Chapter 5 - A GRAVE BENEATH THE MAPLE TREE
The first time Vincent visited Lily's grave, he went alone.
It was a Sunday morning in late November.
The cemetery lay on a hillside outside Willow Creek, surrounded by mountains already dusted with early snow. The entrance gate creaked when Vincent pushed it open.
He carried no security detail.
No expensive floral arrangement.
Only a small stuffed rabbit he had purchased from a toy store the evening before.
He had spent nearly an hour choosing it.
The saleswoman asked whether it was for his daughter.
Vincent had barely managed to answer.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“How old?”
He stood motionless between shelves of brightly colored toys.
“Two,” he finally whispered.
It was the age Lily would always be in his memories.
The woman had recommended a white rabbit with floppy ears.
Vincent bought it.
Now, standing before a modest stone beneath a maple tree, he realized how foolish the gesture was.
Lily did not need another rabbit.
She had needed him.
The headstone read:
LILY ROSE BENNETT MORETTI
Our little star.
Forever loved. Forever two.
Vincent knelt.
For several minutes, he could not speak.
Then he placed the rabbit beside the stone.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
His voice broke.
“I'm your dad.”
A gust of cold wind moved through the branches overhead.
“I know you probably don't remember my voice.”
He wiped his face.
“I don't know your favorite color. I don't know what made you laugh. I don't know whether you liked pancakes or waffles.”
He looked at the photograph attached to the memorial marker.
Claire had chosen a picture of Lily smiling in a yellow sweater.
She looked so much like Vincent's mother that he could hardly bear it.
“I should know everything about you.”
His shoulders shook.
“I'm sorry.”
He said it again.
And again.
The words changed nothing.
At last, he bowed his head and wept.
Claire found him there an hour later.
She had come to replace the flowers.
Her first instinct was anger.
The second was exhaustion.
She stood a few feet away, holding a small bouquet of white daisies.
Vincent looked up.
“Claire.”
She glanced at the stuffed rabbit.
“She's not here to accept presents.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
“You don't get to turn this into a performance.”
“I'm not trying to.”
Claire knelt beside the grave, carefully removed the old flowers, and brushed a fallen leaf from the photograph.
She spoke softly to Lily.
“Hi, baby. Mommy brought your favorites.”
Vincent watched.
There was an intimacy to the ritual that made him feel like an intruder.
Claire knew exactly where to place the flowers.
She knew which corner of the headstone collected leaves.
She knew how to straighten the small ceramic star sitting beside the marker.
He knew nothing.
“I never wanted her buried here,” Claire said unexpectedly.
Vincent looked up.
“I wanted somewhere near the ocean. She loved pictures of beaches.”
“Then why here?”
“Because I couldn't afford anything else.”
His expression tightened.
She continued before he could offer money.
“And because this was where we lived. Where the people who loved her could visit.”
Vincent nodded.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He looked at Lily's photograph.
“No,” he admitted. “Not completely.”
Claire stood.
“Good.”
He stared at her.
“Because if you ever start thinking you understand what it was like, remember that you weren't there.”
Vincent slowly rose.
“May I ask something?”
She tightened her grip on the bouquet wrapper.
“One question.”
“What was her favorite color?”
Claire looked away.
For a moment, he thought she would refuse.
Then she answered.
“Yellow.”
He glanced at the sweater in the photograph.
“Because of sunshine?”
Claire's mouth trembled.
“Because she said yellow was the color of happy.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
Claire began walking toward the gate.
He did not follow.
But her voice stopped him.
“She liked blueberry pancakes. She hated loud thunder. And she thought butterflies were flowers that learned to fly.”
Vincent turned.
Claire was crying.
“She loved animals. She always wanted to feed the ducks, even when she was too tired to walk.”
He stepped toward her, then stopped himself.
“She was funny,” Claire whispered. “She was stubborn. She hated getting her hair washed. She would make me read the same book five times.”
Vincent's face crumpled.
“And she was brave,” Claire said.
Her voice strengthened.
“She was the bravest person I've ever known.”
Then she left.
Vincent remained beside the grave until the afternoon shadows stretched across the cemetery.
He had come hoping to speak to his daughter.
Instead, Claire had given him something he had no right to expect.
A glimpse of the little girl he had lost.
That evening, Claire returned home to find a white envelope beneath her apartment door.
There was no return address.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed Vincent outside Lily's grave.
The picture had clearly been taken from a distance.
On the back, someone had written:
HE DIDN'T PROTECT HER THEN. HOW WILL YOU PROTECT THE OTHER CHILDREN NOW?
Claire's blood ran cold.
She immediately called the police.
Then she called Dr. Whitcomb.
May you like
Because whoever had taken that photograph knew where Lily was buried.
And they knew where Claire worked.
