CHAPTER 37
“Please do not feel obligated by what we talked about last night.”
Those were the first words he said to her as she bounced over the rocks, platters of biscuits in hand. Her tired brain wondered how he learned such words as ‘obligated’, but when she thought of the books she had read him, it quickly faded.
“Well, I wanted to buy her a stone plaque, but I don’t know how to do it without raising suspicion,” she admitted.
“Everyone knows I’m alone here so they’ll know I don’t have anyone to bury.
I’m thinking I’ll ask Mr. Wilson in a few days about how to carve stone.
I mean, he’s a carpenter so he mainly uses wood, but I’m sure he’ll know. ”
Kallias’s face said he wished she wouldn’t see him, but he didn’t say anything about it, instead choosing to say, “Honestly, Daria, it’s the thought that counts. I just appreciate that you would offer.”
“But it’s more than an offer!” she exclaimed. With the way he had lit up about it when she offered last night, how could she not do it? “I’ll find a way. Please trust me.”
“There’s no one I trust more. But you mentioned wood ones. We can make one together.”
So that was what they did over the course of the next few days.
Since he knew of no symbols from his own culture, she explained how most human graves that she knew of used a cross and he said that that would be fine.
So she nailed two pieces of wood together in the form of a cross, and then after she wrote his mom’s name in the sand for him to copy—as he did not know a written language for his own tongue—he chiseled it into the wood while she dug a hole to stake it in.
She put it closer to the sea than her parents’, the closest it could be where there was still dirt for her to dig, so that he could be near to it too.
And when he was done carving, she buffered it a bit and painted it with polish to make it more weather-resistant, and on the day they put it in, she said they should have a bit of a ceremony. She read some verses about life and death and some poems that had comforted her when her father had died.
Kallias said very little until the memorial was in the ground, and then head bowed to it, he spoke quietly in that language she had come to recognize but not understand.
And when he was done, he put his hand in hers and said, “I introduced you as the love of my life. I hope you don’t mind.”
She tried—unsuccessfully—not to blush. “I don’t mind. I’m honored.”
“And I won’t ever leave you,” he said. “Never. I mean, unless you want me to.”
“Why would I ever want that?” she said, kissing his cheek.
“Daria?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.” His smile was warm as he smiled over his mother’s marker. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“I’m glad I could help. Even if only a little.”
His grip on her hand tightened. “Daria?” he repeated.
“Yeah?”
“Sleep with me tonight. I want you to fall asleep in my arms.”