She barely remembered where her husband’s grave was anymore, the city had so changed. But Sarah retraced her steps from memory, eyes closed half the way there, recounting taking this walk with a little boy’s sweat-sticky hand clasped in hers. They weren’t bad memories, especially when the little boy’s hand grew bigger and became an arm linked to hers. Sarah smiled to herself, thinking about her son, about her husband.
Joseph had been different, before the war took him from her. Warm, affectionate, loving. A dedicated husband, so proud when she wrote him about the baby; she believed it when he said he told his entire camp and some of the Germans in the other trench, too.
It was after the war that he changed, of course. Shell shock -- or, they called it something else now, but she couldn’t remember the letters in the right order. He had nightmares, buried himself in the bottle, in the fearful anger that he had given so much and seen no reward. Even when Sarah reminded him that his service was the reason they were American citizens now, it did little good but to kindle his indignation.
She knew those last years should have been considered a nightmare, but to Sarah, with a wee babe on her hip and hopes too big for her body, it had only been a passing affliction. Something that could heal over, if only she were there for him and patient enough to let the storm pass. But the storm took him, instead.
Her husband’s headstone was worn with age and the elements, but someone had attended to the grass growing over its base. Sarah sat and laid out a few flowers. Joseph had always loved the daffodils that exploded into color every February back home. Now they were grown year-round, by some trick or modern marvel. She hoped he could see how she missed him, the boy he had been, and the man she lost.
“I should have tried harder,” she apologized, same as every year.
