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The Other Name
The Other Name
The cemetery lay on the edge of town, a quiet, forgotten place where time seemed to gather and linger like mist. Evelyn Parker walked the narrow gravel path each year, the same date marked in her memory like the grooves in a record. October 31st. Sam’s birthday. She carried a small bouquet of chrysanthemums—his favorite—and a heart weighted with the passage of years.
Sam had been gone for a decade now, though to Evelyn, it sometimes felt like yesterday. His sudden departure—an accident on the icy roads—had left a hollow in her life, one she filled with routines, rituals, and this yearly pilgrimage.
She turned the last corner and stopped. His tombstone was there, exactly where it always had been, under the gnarled oak that swayed ever so slightly, though there was no wind. The air smelled faintly of damp earth and fallen leaves. Evelyn knelt down, her knees protesting, and brushed away the autumn detritus from the base of the headstone.
“Samuel Parker,” she whispered, reading the name aloud as if to conjure him. “Beloved Husband.”
And there it was. Below his name, the second inscription, cold and certain, carved in perfect symmetry:
Evelyn Parker
1908–?
She stared at it, as she always did, a chill creeping up her spine. It had been...
The cemetery lay on the edge of town, a quiet, forgotten place where time seemed to gather and linger like mist. Evelyn Parker walked the narrow gravel path each year, the same date marked in her memory like the grooves in a record. October 31st. Sam’s birthday. She carried a small bouquet of chrysanthemums—his favorite—and a heart weighted with the passage of years.
Sam had been gone for a decade now, though to Evelyn, it sometimes felt like yesterday. His sudden departure—an accident on the icy roads—had left a hollow in her life, one she filled with routines, rituals, and this yearly pilgrimage.
She turned the last corner and stopped. His tombstone was there, exactly where it always had been, under the gnarled oak that swayed ever so slightly, though there was no wind. The air smelled faintly of damp earth and fallen leaves. Evelyn knelt down, her knees protesting, and brushed away the autumn detritus from the base of the headstone.
“Samuel Parker,” she whispered, reading the name aloud as if to conjure him. “Beloved Husband.”
And there it was. Below his name, the second inscription, cold and certain, carved in perfect symmetry:
Evelyn Parker
1908–?
She stared at it, as she always did, a chill creeping up her spine. It had been...
