Disclaimer: I don't own Unnatural History.
Maggie sat on the hillside watching two young men and their father fish. They were all on vacation, or supposed to be anyways. Her husband had suggested going to the lake and their twin boys had jumped at the chance of a fishing trip. Maggie didn't mind it so much; she preferred to watch them than join them. It was just how it worked.
But she couldn't help feeling a bit of regret for agreeing to come this weekend with them. When they fished it was too quiet, which allowed her thoughts to escape her control and wander to the past.
Jasper and Henry would have loved to see her boys, even teach them a few things now and then. They would have been great 'uncles' to them. Though, that always left the possibility that she may have married Jasper and never had her two sons. It all was bittersweet, and her husband understood that. Her boys would never understand the heartbreak though. No, that day all those years ago had been the worst of her life.
Her best friends, Henry and Jasper, had died to save her from drunken men on a lonely back street. She had been required to repeat the tragic event to the police and any soul that pestered her long enough for the information. And even twenty years later, including two years of high school alone and two years of marriage before the boys were born, she couldn't forget a single detail of the night they died.
She still cried some nights when her boys were at sleepovers and her husband was working late. It was then that she felt the most alone.
"Whoa! Hey, Mom, did you see what Jasper just did?" one of her boys exclaimed from the dock.
Maggie smiled thoughtfully. "Yes, Henry, I did. Your father will have to cook that one for tonight." She shared a smile with her husband before returning to her still silence.
As long as her boys were around, her friends would never be gone. She saw the likenesses the Henrys shared and the same for the Jaspers. Every time they smiled, it was like the deceased cousins were smiling down from heaven. They had died and given her something irreplaceable and invaluable in return. It only proved that sometimes, things did go wrong to go strangely right.