Epilogue
One year later…
Agathe lowered the small bouquet of light-pink peonies into a metal vase beside the white marble headstone. Elsie would have loved the flowers.
Agathe could imagine her now, pulling out a single bloom and running around, plucking petals just so she could watch them flutter to the ground. Heavy tears rolled down Agathe’s cheeks, and she sniffed back a sob, her fingertips pressed to the cool earth as if she were reaching for her little girl. “Happy birthday, sweet child.”
Her gaze swept out to the rows of graves under the soft spring sun, the cloudless sky so different from the gray day she’d lost Elsie. Everything had changed in equal contrast since then.
A strong pressure landed on her shoulder; Luke’s hand. He huddled down beside her. “Are you okay?”
His
