Mulberry Park. Judy Duarte

pounded a lonely cadence on the path along First Street, as her breath came out in sharp huffs and her heart pulsated in time.

      Left, right. Left, right. In and out. In and out.

      Supposedly endorphins gave a runner a natural high, but Claire ran only in an effort to relieve stress—and Lord knew she had plenty of it.

      Grief, too.

      So each day after work, she drove to Mulberry Park, where she slipped out of her power suit and into a pair of shorts and an old T-shirt that had once been Ron’s, kicked off her sensible heels and put on a pair of sneakers. Then after a bit of stretching, she took off down the jogging path, hoping to escape the depression that had dogged her for the past three years, the broken heart that kept her from getting a full night’s sleep.

      She had medication to help with that, pills prescribed by the shrink Ron had insisted she see, but she quit taking them because the side effects made it difficult for her to function at work, especially in the mornings.

      Claire turned down the path that lined Applewood Drive and headed back to the park.

      There was a light wind today, a heavenly breeze her grandmother used to call it. The kind that carried God’s whispers to those who took time to sit and listen.

      As a child, on days like this, Claire would close her eyes and try to hear the voice Nana had talked about. But that was eons ago, back in a time when she’d actually believed dreams could come true.

      People told her time would heal, but it hadn’t. Grim memories still followed her, haunting her.

      The lifeless body of her son. The stuffed bunny held in cold hands. The shovelful of dirt landing upon the small white casket that had been lowered into the ground.

      “Focus on the sweeter images,” the shrink had said. And she’d tried.

      Erik’s first smile. His first tooth. His first step.

      It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d ruffled his hair, brushed a kiss across his brow. And no matter how far she ran, how hard, she couldn’t escape the fact that he was gone.

      Yet each day after work, she continued to follow the same path, sticking to the same routine and returning home with the same results—a body that was toned, a soul that was battered, a heart that wouldn’t mend.

      As Mulberry Park came back into view, she slowed to a stop, exhausted. Trying to catch her breath and cool down, she trudged toward the massive mulberry that grew in the middle of the lush green lawn.

      Near the tree a concrete bench had been erected, a memorial to Carl Witherspoon, dear departed husband, father, and friend. Claire had never heard of the man, but each day, at dusk, she claimed the quiet spot as her own.

      Leaves littered the concrete slab, and she brushed them away before sitting on the cold stone seat.

      The heavenly breeze continued to blow, to rustle through the branches.

      “Close your eyes,” Nana used to say. “Listen to the wind and you can hear God’s voice.”

      A couple of times, Claire could have sworn she’d heard it, too. But she no longer spoke to God, no longer listened for His voice. No longer expected anything from Him.

      And why should she? He’d quit listening to her three years ago.

      From the corner of her eye she spotted a flicker of pink overhead. She glanced up to see an envelope flutter down, just missing her lap as it landed on the ground. It was the color of a flamingo, with glitter stuck to uneven globs of glue, and a child’s handwriting on the front.

      Unable to quell her curiosity, she bent and reached for what looked like a greeting card.

      To God From Analisa was etched on the front.

      As Claire lifted the envelope from the ground, a sprinkle of shiny gold and silver rained onto the grass. Then she glanced up at the mulberry, at the expanse of branches and leaves.

      Odd.

      She perused the envelope, then turned it over, where the flap had been licked to the point it was barely secure. Inside, she felt a small tube-sized lump.

      The strangest compulsion to open it settled over her. The urge to see the little girl’s picture, to read the painstaking scrawl of her words.

      It had been three years since Claire had seen anything this precious.

      Erik’s efforts to draw and write never failed to touch her, which is why she wouldn’t remove his last pieces of art from the refrigerator.

      Ron used to complain about that.

      “For cripe’s sake, Claire. I loved him, too, but he’s gone. Dwelling in the past is making me crazy, not to mention what it’s doing to you. Can’t you take those drawings down? Put them in storage someplace?”

      That had been the beginning of the end of their marriage.

      Well…No, that wasn’t exactly true. But it had been the beginning of the realization that without Erik to bind them together she and Ron no longer had anything worth holding onto.

      “It isn’t healthy,” Ron used to tell her. “Sitting in Erik’s room for hours on end.”

      Maybe it hadn’t been.

      But for some reason, Ron had been able to forget their bright-eyed son and she hadn’t.

      “You need to move on, Claire.”

      Like he had?

      Ron’s half of the wrongful death settlement had already been spent or invested.

      But Claire hadn’t touched hers.

      How could she, when she considered it blood money?

      She fingered the pink paper and the flap on the back began to lift. To open.

      It wasn’t a conscious decision. Not really. But she found herself reaching into the envelope, pulling out the folded letter and a blue marker. Reading the words.

      Dear God.

      Tell Mommy and Daddy I am being good. And that I love them. And you. Will you rite back and tell me what Mommy and Daddy are doing in hevin? I asked Unkel Sam and he doznt no. I will put a marker in the invalop for you in case they dont have pens in hevin.

      Love Analisa

      Tears blurred Claire’s eyes, and a knot tightened in her chest. Her heart, which she thought had become permanently numb and lifeless, quivered.

      She scanned the park, her gaze settling on the swing set in the playground, where a dark-haired boy sat alone, his hands on the chains, his toes dragging in the sand. If there’d been a little girl in the area, Claire might have reached out, might have considered embracing her. Might have succumbed to the compulsion to offer sympathy.

      But Analisa, whoever she was, had left her letter and gone.

      Claire tried to imagine what it would have been like for Erik had Claire been the one to die in the accident, leaving her son to grieve for her.

      She would have hoped that someone would have reached out to him, told him that she hadn’t wanted to die, hadn’t wanted to leave him. Insisted that she would love him forever and do her best to look out for him always, to be his guardian angel—if there were such things.

      Her own faith had been shattered by his death and her unanswered prayers, so she’d never been able to envision a smiling Erik with wings and a halo. Yet for some reason she wanted little Analisa to have some peace, to embrace her hopes and dreams—at least until adulthood brought along an inevitable wallop of faith-busting reality.

      It’s what Claire would have wanted for Erik, even if she couldn’t have it for herself. So she uncapped the blue marker as if someone else had stepped in to guide her hand and respond to a child’s plea for answers when there weren’t any to be had.

      Someone else who, for the next