It was blindingly bright that morning as Hope walked the rows of tombstones in the graveyard. Engraved names and the accompanying dates were bleached away in the sunlight, but it was no trouble. He knew the right marker by heart and stopped silently in front of it.
The grass was soft and perfect crayon green beneath his shoes, trimmed to just the right length. He set the bouquet he carried on the grass at her marker. A deep, regal pink for the azaleas, because they were her favourite, and white for the roses, because they were his.
She wasn't actually buried here. Like so many victims of the Purge and the chaos that had ensued thereafter, she was lost beneath layers of wreckage. Many of the stones here were similar - symbolic. He tried not to think about her last moments - the sadness was needless, and he'd let go of his rage-fuelled vendetta long before. If there was one thing he'd learned from his time as a l'Cie, it was that you could not let a moment or a circumstance define you. And his mother's death most certainly did not define her. She was more than a casualty of the Purge.
She was a phenomenal cook. He could never replicate her chicken soup, and he didn't think he wanted to. She was a gardener. His love of roses was fostered by her, in fact. She was a singer. His memory wasn't warped - her voice was genuinely beautiful, and he'd taken it for granted as a child at all those bedtimes. She was a wife. She was a mother. She was irreplaceable. When it came to home and family, he hadn't kept either as close as he should have. He should have told her more often that he loved her. It wasn't cool, no, and perhaps it wasn't normal. As time wore on, he had let go of many of his transgressions that he now knew were petty. But that was his one regret - he should have kept her closer.
He set a hand on her tombstone, for the feel of something solid beneath his touch.
"Mornin', Mister Estheim," greeted the groundskeeper Randy, a man in his forties with thick arms and stubby legs. He was always around in the mornings, and since Hope always came in the morning he'd been witness to plenty of Hope's quiet moments here. He'd almost certainly seen Hope crying - at least in that first year - but he'd never said anything.
"Good morning, sir," he told the man respectfully, bending at the waist. He cleared the bit of dust from his mother's marker that had accumulated since his last visit, trying to come back to the real world, bit by bit.
Randy waved away the formality and squinted through the sun's rays. "What is it, today?"
Hope dragged his fingertips across his mother's name. "Three years."
Randy nodded and wagged his finger at Hope's nose. "You, you're a good son. Every other Sunday for the past three years. Either you're a good son or she was a great mother," Randy said matter-of-factly. He took a soft, wide brush from his cart of tools, lifted it above the gravestone and silently asked Hope for the go ahead.
Hope nodded and stepped back. Randy began brushing away the dirt. "She was a great mother," he stated.
Randy went on brushing, the delicate brush working oddly well for his chubby fingers. "That, I don't doubt. But I've seen you. You've got your share of good."
He considered Randy's words. He didn't consider himself a bad person, but he wasn't good either. If he hadn't been branded, he didn't think he would have done anything about the Sanctum, never mind Barthandelus. If his mother hadn't died, he wouldn't have been motivated to look beyond himself to the fate of Cocoon. People knew he'd saved Cocoon from the fal'Cie, but they didn't know why. It wasn't because he was good.
"Mister Estheim, how old are you?" Randy asked now, pulling up his trousers and then crouching to better dust off the sides of the gravestone.
He linked his fingers together. "Uh- um. Seventeen."
Randy turned, readjusted his cap atop his head and peered at Hope. "Seventeen? Awful young, aren't you?"
He blinked and furrowed his brow. He didn't think he was that young. He'd already had so many experiences...
"What it must've been, to lose your mother so young," Randy went on, turning back to attend to the stone in front of them. "Glad you're a good kid, now."
Hope blinked several more times in rapid succession. He looked blankly at the flowers he'd laid at the foot of his mother's marker. Good kid. It was a compliment parents bestowed on their friends' kids, when a son or daughter was elected for school president. Or when you surprised them all with a word or a smile. He hadn't thought of himself as anything other than a student or an ex l-Cie or even a future scientist for so long. Was it even possible that he was a good kid? Was he young enough to still be a good kid? He was so used to being his own critic that it was odd to hear a rebuttal, and not even when he was expecting it.
"Done," Randy announced, standing straight again. He hit his back a few solid times with a fist. He must've been sore. Nonetheless, he saluted the gravestone, "The utmost respect, Miss Estheim." And he retreated back to his cart and took it by the handles.
Hope's hand was suspended in the air before he knew it. "Randy," he said softly.
He turned half a second before Hope had spoken up. "Yes, Mister Estheim?" he asked.
"Thank you," he said.
Randy shook his head. "It was just a little dirt, there."
It was Hope's turn to shake his head. He said, "That's not what I meant."
A small smile spread across Randy's face. Then he closed his eyes, nodded once, and lumbered away with his cart.
Hope turned back to his mother's gravestone and knelt on the freshly mowed grass. His knees rustled the plastic and mesh wrapped around the bouquet, so he tore it all away and stuffed it into his pockets, flower stems bare now. He brought his hands up and traced the letters of her name. You were a good mom. I hope I've been a good... son.
It wasn't too late to amend that one regret. He was still young, and he had good in him somewhere. So, he told her:
I love you, mom.