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A girl with shoulder-length black hair stood in the refrigerated produce section, staring silently at the wall of flowers. She'd been there for several minutes, just looking, not moving, not deciding, her expression too intense to call it a trance.
An employee finally walked up to her. "Can I help you find what you need?"
The girl's hard expression broke. She looked up like she was surprised to see someone else, and her mouth barely managed to pull together a small, forced smile. "Um, no thank you. I'm good. Sorry I just keep standing here."
She didn't say anything more, but turned and picked two bouquets from the display. One was full of zinnias and greenery, while the other was made of blue hydrangeas and white carnations.
"Special occasion?" the employee tried to prompt.
"Just a late Father's Day thing," the girl replied quietly.
"Ahh, that's sure sweet of you! I know men don't get flowers very often, but we sure do like 'em. Your dad is lucky to have a kid like you."
The strangest expression crossed the girl's face—a flash of agony, quickly concealed under a neutral mask and then forced into another failed smile. "Thank you."
...
The phone rang a few times before it picked up.
"Hey, how'd it go?" came Ellen Kim's voice from the other line, made boxed and echoey by the cupholder in the dash where Maddie had propped her phone up. "Did you find some you liked?"
"I guess. They look nice, at least." Maddie hit her turn signal and made a right at the intersection. Technically she still only had her learner's permit, but she also had a really good fake ID and the drive wasn't far. "How's he doing?"
"Fast asleep, now. He took the whole bottle you left and then passed right out."
Maddie exhaled, long and slow. "Okay, good. I'll be there in....like, five minutes. Hopefully he'll stay down and sleep in the car on the way there."
"Maddie..." Her mother's voice turned soft. "Are you sure you want to do this alone? I could come with you. I...I know how hard it is the first time, trust me."
"I know," Maddie replied quietly. "But I have to do this. I'll be home soon. See you then."
She hung up and turned her attention back to the road. Just another mile to go.
...
With both bouquets tucked under her left arm and her right lugging the bulky baby carrier, Maddie slowly and carefully made her way down the row. Graves passed one by one, stones standing in the neat green grass. Every name was a person—someone loved profoundly, someone lost. So many griefs laid here.
Finally she came to the end of the row and to the names she recognized—the grief that was hers. She set the carrier in the grass and the bouquets beside it. They were close to the treeline, whose tall spreading shade kept the spot cool in the summer sun. Still, Maddie left the light blanket draped over the carrier, protecting the precious, still-sleeping cargo within. She sat. She faced the two graves in silence, seated at their feet.
DAVID KIM
1976–2019
And then beside it, with one empty plot between them,
CASPIAN KEYES
2004–2022
An invisible hand clenched around her esophagus. All over again, Maddie could barely breathe. The weight pressed down on her chest and held her to the ground like a second gravity.
They'd saved the plot next to her dad for her mom years ago, at her request, but Maddie had insisted on burying Caspian nearby. She hadn't been able to stomach the thought of leaving him somewhere else alone, by himself with no family or anyone who knew and cared about him. Even if it was only his ashes in an otherwise empty grave—no life, no remnant of him and who he was, his personhood and presence, his smile—she just couldn't bear it.
Fighting everything, Maddie cracked open her mouth and forced herself to speak:
"Dad, Caspian, sorry it's been a while." It always felt stupid at first, talking to a grave. Stupid, and lonely. "It's been a pretty crazy year."
There was no reply, as always.
Maddie pulled the bouquets into her lap. She unwound the rubber band that held the plastic sheaths around them, and unwrapped and crumpled the plastic into a ball. "These...are for you."
She laid the zinnias on her father's grave, right before his headstone. The carnations she laid on Caspian's. Then she drew back to herself, hands clenched in fists resting on her knees.
"I...hope you both like them." To Caspian's grave, she added, "This would've been a lot easier if you'd ever told me what your favorite color was, y'know. I tried to guess, but, like..."
She could imagine his laugh—a quiet airy snort, and the teasing raise of an eyebrow. It came with an arc of pain through her soul, but also a tiny warmth, a strength. She missed talking to him.
Maddie drew another shuddering breath. "And there's...someone I wanted you both to meet."
