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    I shake off my nerves and start the car, pulling out before there’s a chance of getting lost in my thoughts. I still don’t know where I’m going to go. I only know I love the freedom surrounding me, a freedom that I wasn’t aware I had missed so much I still don’t have anyone to talk to, to honestly talk to, but at least I can choose my own adventure for a little while.

    At first, it’s enough to simply drive with a silent Nathan watching out for any threats beside me. I’m almost amazed at the way the world keeps turning. People are eating their lunches in the park the way I used to do sometimes. Kids riding on bikes, couples holding hands as they go for an afternoon stroll. I wonder how many of them understand how suddenly everything can change. It’s almost enough to make me want to shout out the window and tell them to get as much out of the good times as they can.

    It’s not like my life is inherently bad or anything like that, but I know how it feels to lose. That nauseating shock when everything changes all at once. I’ve been through enough of that tost me a lifetime.

    I don’t know if my thoughts guide the car or what, but before I know it, I’m rolling slowly through yet another tall, iron gate. This time, it’s not the gate in front of the Rossettipound. This ce is much more peaceful and holds more meaning. Nathan only grunts softly as I drive along the wide, gravel road that cuts through the heart of the cemetery.

    I can’t remember thest time I visited Mom’s grave. All I know is that she’s the one person I wish more than anything I could talk to at this moment. All my questions and worries about the baby, and myself. About what to do next, and how to build a life with a man willing to go as far as Gianni went and will undoubtedly continue to go. I’ve never wished so hard that I could sit next to her, maybe put my head on her shoulder like I used to, and have a good cry. I’m not little anymore, but I guess we all need to act like little kids sometimes,

    It’s a beautiful day, full of sunshine and the promise of a stunning autumn around the corner. The sky is so blue it’s almost unreal, and there isn’t a cloud to mar its perfection. The leaves are still green, but they won’t be for long. I’m sure the towering yet graceful trees will burst out into a riot of color in another month or so.

    I pull up close to Mom’s plot on the south end of the cemetery and step out of the car, noticing the various bits of evidence that plenty of people visit their loved ones more often than I do. Flowers in different stages of dposition, wreaths, and decorations adore the other headstones. Other graves sport weeds around the base of the gravestones. Some of the ques in the ground are covered by overgrowth.Are those people forgotten? Maybe their loved ones are all dead and gone, too, or perhaps they never had any, to begin with. What a sad thought.

    “I’ll, uh, wait by the car and keep a lookout,” Nathan offers as I start walking toward Mom’s grave. He seems even more ufortable now than when I strong–armed him intoing with me. Some people don’t like cemeteries, I guess. Even big tough guys who carry guns.

    My sigh of relief sends birds fluttering from the nearby trees when I find Mom’s headstone in good condition. There are dandelions and clumps of overgrown grass around the base, but for the most part it looks alright. I wonder if Dad’s been here recently as I drop to one knee and begin pulling the

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    weeds. I feel like I need to do something to prove I care.

    Once everything’s cleared away and there’s nothing to do but sit with my thoughts, I settle back on my heels with my hands folded in myp.

    “Hi, Mom,” I whisper, cringing at how awkward this feels. Do people usually speak out loud to their dead loved one’s graves? It feels better than doing it in my head, plus there’s nobody around to look at me like I’m crazy. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here to see you as much as I should,” bI /bcontinue. “I hope you know it’s not because I don’t think about you. I still do. I think about you all the time. Right now, there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of you and remember who you were and wish you were here. In fact, I think about that now more than ever. With a sigh, I look up, taking in my surroundings. “This is a pretty ce. Some of the trees were just saplings back when we first buried you here. I was just a little girl then, right? And now look at me. Your baby is going to have a baby.”

    A baby she’ll never hold.A baby who will never know their grandmother–and Gianni’s mother has been gone for a long time. He rarely mentions her, but I know his father raised him alone. Closing my eyes, I try with all my might to imagine Mom as she would look now. There might be gray at her temples, lines at the corners of her eyes, and around her mouth.No, definitely.She’d have deepugh lines after another fifteen years of filling the room with her bawdyugh. I’ve never heard anyoneugh quite that way since, with their entire body.

    I smile at the memory while a soft breeze stirs the hair at my temples. I can almost make myself believe it’s Mom doing it. Like she’s brushing my hair back with the tender touch I didn’t get to enjoy nearly enough of when she was here. Comforting me the way she was so good at doing when I

    was younger.

    “It’s so unfair, and I know life itself isn’t fair, but I didn’t get enough time with you. I mean, I guess there’s no such thing as enough time, really. You could have lived to be eighty years old, and I still would have wanted more time with you. But I feel cheated.” The thought tightens my chest until it’s hard to breathe. It isn’t sadness. It’s anger. I’m fucking angry that somebody took her away from me–from us. Dad’s never been the same, and only now do I understand why. He didn’t just lose his wife. Somebody took her away, and he’s spent every day since then clutching me tighter to keep the same thing from happening again.

    I reach down, plucking a long de of grass before trying to remember how to whistle with it. She taught me when I was little, but it’s been too long since I’ve tried. All thates out is a burst of air, which somehow stirs my anger again. “I don’t want to forget the little things about you,” I whisper and start twirling the de between my fingers until it blurs, thanks to the tears in my

    eyes.

    Thest thing I want is to break down weeping at my mother’s grave, so I blink them back and wait for the wave of emotion to pass before speaking again. “Maybe it makes me think about when my baby will start forgetting things about me. It’s scary. I never thought about that sort bof /bthing before. Is this what happens when you be a parent? You start questioning the things you used to take for granted?”

    I toss the grass aside with a sigh. “God, I wish you were here. I have so many questions, and I’m so

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    scared. I know you would make me feel better, the way you always used to. I’ve never needed you more than I do now, and yet somehow, even though you’ve been gone all these years, you’ve never felt so far away. What should I do? Where do I go from here? I can’t tell Dad about what Gianni did– I’m honestly afraid he would kill him, or at least attempt to. That would cause more problems for him. And I don’t want to tell Tatiana, since she’s already messed up enough over everything that’s happened. She no longer needs knowledge of how crazy her father is, and the lengths he’s willing to go to keep me at his side.”

    My voice starts to wobble. Despite that, I continue since I need to get the words out. I need to let go of some of the weight dragging me down. “I feel like a terrible friend. I feel like an awful, ungrateful daughter. No matter what I do, somebody is always going to be unhappy. Is it too much to ask for everybody to get along and be happy?”

    That sounds so immature. It’s impossible for everyone to be happy, except this goes beyond that. “bI /bdon’t know what to do, Mommy,” I choke out just before the tears start to fall. Hotb, /bstinging tears that roll down my cheeks and drip off my chinnd like heavy raindrops on the grass. “I just don’t know what to do. I have to keep the baby safe–that’s my biggest concern, but after that… I’m lost. I don’t even know how to be a mom or if I’ll even be a good one.” I sigh, “Did you ever feel that way?” Her light gray headstone offers no answer, and neither does the singing of birds in the trees above. I’m alone. There are no answers. Just the wind and this heavy gray headstone in front of me.

    It seems like all I can do is kneel here and water the grass with my tears, praying for answers to my questions. Answers that will nevere.

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