I hijacked a flashlight and shovel from Diane's basement and slipped outside. The first hints of daylight kissed the sky as I found the tombstone. I located the offset's center and began digging. The early-morning sky faded from black to purple to gray by the time the shovel unearthed Shannie's treasure.
"You must really miss her," a frail voice said from behind my back.
I leapt to my feet from a sitting position. My eyes slammed against their opposite temple and my heart bound up and down my throat like a yo-yo.
"I know how you feel," the voice continued, "I miss my baby terribly."
"Flossy?" I struggled to regain my composure.
"You'll always miss her. I really thought the pain would lesson with time. It never goes away. It keeps me company on my daily trips. I bet you don't know that I walk through the cemetery every morning. It's the best time of day. You can feel God's touch. And when I feel his touch, I go visit Jr. I visit him every morning. Rain, snow, don't matter. I visit my baby every day," she said proudly. "He's never too far away 'cause he's in the hand of God."
She spoke as if we were old friends meeting on the street, not a bizarre chance meeting in a predawn cemetery. Her words were her first to me since Count's death. She was completely at ease. She was completely in her element. For the briefest of moments she made me understand, that the world outside of Fernwood was diseased.
"I gotta go now," She patted my arm as she shuffled by. "You wish good tidings to your father and Diane for me you hear. I won't be able to attend that wedding of theirs, but I'll be thinking 'bout 'em."
I turned and watched Flossy meander through Fernwood, zigzagging about the tombstones waiting to feel the touch of God.
I filled the hole and retreated with Shannie's treasure in hand, once inside her bedroom I opened her personalized time capsule. Still smiling after years underground, a faded Papa Smurf doll greeted me, its fur dank. Under him rested two sealed envelopes. Shannie's print labeled each. The first read PICTURES; the second was addressed to Shannon Lynn Ortolan. "Do not open prior to my thirtieth birthday!" The instruction ordered.
Smiling, I once again obeyed, opting instead for the photographs. I was met by a smiling twelve year old Shannie, caught forever beaming thanks to her school's photographer and her foresight. I doubled checked the lock on her bedroom door before sliding the picture into my wallet. I carry it today, guarding it with a weird sense of paternal pride.