dreaming. The light was soft and pearly, as he'd never seen it anywhere

but

Ireland. Dew was glittering on the gra.s.s. The only sounds he could

hear were the bark of a dog and the distant hum of a tractor.

When Bev saw him, she stopped. She hadn't known he would be there.

Through the years she'd been careful to come only when she knew Brian

was elsewhere. She hadn't wanted to see him there, beside the grave

where they had both stood so many years before.

She nearly turned away. But there was something in the way he sat, his

hands resting lightly on his knees, his eyes looking out over the green

hills. He looked too much alone.

They were both too much alone.

She walked quietly. He never heard her, but when her shadow fell over

him, he turned his head. She said nothing, but laid the spray of lilacs

she carried beneath the marble marker. On a sigh, she knelt.

In silence they listened to the wind in the high gra.s.s, and the distant

purr of the tractor.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked her.

"No." Gently, she brushed a hand over the soft gra.s.s that covered their

son. "He was beautiful, wasn't he?"

"Yes." He felt the tears well up and fought them back. It had been a

long time since he'd wept here. "He looked so much like you."

"He had the best of each of us." Her voice quiet, she sat back on her

heels. Like Brian, she looked toward the hills. They had changed so

little in all these years. Life continued. That was the hardest lesson

she had learned. "He was so bright, so frill of life. He had your

smile, Bri. Yours and Emma's."

"He was always happy. Whenever I think of him I remember that."

"My biggest fear was that I would forget somehow, that his face, and his

memory, would fade with time. But it hasn't. I remember how he

laughed, how it would just roll out of him. I've never heard a prettier

sound. I loved him too much, Bri."

"You can't love too much."

"Yes, you can." She fell silent for a time. A cow began to low. Oddly,

the sound made her smile. "Do you think it's just lost? That

everything he was and might have been just vanished, just went away when

he died?"

"No." He looked at her then. "No, I don't."

His answer made all the difference. "I did at first. Perhaps that's

why I lost myself for so long. It hurt so much to think that all that

beauty and joy had been here for such a short time. But then I knew

that wasn't true. He's still alive in my heart. And in yours."

He looked away, toward the distant, shadowed hills. "There are

times I want to forget. Times I do whatever I can to forget. It's the

worst kind of h.e.l.l to outlive your own child."

"When you do, you know nothing that happens to you will ever be as

painful. We had him for two years, Bri. That's what I like to

remember. You were a wonderful father." She reached out for him, took

his hands. When his fingers tightened on hers, she held on. "I'm sorry

I wouldn't share that pain with you the way I shared the joy. I was