looked at his soiled hands and the exhaustion in his eyes.
I saw the same man who’d fallen in love with my terrible cappuccino foam art 12 years ago. The one who’d never lied to me about anything bigger than surprise birthday parties. “Next time you decide to dig up family secrets, maybe start with a phone call?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face.
“Deal.”
“And Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you go to Portland, you’re actually going to Portland.”
He laughed. “Deal.”
***
Three weeks later, we stood in Millfield Cemetery as they lowered a proper casket into consecrated ground. The headstone read: “Samuel, 1898-1934.
Beloved Father & Husband. ‘Love conquers all.’”
Half the town showed up. Turns out, plenty of people remembered the story differently than the gossip had told it.
Samuel wasn’t a homewrecker. He was a man who’d fallen in love with a woman trapped in a loveless marriage. When her husband found out, he’d used his money and influence to destroy Samuel’s life piece by piece.
The woman, Margaret, had died just five years after Samuel. She was buried three plots over from where we laid Samuel to rest… close enough that they could finally be together, even if it took 90 years. As we walked back to our car, Kelly tugged on my hand.
“Mommy, why are you crying?”
I wiped my eyes and smiled down at her. “Sometimes grown-ups cry when something beautiful happens, sweetheart.”
“Is this beautiful?”
I looked back at the fresh flowers on Samuel’s grave, then at Adam walking beside me with Sam on his shoulders. “Yeah, baby.
Sometimes the most beautiful things are the ones that take the longest to bloom.”
Adam caught my eye and smiled. The same smile he’d given me across a café counter 12 years ago… when the world was simpler and our biggest secret was whether he took sugar in his coffee. Some secrets bury themselves so deep they become bones.
But some secrets, when finally brought to light, become something else entirely. They become love stories.
