He patted her shoulder but as he walked away, she said, “I don’t want Him to trust us like that. I want my sons.”

He turned and studied her face and nodded. “I understand.”

Susan got out of the car and they walked together across the freshly mowed grass. She carried a bouquet of yellow lilies and baby’s breath and knelt in front of the stones. Between the markers was a vase, and she removed the withered and spent bouquet and handed it to Jimmy, replacing it with fresh flowers between her two sons.

The marker on the left said:

MICHAEL JOHN COLTON

Infant son of Jimmy and Susan

Nov. 9, 1993–Nov. 19, 1993

The marker on the right said:

JOHN DAVID COLTON

Infant son of Jimmy and Susan

June 15, 1995–July 15, 1995

“John would be three now,” Susan said. “Michael would be five.”

As she stared at the stones, she could see the boys in her arms. She could feel the warmth of their skin and what it felt like to kiss their foreheads and watch them open their eyes and look into hers. And she wondered what heaven might be like for them, if they were doing all the things they were never able to do on earth—run and play and laugh. Sometimes she dreamed of them wearing matching backpacks and getting on the school bus. She always awoke from those dreams smiling, knowing it was the only place she saw them.

She took Jimmy’s hand in her own and they walked back to the car, stopping once at a new headstone. Fresh grief for a family they didn’t know. She whispered a prayer for them.

Jimmy didn’t start the car when he got in. She glanced at him. He seemed deep in thought. Finally he spoke.

“What if we contacted the adoption agency one more time?”

She turned and looked out the windshield, trying not to react too quickly to the suggestion. Her gaze focused on the little stones in the distance, the ones with baby shoes and lilies between them. The question opened another wound in a series of losses they had experienced between John’s death and today.

Susan shook her head. “No. I know that I should be happy when a birth mom changes her mind and keeps her baby.” Her chin quavered and she felt like she would come apart. “But my heart just can’t take it again.”

She saw the love in Jimmy’s eyes. It worked itself out in a commitment that didn’t give up. But she could tell even with his placid face that somewhere inside he was hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just hard for me.”

He smiled at her. “I understand.”

CHAPTER 4