I started bringing seven crimson roses every Sunday, wrapping them the same way Malini used to smooth the paper. But each week, by Tuesday, they were gone—not wilted, not scattered, just vanished. Suspecting vandals, I set up a trail cam. What I saw stunned me: a thin boy, maybe eleven, lifting each rose carefully, as if afraid to wake it. The next day he returned, sitting cross-legged by the headstone, the roses in his lap. Around his neck hung Malini’s silver locket—the one she wore until the morning she was buried.
