Stuck in the moment of clarity, I grab my sweatshirt and shrug into it as I leave the study for the backyard. Five generations of my mother's family are buried in the garden-sized, private cemetery surrounded by snow-topped hedges. It's cold and dark, somewhere around four thirty. The back lawns remain well lit from the holiday weekend, and I trudge through the snow. More snowflakes build in my hair and soon, the skin of my head is cold.
I open the freezing iron gate of the graveyard and enter. There are footsteps leading to Mikael's grave. Katya comes here daily when she's in town to talk to him and Baba at least two to three times a week. I tend to drop by after long runs, about four times a week. It's when I miss him the most. We worked out together every day throughout high school, college and when stationed close enough to run together in the military. We always talked during those times about whatever was going on in our lives, how irksome Katya could be, and who Baba was trying to set us up with that week.
Standing before his tombstone, I reach into my pocket to touch the pouch and smile. Baba's gut test is twofold, and I know it. First is to see my reaction when he handed me the ring. The second: what I tell Mikael. It's not possible to lie at the grave of someone you love. This is where Katya came when she and Sawyer became serious, and Sawyer came to tell Mikael as well how he felt about my sister.
I brush the snow off the top of his tombstone and crouch. I don't normally speak when I'm here, just … think. Or maybe, speak to him silently the way we used to while running.
This weekend filled in many of the gaps I had about Claudia. We spoke for hours upon hours about everything from our families to favorite movies to pet peeves and turn-ons. Without her barriers, she turned into the kind of woman I glimpsed through our interactions at the diner: kind, sweet, spirited without a drop of malice, affectionate, honest and genuine to the core. She loves to laugh and equally to tease, and in bed she shows the same spirit of adventure, endearing consideration and generosity she does outside.
She reacted with compassion rather than pity or revulsion to my leg. Her tears and desire about wanting to take away my pain still touches me to the point I'm left speechless whenever I stop to savor the memory and recall the expression on her face.
Even the voice of insecurity has nothing to say about how I feel for her.