Prologue

Michael walked up the knoll past the other tombstones while Missy and the kids waited in the car. He thought to himself that although he would only be turning forty next month, he needed more exercise. Just climbing this little incline had winded him. He clutched the small bouquet tightly as he crested the hillock.

Finding the grave site and headstone he was looking for, he noted a woman standing and looking at the etched letters and dates:

Sarah McKinney
1935-2007

"Mrs. McCullough?" he asked.

The late middle aged woman turned, her saddened eyes searching for recognition.

"Yes. Were you a friend of my mother?"

"Uh, yes. My name is Michael Wynton. Your mother and I were very special friends many years ago."

"How did you know... ?"

"She told me about you and your brother. You meant very much to her. Perhaps more than you knew."

Tears misted the woman's eyes. "She spent such a lonely life, especially after Dad..."

"Yes, but despite her own loneliness she brought a great deal of happiness to others."

"How did you know my mother?"

"She and I became friends when I was attending college here."

The woman looked around, impatient to be gone.

"I'd love to talk more, but I have a plane to catch."

"Yes, of course," replied Michael, stepping aside.

He watched the figure retreat, turned back to the headstone.

"Well, here we are, Sarah, alone at last," he said. "I wish you could have met Missy and the kids. I guess I've done all right. Made a pretty good life. Wonderful family, good job. I will admit though that I still think of you often and what might have been."

He sat on the small stone bench that was a part of the grave site.

"I wish I had come back to see you again. I know you would not have thought it best, but... well I missed you Sarah — I still do. I hope you know what you meant to me and what an influence you've had on my life."

He fell into silence and his thoughts traveled back some twenty years.