Cady stepped off the path to follow the arrows marked on her map, aware that the sparkling dew on the grass under the trees was starting to dry up.

She walked for a good ten minutes, stopping to gaze at some of the elaborate headstones or to read a name or a message carved in the granite. She saw the elegant stone from a distance and knew it belonged to the King family. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. Her steps slowed as she tried to take in the ornate stone with the three angels in flight, their chiseled wings works of art. She looked around. It was the tallest stone in that section of the cemetery. A picture of Jeffrey Matthew King was set in the middle of the stone with a protective covering. She bent down to stare at her old tormentor.

Jeffrey Matthew King and underneath his name the words, Beloved Son. It was hard for her to imagine Jeff King as anyone’s beloved son. What was she supposed to do? Drop to her knees? Say a prayer? What? She placed the bouquet of Gerber daisies at the base of the gravestone and stepped back.

Cady narrowed her eyes, willing her mind to remember something. Anything. Why wasn’t she feeling something? She’d hated the boy resting beneath the stone. Surely she should feel something, even if it was hate or anger. Where had all those feelings gone? Maybe she needed to sit on one of the little benches under the maple tree. If she did that, maybe something would come to her.

To her surprise, a young woman about her own age was sitting on the bench, a wad of tissues clutched in her hand. She must be the owner of the red Mustang, she thought.

Cady smiled and sat down, her gaze sweeping the long line of tombstones ahead of her. The three angels in flight blocked her view of the cobbled path and the velvety expanse of lawn that was being mowed by the caretaker.

She’s pretty, Cady thought. And so very sad. “This is the first time I’ve ever been to a cemetery,” she volunteered.

The young woman stared at her. “That makes you a very lucky person. My dad is here. I try to come at least once a week. I always think something miraculous is going to happen when I come here, but it never does. I don’t know why I come here because I never feel better when I leave. I don’t pray when I come here either. I do that in church. Sometimes I talk, but I know that’s pretty silly. It’s just to make myself feel better, only it doesn’t work either. Mostly, I just sit here and stare at the stone and think about the past. My mother never comes here. I don’t know why that is. Is someone in your family buried here?”

“No. Just someone I used to know. I brought some flowers.”