Free Peter and Veronica by Marilyn Sachs Page A

bad boy—just a little lively. He had this old, crabby teacher who kept calling my wife into school all the time.”
    “Did you ever hit him?” Veronica asked.
    “No, no,” the man protested, “I never did.” He shook his head a few times and then he swallowed, looked at Veronica, and said, “Sometimes. I had to. What do you do when a kid gets out of hand? IfI’d only known—but he was so big and strong. How could I know?”
    “Sure,” Veronica said easily, and then she put her skates down on one side of the grave and said, “What are you doing now?”
    “Oh!” The man looked down at the little shovel in his hand. “I’m putting some new plants in, and then I’ll weed and pull up the grass. I like to keep it looking nice.”
    Veronica crouched down over the grave. “Which ones are the weeds?”
    “Those tall ones that stick up,” said the man, and Veronica began pulling them out.
    “Here, I’ll help too,” Peter said, putting his skates down and bending over another part of the small plot. He pulled out a few weeds, and then the man, Mr. Franklin, said, “No, not that one. That’s a plant.” He crouched down next to Peter and showed him the difference. “It’s funny,” he said, “but I never knew anything about plants or flowers. All my life I’ve lived in apartment houses. But since he’s gone, I’ve been going around to the nurseries and learning. See that.” He pointed to a spindly bush on one side of the grave. “That’s an American Beauty rosebush. I planted it last time I was here. Next year, it’ll bloom.”
    “Very nice,” Peter said politely, but Veronica looked at the bush and said, “Where’s your wife?”
    “She’s home. We’ve got a baby now—Katherine. She was born a few months after Martin went, and there’s Kenny and Jamie too. They’re five and seven.”
    “Do they remember him?” Veronica asked.
    “We don’t talk about him much. My wife doesn’t want them to feel bad. He’s only been gone a little over a year, and I think maybe Kenny doesn’t remember him any more, but I guess Jamie does. They used to play together a lot.”
    Veronica sat back, and her face was thoughtful. “If I was dead,” she said, “I’d hate for nobody to remember me.”
    “I tell her that all the time,” Mr. Franklin said eagerly, “but she says they’re only kids and it’ll upset them.”
    “If I was dead,” Veronica went on, looking at the rosebush, “I’d want people to talk about me. I’d want them to get up in the morning, and when they sat down to eat breakfast, somebody’d say, ‘There’s the bowl Veronica ate her Rice Krispies out of.’ And maybe somebody would say how I hated eggs. And they’d talk about me, and I wouldn’t mind if Mary Rose or somebody said things that weren’t so nice about me, as long as they kept talking and thinking about me. And I’d want them all to come out to the cemetery and to look at my grave, and maybe plant things and sit around and talk so I wouldn’t be lonely.”
    “If you were dead, you wouldn’t be lonely,” Peter said.
    “How do you know?”
    “Well,” Mr. Franklin said unhappily, “none of them—the children I mean—has been here. When they’re older, my wife says she’ll take them.”
    “She’s right,” Peter said. “They’re only little kids. Little kids shouldn’t have to think about sad things like this. They should play and be happy. You have to protect little kids.”
    “But what about the little kid who’s dead?” Veronica cried. “What about Martin?”
    Mr. Franklin said gently, “It’s not like we’ve forgotten him. Don’t think that. My wife and I talk about him and think about him all the time. We’ll never forget him. Don’t think that.” He put an arm out and pressed Veronica’s shoulder as if he was comforting her, and she nodded and began pulling up weeds again.
    When they were finished, Mr. Franklin offered them some money for helping but they both refused. Veronica