*“Because I had a goal. I was going to make Sarah a monument. Not a cheap slab from a catalog, but something that showed who she really was.”*
*“I started saving. Every penny. Five dollars here, ten dollars there. It took me ten years to save enough.”* Nick looked at the clock on the dash: 10:30 PM. It had been over two hours since he’d dropped her off.
*“Finally, I had enough. I bought a piece of fine grey granite. It was heavy, but I managed to get it into my room. I spent over a year carving an angel. Just me, a hammer, and a chisel.”*
*“I worked in the evenings after my cleaning job. I worked at night when I couldn’t sleep. My back screamed, my hands were cramped, but I did it. I did it for her.”* Nick’s coffee was long gone, but he gripped the empty cup like a lifeline.
*“The angel is almost done. Just a few more hours of work. The last details on the wings. But I have to finish it there, at her grave, on her birthday. It’s my last promise to her.”*
*“I promised her: ‘Sarah, I’ll make you an angel so you won’t be alone.’“* The last page was written in a tiny, frantic scrawl. *“My heart is failing. I can feel it. It skips beats, it flutters.”*
*“But I’ll make it. It’s January 6th. Sarah would have been fifty-seven. I’m going to her. I’ll finish the angel, sit with her, and talk. I’ll tell her how much I missed her and that we’ll be together soon.”*
*“Thank you, kind stranger, for the ride. Forgive me for burdening you with this. I just wanted someone to know that I was here, that I loved, and that I mattered. Eleanor.”*
Nick folded the pages and sat in the silence of the cab. The wind howled, the heater hummed, and somewhere in the distance, another truck groaned by. Nick thought about his life—the petty arguments, the stress over a few dollars, the anger he’d carried all day.
This woman… eighty years old, lost everyone. Father, mother, husband, daughter. Living in a room with nothing. And she’d saved for ten years and spent a year carving stone to keep a promise to a ghost.
Nick gripped the wheel. He’d been complaining to God about nothing. All his problems were pebbles compared to the mountain she’d climbed. He looked at the clock: 10:35 PM. Two and a half hours. It was freezing out there, and she was alone in the dark, carving stone with numb fingers.
Nick grabbed his phone, scrolled to his dispatcher, and hit dial. It rang five times. “Yeah?” a grumpy voice answered. “Hey, it’s Miller,” Nick said, staring at the snow. “Where the hell are you?” the dispatcher barked.
“The client is calling every thirty minutes. You’re behind.” “Snow’s too bad,” Nick said calmly. “Visibility is zero. I’m not moving. It’s too dangerous.” “Miller, are you kidding me? I’ll dock your pay. You can kiss that bonus goodbye!”
“Do what you have to do,” Nick said and hung up. He set the phone down, looked at the stack of letters, and then at the road ahead.
He fired up the engine. It roared to life, steady and strong. He flipped on the high beams, two white spears cutting into the dark. He turned the rig around, slow and careful, making sure the tires held the ice.
He headed back. Back to the cemetery, back to the old woman with the sled who had spent a year carving an angel. The woman who was going to keep her promise or die trying.
Nick pushed the pedal down, the headlights piercing the blizzard like two lances thrust into the white dark. He drove slowly, squinting, his hands locked on the wheel. The storm had intensified; the snow was coming down in horizontal sheets, lashing the glass like handfuls of salt.
The wipers were struggling, and visibility was down to maybe thirty feet. Nick remembered the spot: the cemetery was close to the road, maybe a hundred yards in. He remembered the stretch of woods that hugged the shoulder.
He drove past it, stopped, backed up, then pulled forward again. “Where is it?” he muttered, wiping the fog from the inside of the glass. Then he saw it: a faint break in the trees, an old wooden sign, crooked and grey, sticking out of a drift.
The name was gone, but Nick knew. He pulled over, hit the hazards, and the orange lights began to pulse against the snow. He climbed out, and the air hit him like a hammer, smelling of frozen pine and wet earth.
The cold wasn’t just a temperature; it was a weight. Nick went to the back of the trailer, grabbed a heavy-duty flashlight, and clicked it on. The beam cut through the swirling flakes like a spotlight. He threw on his heavy work coat and headed toward the gate.
The darkness swallowed him. The gates were open—
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