“I came every year.”

“I know that now.”

I laid a small bunch of yellow flowers beside the marker.

Not as a funeral offering this time, but as a way of honoring the child who believed she had nowhere else to take her grief.

“I used to talk to you,” I said.

“About exams, about boys, about work.

When Lucas proposed, I came here and told you.”

Miriam reached for my hand.