Hannah carried her basket over to the edge of the stone patio and looked down the path.

“I practiced this walk for weeks, Dad,” she said quietly.

“And I never got to finish it.” I came and stood beside her on the steps.

“Would you like to finish it right now,” I asked, “just the two of us?” She looked up at me, surprised, and then a smile broke across her face, and she reached into the bottom of the basket and pulled out a handful of preserved silk rose petals she had kept.

And so we walked it, the two of us, slowly, down the stone path toward the empty arbor, Hannah scattering her petals as she went.