She lifted back the blanket over the carrier. The baby within it was sound asleep, his soft round cheeks drooping, his tiny hands curled into fists and resting on his chest. His pacifier was wedged against his little leg where it had fallen out. At the sudden increase in light his hands twitched and movement flickered beneath thin eyelids.
"Hi my sweetheart, good morning," Maddie crooned. She caressed one velvet cheek with the tip of her finger and a pair of big dark eyes cracked open to squint at her.
He started to fuss as she undid the straps and buckles around him, squirming and stretching, pressing his tiny socked feet against her hands. She slid her hands beneath him and scooped him into her arms, earning herself a little furrowed brow, one skeptical baby eyebrow unimpressed with this rude awakening—a look so familiar it almost made her sob.
"Oh, I know, I know..." She kissed his head and held him close, turning back towards the graves. "Look! I want you to meet your Grandpa and—"
Her mouth went dry.
"Caspian, I—" It was so hard to speak. "I wanted to tell you... Um, this is your son. Our son." Her vision blurred. She sniffed and tried to laugh around the lump in her throat. "Happy Father's Day, I guess. What a way to find out you got me pregnant, right?" She could picture that too—his wide-eyed look of panic, stunned into silence. And right alongside, her father's own stunned expression turning to a soul-melting stare aimed at the young man next to him. "And, Dad, I know this isn't how you would've wanted to get your first grandkid, but... His name is David. I named him after you. It was the only name that felt right."
Maddie hugged David tight. She pressed a whisper-soft kiss to his forehead.
"I wish you could see him, Caspian. He's so perfect. I always thought it was dumb when adults talked about things like seeing someone's features on a baby. They're so tiny and squashed and shapeless, y'know? But I think I get it now." She gazed down at her son in her arms. "I can see you, in little ways, in his face. Your nose, your mouth, even your ears kinda. And he's definitely got your hair." The familiar dark brown fluff coaxed another smile out of her, but it just as quickly faded.
"You have no idea how scared I was to go through with this. I almost gave him up. And I'm still not sure if I'm doing the right thing or if I'll be any good as a mother. But..." She exhaled. "I love him. I want to see him grow up. I want him to know me, and I wanna tell him about you. I can live with the rest."
To her father, she added, "Mom's been a big help. I probably owe pretty much everything to her at this point. She's the only reason I ever get to sleep, and she's been teaching me everything about, y'know, how to do this without either me or him dying. I remembered the other day about...how you told me years ago, before you died the first time, that I should try to let her in and lean on her more. Kinda funny that this is what it took to finally make that happen.”
She was met by only silence. It didn't need to be embarrassing, but this part of her, this raw wound, it cringed back from this open-air bleeding session. There was no one around to hear her, aside from maybe David, with his dark eyes blinking unaware. He had no idea what she was saying or who she was pretending to talk to, or what this was all about. He knew lights and colors and his young mother's safe-familiar arms. Maybe he could even sense her sorrow, but developmentally his world didn't extend beyond the two of them.
“...You wanna know what the worst part of this is?” Maddie asked the silence, hardly audible herself. “That he'll never get to meet you. Dad, I know you'd love him. Caspian, I like to think you would, and I knew you. I mean, I’d kick your ass otherwise, so…” She could try to joke, but her throat caught regardless. “But he'll never get to know you. Not really. And I… I want him to…”
Her eyes began to flood. Her thoughts spun and spun out. The brutal unfairness of Caspian’s death, unanswerable by the world. The repeated, violent exits of David Kim. Two graves in front of her, decorated with flowers.
“Maybe that’s why I’m here. This…this is all I’ve got now. Remembering you. Talking about you. I can’t bring you back, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I can tell him. Tell him about what you were like, how good you both were. That he has a father and a grandfather and they were both amazing.”
As much as it stung, she knew every word was true as it left her mouth. Without a free hand to wipe her cheek, tears flowed freely down.
Maddie took slow breaths, each gradually becoming less shaky, more sure. David’s warm little body, the weight of him, was grounding. The breeze in the high branches of the treeline, The cool grass beneath her. The memory of Caspian sitting beside her under a tree came to her too without having to summon or force it. He was gone, but the peace of that comfortable shared silence remained.
She broke it only softly, leaving the feeling intact: “It’s a nice day. Seems like he’s pretty calm here, too. Think I’ll stay a little longer, if that's cool.”