The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [30]
Sergeant Huddle seemed lost in thought. From where she was lying, Denise could see the bags under his eyes. He looked drawn, as if he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed.
“Well . . . thank you anyway. Without you, Kyle probably wouldn’t be here.”
“No problem. I love a happy ending, and I’m glad we had one.”
After saying good-bye, Sergeant Huddle slipped out the door. As the door closed behind him, Denise looked upward, toward the ceiling, without really seeing it.
Taylor McAden? Judy McAden?
She couldn’t believe the coincidence, but then again, everything that happened last night had fluke written all over it. The storm, the deer, the seat belt over her lap but not her shoulder (she’d never done that before and wouldn’t do it again, that was for sure), Kyle wandering away while Denise was unconscious and unable to stop him . . . Everything.
Including the McAdens.
One here for support, the other one finding her car. One who knew her mother long ago and one who ended up locating Kyle.
Coincidence? Fate?
Something else?
Later that afternoon, with the help of a nurse and the local telephone directory, Denise wrote out individual thank-you notes to Carl and Judy, as well as a general note (addressed in care of the fire department) to everyone involved in the search.
Last, she wrote out her note to Taylor McAden, and as she did so, she couldn’t help but wonder about him.
Chapter 10
Three days after the accident and successful search for Kyle Holton, Taylor McAden walked beneath the marlstone archway that served as an entrance and made his way to the headstone in Cypress Park Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Edenton. He knew exactly where he was going, and he cut across the lawn, weaving around memorials. Some were so ancient that two centuries of rain had smoothed away nearly all the writing on the stones, and he could remember times he’d stopped to try to decipher them. It was, he soon realized, impossible.
Today, though, Taylor paid them little attention as he moved steadily beneath a cloudy sky, stopping only when he reached the shade of a giant willow tree. Here, on the west side of the cemetery, the marker he’d come to see stood twelve inches high. It was an otherwise nondescript granite block, inscribed simply on the upper face.
Grass had grown tall around the sides but was otherwise well tended. Directly in front of it, in a small tube set into the ground, was a bouquet of dried carnations. He didn’t have to count them to know how many there were, nor did he wonder who had left them.
His mother had left eleven of them, one for every year of their marriage. She left them every May, on their anniversary, as she had for the past twenty-seven years. In all that time she’d never told Taylor about leaving them, and Taylor had never mentioned that he already knew. He was content to let her have her secret, if by doing so he could keep his own.
Unlike his mother, Taylor didn’t visit the grave on his parents’ anniversary. That was her day, the day they’d pledged their love in front of family and friends. Instead Taylor visited in June, on the day his father died. That was the day he’d never forget.
As usual, he was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved workshirt. He’d come directly from a project he’d been working on, slipping away during the lunch break, and parts of his shirt were neatly tacked to his chest and back. No one had asked where he was going, and he hadn’t bothered to explain. It was no one’s business but his own.
Taylor bent and started to pull the longer blades of grass along the sides, twisting them around his hand to get a better grip and snapping them off to make them level with the surrounding lawn. He took his time, giving his mind a chance to clear, leveling all four sides. When finished, he ran his finger over the polished granite. The words were simple:
Mason Thomas McAden
Loving