The woman who had secretly watched me grow.
The woman who had wanted nothing from me except one final memory.
And suddenly I understood why she had chosen me.
She hadn’t chosen a stranger.
She had chosen the little boy she had once held in her arms.
PART 12 — HER LAST GIFT
A year after Eleanor’s death, I returned to the hospice garden.
An elderly woman was sitting on Eleanor’s bench.
She looked tired.
I sat beside her.
“You knew Eleanor?” she asked.
I smiled.
“Yes.”
“She was a wonderful woman.”
I looked at the plaque.
“She was.”
The woman smiled.
Then she said something I’ll never forget.
“I’m afraid no one will remember me when I’m gone.”
I looked at her.
“Someone will.”
“How do you know?”
I thought about Eleanor.
About the wedding.
The letters.
The photographs.
The secret she had carried for decades.
