My wife had suspected something.
Possibly before she died.
“Did Dorothy know Melissa was alive?” I whispered.
Calvin shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Behind us, the doors opened.
Melissa stood there with Dr. Foster.
She looked at the photograph in my hand.
Then she said something that sent me back through seven years of memories.
“I remember Mom being at a hospital.”
I stared at her.
“What hospital?”
Melissa pressed her fingers to her temple.
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Her eyes filled with frustration.
“But I remember her voice.”
I could barely speak.
“What did she say?”
Melissa closed her eyes.
When she answered, her voice was almost a whisper.
“She said, ‘Sweetheart, if you know me, squeeze my hand.’”
The late-afternoon wind moved through the trees surrounding Havenwood.
I stood between the daughter I had buried and the photograph written on by the wife I had lost.
