Helen paused, wiping her eyes. “It was a boy.”
“Was?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face now. “He was born too early. He lived for just a few minutes.”
The room went silent. “Evan held him,” Helen continued. “Just long enough to memorize his face. And then he was gone.”
My heart felt heavier. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know.”
“Nobody talks about it,” Helen added. “The grief was too much for the relationship. They separated not long after. And Evan… he buried it. He never talked about it again.”
“But you didn’t forget,” I said softly.
Helen shook her head. “He was my grandson. How could I?”
She explained that there had been no funeral. No grave. Just silence and a pain everyone avoided. So Helen made her own place to remember. In the far corner of her backyard, she planted a small flower bed. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet patch of earth she tended every year. Flowers she cared for. A wind chime that rang softly in the breeze.
“I never thought of it as a secret,” she said. “I thought of it as remembering.”
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