Chapter Text
The sun was shining on a bright summer day when Diana went out with her mother.
Her mother had driven the two of them out to a farmer’s market just outside the city. Diana never drove anymore, mostly advised by Dr. Madden, but also because her parents wouldn’t let her. It annoyed her, because she felt like she was being treated like a fragile child again, but when she got behind the wheel she broke down and couldn’t even explain why. Since then, she left the driving to her parents.
Diana stared out the window resolutely, watching the sunlight dance in the trees when they passed by a sign and an area fenced off with black gates. Something in her twisted at the sight, and when she looked through the gates, there were rows of stone.
“Wait, stop,” Diana said.
Her mother slowed down, but didn’t stop. “Why? What for?”
“Just—stop the car, please,” she couldn’t help but beg. Her hands shook and she felt her mind slipping.
The car came to an agonizingly slow halt, Diana’s mother ever the careful driver. “Sweetie, is everything alright? Do we need to—”
“We don’t need to call Dr. Madden,” Diana snapped, then took a breath, closed her eyes as a silent apology to her mother. After a moment, trying to collect her mind once more, she opened the car door and stepped out.
“What are you doing?” her mother cried.
“I just…wait here, Mom.” Diana stared down the road. “There’s something I need to see.”
Diana staggered out of the car, the summer heat beating down on her, but she didn’t care. She walked hurriedly, her steps uneven but she just knew she had to go—go—go—
She somehow couldn’t put a finger on what this place was exactly, but it had been so strikingly familiar and she knew there was something important about this place; there was something significant about it that stirred up memories in the back of her mind.
When she came up to the gates and read the sign, she realized why.
MEADOWLARK MEMORIAL PARK
Peering through the gates, she saw those rows of stones once more.
Diana knew where she was.
This was where she buried her son.
A wash of emotions swept through her all at once, confusing and startling, but a feeling she remembered being once comfortable with. But in the few months since she’d decided to stay with her parents, that feeling had only become a dull ache.
This was a tidal wave.
“My baby,” Diana cried, a sob bursting through her lips. She willed her feet to move her forward, into the graveyard where among the many stones, etched in one of them is the name of her baby boy.
Gabe.
The sun was shining too brightly down on the grey stones and the lush grass. No place so somber should be this bright.
Almost as if walking in a trance, Diana found herself making her way to the far section of the graveyard, as if Gabe’s spirit was lingering her, coaxing her to him. He was still there, sometimes, in the back of her mind. Never as fully physical as he was before, but sometimes she’d catch herself humming the tune from that music box. She found herself humming it now.
The Meadowlark graveyard had an area sectioned off for infants, in a neatly-fenced off corner. Diana retraced her steps, the steps she must’ve taken when she buried her son nineteen years ago.
She remembered that day like it was yesterday.
The too-small coffin they’d buried, barely two feet long.
The plush lining where Gabe had been laid out.
The cloudy gloom of that day, just like the day she lost him.
Her baby boy sinking into the ground, never to be held in her arms again.
The white flowers they dropped into the ground.
Her tears.
Dan’s stoic silence.
She wished she had flowers with her now.
But before she could take one step closer, Diana froze.
What would happen if she had to confront this? See the grave that she turned back from and denied for the last nineteen years? Diana was working on getting better, she was, and Dr. Madden did advise her to actually put away Gabe’s things a while ago, and she did.
So why couldn’t she move?
“Gabe,” she said softly, trying to will herself forward, but instead she fell to her knees in a heap.
Her mind began to race. With horror, she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she sat before his grave and had a long moment with him. How could she have? She pushed away the thought of her son being dead and instead watched him grow up in some strange, warped reality that she chose to live in. Diana still remembered what he looked like—what she thought he would’ve looked like. The glint in his eyes, the tilt of his smile, how he clung to her because he was her baby, hers.
She shook those thoughts away. It was instead replaced with the abject sorrow of knowing that neither her nor Dan ever came back to keep his grave clean. Never stopped by to bring him flowers. Gabe must feel so lonely. So sad and scared, no one coming to grieve where he was laid beneath the earth.
Diana sobbed again. My baby.
Her mother found her there, curled up in the grass, body wracked with sobs. “Diana, sweet?”
She just shook her head and curled in further.
“Tell me what you’re feeling, sweetheart.”
Diana looked up at her then. Her mouth opened, trying to find the words. “I miss him.” She pulled herself upright. “It’s been so many years and I still miss him.”
Her mother smiled sadly and crouched down to meet her. “You never do stop loving your child,” she said softly, brushing her hair from her face like how she did when Diana was a child. Like how she never did with Natalie.
Natalie.
“Oh,” Diana choked out, “I never took Natalie to see him.” All of Natalie’s life, she didn’t even know this grave existed. Because Diana had never shown it to her. Because she didn’t want to accept that her son was gone.
“How about when she comes home, you come back here with her?” her mother suggested. “You can tell her all about it then.”
Diana pressed her lips together. Would Natalie ever come home? Would she even want to see her?
She cast a forlorn look to all the graves around her, of all the babies that slept soundly in heaven. So many other mothers who have shared her pain. Diana wondered if any of them ever went through what she went through too. Maybe they did. That thought made her feel less alone.
Her mother regarded her sadly, maybe thinking the same thing she was. She reached out a hand to her and said, “Let’s go home, sweetie.”
Diana took her hand, warm and real, and they walked out of the cemetery together.
Maybe one day Diana would come back and visit Gabe for real. One day she’d come with flowers and her heart grown around her grief. She just wasn’t ready to do that today—not yet. And that was okay. One day she will be.
One day.