Forget Me Never by Sable Hunter (books successful people read txt) 📗

she cared most about in the world was gone.  No one else really mattered.  “I was born in the Hansen’s Disease Center at Carville, Louisiana.  Both of my parents had contracted leprosy.  From the very moment of my birth I was placed in foster care and I never knew who my parents were.  As I was growing up, the facts of my birth always preceded me.  And I was tried and judged and convicted of being unclean and unfit for decent people to associate with.  This was my life.  Oh, I grew up and went to school and got a job, but always this information would eventually leak out and the people I was around everyday would look at me differently and refuse to sit with me at lunch or walk beside me down the hall.  Until Patrick.”

She laughed and smiled.  “He was convinced that I was his destiny.  We actually both had a strange experience that substantiated that belief.  The night before we met, a fortune teller told me that the next day I would meet the warrior who would become my husband and Patrick had taken part in a childish game when he was thirteen, helping some little girls look in a deep well of water at midnight in the hope of seeing the face of their future husband.  They didn’t see anything, but when he looked – he saw me.”  Despite every effort, she began to cry.  “And he was my destiny.  We might not have had very long together, but he was the first person that ever loved me.  He was the first person who ever held me and told me that I was worthwhile and beautiful.  Patrick O’Rourke loved me with all his heart and I will love him, desperately, till the day I die.”

Revel got up to stand beside her.  He was prepared to walk her back to the front so the service could proceed.  But Savannah wasn’t through.  “Just another second, please.”  He stepped aside.  “Patrick’s life wasn’t nearly long enough, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he made a difference in this world.  He fought for freedom, he saved lives, he took care of his grandfather, he was a good friend to many of you and he was my all in all.  I didn’t have him very long, but I will never, ever forget him.  It is my plan to establish a Patrick O’Rourke Freedom Scholarship at the high school and put funds aside to build a memorial to fallen Marines who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Patrick O’Rourke did not die in vain.  He mattered to me and I will miss him every day of my life.”

With that, Revel helped her to the chair and he sat beside her while bagpipes played Amazing Grace and the guards ceremoniously folded the flag.  They brought it to Revel, but he indicated that she sld have it.  When Savannah touched the cloth, the finality of it all just slapped her in the face.  A searing, tearing agony tore through her insides and she was left feeling raw and completely desolate.  Trembling, she stood while the casket was rolled out and Revel, Jayco and Hawke walked with her to the family car.  Ciara calmly walked beside them.  It wasn’t far to the cemetery and before long they were standing next to the O’Rourke family vault.  Burials in southern Louisiana were all above ground due to the high water table.  The bleached white crypts and mausoleums created rows like streets so the cemeteries were often called ‘cities of the dead’.  Stoically she stood while Patrick’s casket was slipped into the stone enclosure.  When the door shut, she felt a knife-like pain slice through her heart.  Over and over again she kept hoping that she was asleep and any moment she would wake up and find Patrick lying beside her.  But it wasn’t going to happen, she knew that.

Revel went over to talk to Jayco and Hawke and for a few seconds she was alone.  Stepping over to the flower spray she had chosen, she broke off a sprig of the forget-me-nots.  “Patrick, I miss you so much.  I refuse to give you up.  Please don’t leave me.  I want to talk with you.  I want to see you, again.  Come to me.”  The words she spoke were whispered like a prayer.  When she turned around, the three men who were important to Patrick stood nearby.  Hawke and Jayco had come to say goodbye.  She waited for them to say something about what she had said, but they didn’t.  Perhaps they hadn’t heard or maybe they were too polite to say so.  “Call us if you need anything,” Jayco took her hand and squeezed it.

Hawke was bolder.  He kissed her on the cheek.  “Revel here is going to take good care of you.  I’ll be back in the states in a few months, but if you’ll take my calls, I’d love to see how you’re doing every once in a while.”

“Thank you, I would love to keep up with all of you.” She tried to put a smile on her face, but it was hard.

“Come on, it’s time to get you home.  There’s nothing else we can do here.”  Revel put a hand on her elbow to lead her away.  Savannah let her fingers trail over the place where Patrick lay.  This wasn’t goodbye.  This was merely farewell, for just a little while.

In the car, on the way home, it came to her – the perfect way she could keep her promise to Patrick.  There was one thing she could do that would insure his name lived on.  “Revel, Patrick made me his beneficiary, correct?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And that covers everything he owns, right?”

“Yes, it does.”  Revel didn’t know what she was getting at. “You are to receive all of his possessions – none are held back.”

“Good,” she felt a small measure of peace.  “I want access to his sperm deposit.  I want to get pregnant