I started to pray silently and willed Amanda to forgive me for all of my conflicting emotions surrounding her. I told her that I loved her, even though we had never met and promised that I would always look after Ed and Elaine.
Staying for about fifteen minutes, it dawned on me that my fresh flowers were not alone, not by any means. There were dozens of flowers, some old and some new strewn about.
Ed and Elaine had told me that with all of Ed’s treatments, they hadn’t been there for several months, so I found it peculiar that some, not all of these flowers seemed fresh. They weren’t planted; they were just laid down, like mine. Someone has been here…very recently. I wondered who it was, if not Ed and Elaine. I was happy that someone was thinking of my sister, though and visiting her.
As I turned around to leave, I took one more look back at the stone and blew a soft kiss. It was returned with a soft breeze and I liked to think that maybe it was her kissing me back.
When I returned to the car, I felt satisfied that I could now return to Boston having covered all of my bases here in Illinois.
I couldn’t wait to get back to Ed and Elaine’s and tell them about the flowers. Maybe they would know whom they were from.
As I started the ignition, the car hesitated and wouldn’t start. That was strange. I tried it again and the same thing happened. Was the battery dead? I knew nothing about cars.
Shit.
I didn’t want to bother Ed and Elaine. Thankfully, I had AAA and immediately took my card out of my wallet and called the number. AAA said the approximate wait time would be twenty to thirty minutes, so I could handle that.
Twenty minutes came and went and as I sat in my car, I noticed another car pull up behind me. It was an older rust colored Toyota Corolla. It was pretty desolate out here, so I crossed my fingers that it wasn’t someone shady.
A teenage boy with shaggy brown hair and tattooed covered arms got out and walked slowly over to the headstones. He was carrying purple hydrangeas and my heart dropped when he stopped right at Amanda’s stone.
Oh. My. God.
This was the person leaving the flowers. But who was he? He couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen.
He stood in front of the stone with his head down and then kneeled down to place the flowers down.
I stared at him for a few minutes and my curiosity was about to kill me, so I got out of the car, slowly approaching the boy.
“Hi,” I said.
The boy jumped and turned around. “Oh…hey. You scared me,” he said.
“Sorry…um…did you know Amanda?” I asked as I approached him.
The boy was silent for a few seconds then spoke. “Yeah…um…well, not really. I didn’t really know her, but—”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I mean, I never really met her. I don’t even know what she looked like…but she was related to me.”
“Related? How?”
He looked me up and down. “Who are you?” he asked.
I hesitated, and then decided there was only one answer. “I am her twin sister.”
The boy stepped back as if he was scared of me and squinted his eyes as if to examine me.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Allison…and you are?”
He seemed stunned by my answer and didn’t immediately respond.
“Jake…my name is Jake.”
“Are you the one who has been leaving all these flowers?”