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Candi.
My first instinct was to turn and run in the opposite direction, but the mother in me ached for the mother in her. Candi might not have been a good mom, but no one deserves to bury their only child. No one.
Sitting on the curb next to her, I opened my mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a sorrowful, “Hey.”
Looking up, Candi’s face was wet and wrinkled and makeup-free. I’d never even seen her without false eyelashes on before. She looked so old. So spent. Deep lines rimmed her thinning lips from years of smoking. Her crystalline-blue eyes were dull and bloodshot. And every muscle in her face sagged, as if she hadn’t smiled in years.
“BB,” she squeaked, her chin pulling in on itself. “Oh, BB.” Throwing her skeletal arms around my slightly thicker body, she rested her forehead on my shoulder and sniffled. “I’m so happy you came.”
Her redneck Southern accent, the one that she used to try to hide for her trophy-wife persona, was now on full display as well.
“Me, too.” I patted her back with a stiff hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Lifting her head, Candi looked me in the eyes. “I don’t know nobody in there.”
I smiled weakly. “Me either.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” She shook her head. “I always thought you were gonna be the mother of my grandchildren.” Staring at a spot on the sidewalk, she added, “Now, I’ll never have grandchildren.”
I ran one hand over her bony back as I dragged my finger over the corner of the sonogram in my pocket. I didn’t tell her about the baby. I just sat there and bore witness to her pain as the ash from her unsmoked cigarette fell onto my boot.
“Here,” Candi said, suddenly stamping out her cigarette and reaching for something inside the neck of her black dress. “Ronnie woulda wanted you to have this.” When her long acrylic nails emerged, they were pinching Knight’s dog tags.
“Oh, Candi. No. You keep those.”
“There’s two of ’em,” she said, unclasping the silver ball chain around her neck and sliding one off. “One for me”—she lifted her miserable eyes to mine as she held out her hand—“an’ one for you.”
I accepted the small metal plate stamped with Knight’s identifying information hesitantly. I didn’t feel right, taking it when I was married to someone else. But Candi was right. Knight would have wanted me to have it.
He would have wanted me to have the husband and the baby, too.
I swallowed my sobs as I hugged Candi goodbye, knowing I would never see her again. Then, I stood up, brushed myself off, and walked to my car, the end of one life and the beginning of another bouncing side by side in my pocket.
