It was windy that day in St. James’ Cemetery, and the flowers that were laid with love at the eastern end of the cemetery had been repositioned to decorate other graves. I left my hat in the car so I wouldn’t have to chase after it.
Her stone was taller than it was long, and I used my pocket knife to dig in the painfully well-manicured grass on the windward side. I set the yellow rose, still in its water tube, in the little hole and scraped earth around it with the flat of my blade.
“Think nothing of it,” I said. “It’s just one flower.”
Janet didn’t respond. The dead are like that.
But then, Janet hadn’t spoken to me for almost fifty years.