I started showing up on Sundays with seven crimson roses, wrapped in brown paper she used to smooth with her palm. I’d set them in the vase, tell her about my week. By Tuesday, they’d be gone—no petals, no stems—just gone.

I blamed the grounds crew, maybe animals. But only her grave was scrubbed clean. So I hid a trail cam behind the hedge.

Two quiet days passed. Then a boy—maybe eleven—appeared. Hoodie too big, sleeves over his hands. He lifted each rose gently, as if checking for a heartbeat, and carried them away.

The next day, he came back and sat cross-legged before her stone, roses across his lap. Around his neck glinted a silver locket I knew—I’d bought it for Malini, my wife.

When I finally met him, he said his name was Reza. His mother, Mina’s daughter, was in the hospital. The lady in the red dress—Malini—had told him the flowers were for someone who needed love.

He brought them to his mother’s room, to make it “smell like outside.” The locket, he said, had appeared under the bench. It “felt like it was for me.”

So every Sunday, I brought two bundles—one for Malini, one for his mother. We read poems together, mine and his.

When she recovered, he came less often. But on Malini’s birthday, one rose always appears. I never ask how.

I still bring seven roses, still tell her about my week. Grief feels different now—less like falling, more like learning where the shore begins.