Twice in a Lifetime Read Online Free Page B

stopped.
    Ahead, two men were pitching the pieces of a broken tombstone into a wheelbarrow. Immediately, Clara understood that this was the marker Tommy had been accused of knocking over. Fortunately, Joe’s grave was in the opposite direction, so she wouldn’t have to get too close; she imagined that the men would have been able to sense her shame, as if she was responsible.
    For almost one hundred years, the men of Sunset had marched off to war. Many had died. In the oldest part of the cemetery, there were plots for soldiers who had fought in the Civil War, their simple stones faded by age and speckled with moss. There were graves for those who had gone off to the Spanish-American War, and for those who, decades later, had taken ships across the Atlantic to battle the kaiser during World War I. Joe was buried among the brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had died fighting Hitler and Hirohito. More recently, graves had been dug for Jeff Tjaden and Scott Cavanaugh, men Clara still remembered as boys, soldiers who had given their lives in Korea. She feared that someday soon there would be another war, off in some foreign land, and even more of Sunset’s bravest would be laid to rest.
    Clara sat in the truck with her hands on the steering wheel and stared at Joe’s tombstone. His was the third in its row, carved out of dark marble. Even now, after so much time had passed, just looking at it filled her with intense feelings of loss. But still she came. Taking a deep breath, Clara grabbed the small bundle of flowers she’d brought, pushed open her door on squeaky hinges, and got out.
    She wiped some leaves from the stone’s base, pulled a dandelion from the ground—the weed just beginning to spread its small yellow petals, hungry for the sun—and placed her own bundle of flowers in its place. Clara put a trembling hand on the marker; the stone was warm, almost hot to the touch, but she didn’t let go.
    “Hello, sweetheart,” she said softly, her voice nearly breaking.
    In years past, Clara had told Joe all about her life, about her fears for her mother’s ailing health, her money troubles, and especially her problems with Tommy. Unlike with her mother, she’d never held anything back during her graveside chats; Clara figured that Joe saw and knew all anyway, so there was no point in keeping secrets. She’d talked about what was happening in the world, from the dropping of the atomic bombs and the end of the war, to the outbreak of the conflict in Korea, to Eisenhower being elected president. She hummed the tune of “Too Young” by Nat King Cole. She tried to describe what it was like to see Gary Cooper in High Noon at the Palace Theater. She even told him about Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers; Joe had been such a big baseball fan that she knew it would have mattered to him. She spoke as if they were sitting at the kitchen table, poring over the newspaper together or listening to the radio. She had laughed. She had worried. She had been afraid. She had cried.
    But not today. Today she didn’t know what to say.
    After all the long years she’d spent missing her husband and struggling to care for her family and herself, Clara was tired, exhausted in both body and mind. In her weakest moments, she had even considered giving up, surrendering to her problems, but she knew that if Joe were alive, he’d be furious with her. He hadn’t been a quitter, even during the worst of times. He would tell her to pick herself up and make things right, no matter what it took.
    Sometimes, Clara wondered if Joe wouldn’t have wanted her to find someone else, a man to love and help care for her. Over the last nine years, she’d had her share of suitors, men who were interested, but when they saw the sadness in her eyes they walked away. Clara had closed off her heart, burying it like she had buried Joe, never to allow it to love again. Her husband had been the man of her life. There could never be