3

"She's dead, they put up her tombstone. She hasn't been dead two years. We're sorry Jesse." Tuck explained gently placing a hand on Jesse's shoulder. "We knew though, a year after she was seventeen, she was married. To a Mr. Jackson. I knew she was smart enough not to drink. I knew she wasn't the kind to knowingly curse herself." Tuck froze suddenly realizing the pain his words must have caused. "Sorry son."

"I have to see for myself." Jesse said. He couldn't believe until he saw the tombstone. She had looked so young, sitting there. So young. He had to see it for himself that she was gone. Until then he could at least pretend she had waited.

"Jesse…" Mae began softly.

"Ma, this somethin' I gotta do." Jesse said fiercely and they knew he meant it because his speech had reverted back to what it had been when they first changed, they'd all adapted their language to the world around them but Jesse always relapsed when he was serious about something.

"Alrigh'."

Jesse stood in front of the home he had found Winnie in, he stared in the window, desperately wishing she was still there, rocking and reading. "Goodbye Winnie Foster." He whispered and headed towards the spring. Why had they chosen to bury her by that anyway? He didn't want to see the spring that had brought about so much pain and heartache.

He stepped in the small fenced off area swallowing; now he was here, he hardly wanted to do it, but he had to. His parents had told him where to find her stone; it was strange that it hadn't been placed in the cemetery by her husband's but in a way Jesse was glad. He had already seen that man's and he didn't want Winnie's body to have lie anywhere near his.

Jesse was picking his way through trees when he realized someone was already at her grave. They had a hood up and were simply staring down at the stone but he couldn't disturb them. He couldn't.

He waited starting slowly to shiver as the person just stood there. Finally he decided if they were being so still all he had to was stand slightly behind them, that way he wouldn't intrude and he could read the stone.

Jesse stood so close he was practically breathing down the girl's neck; at least he figured it was a girl because he could see a single strand of hair that waved almost exactly like Winnie's hanging from the hood and even now men, weren't likely to do feminine things with their hair.

He peered over her shoulder and there it was just like his parents had said.

In Loving Memory

Winifred Foster Jackson

Dear Wife

Dear Mother

1870-1948

"Winnie," He whispered softly, forgetting the girl standing in front of him, "Winnie Foster, why didn't you wait?"

The girl turned slowly and dropped her hood, "But Jesse, I did." She gestured rather helplessly at the tombstone, "I knew this would bring you back. I saw you once. I thought you wanted me, but you disappeared. I'd gone on with Winnie Jackson because I thought you didn't want me, but I knew I had to find out, and sixty years was quite long enough to wait Jesse Tuck."

"You were married, you had a kid. How?"

Winnie smiled gently, "I didn't chose the husband, my parent's did and the child was a foundling we raised. My husband caught a sickness just after I saw you again. He died a year later, have you seen the year the year on his stone?"

Jesse thought back to when he had angrily stared down at the stone, angry that the man had been lucky enough to have Winnie as his own, when he couldn't and sure enough Jesse could remember the year on the inscription. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but he was glad that he hadn't held Winnie very long. He didn't deserve Winnie, he hadn't had to wait for Winnie.

A Memorial

Alexandre Jackson

Beloved Husband and Father

1865-1891

"But Winnie Foster, you still had a kid."

Sadness overwhelmed Winnie's eyes, "I truly loved her. I named her after you. She was Jesse Tuck Jackson. She caught…smallpox. I lost her. I had had her for longer than my husband but in the end she too passed as everyone will except for…your family and…and me. So I waited for you to return for sixty years. I grew tired of waiting."

"The grave?" Jesse asked.

Winnie nodded. "I come back here every year to remind myself what I chose and to see if you had come." She threw her arms around Jesse's neck. "Why didn't you come back? I had to die for you to come back." Tears began to pool in the corners of her eyes, hurt was such a painful emotion to see written across her face.

"My parent's came and saw, they called you smart for not drinkin' they think you're dead. They said that and I had to see. I wanted to wait to be sure, no one remembered."

"No one but me? I wouldn't have forgot you Jesse. When I drank I almost thought you were something I'd made up. That's how I convinced myself to drink. I figured it wouldn't hurt me that way. Now here I am. Trapped at seventeen just like you, well maybe not quite like you, I might even be older, I waited to drink until the day before I turned eighteen and finally I couldn't take it anymore, so I drank. I'm glad I did because just after my parents decided I was to get married and I didn't want to be married to anyone but you."

Jesse almost whooped. "Winnie Foster, we can still do what I said. We could see the world together. We could get married."

"Just you and me forever." Winnie whispered happily, reaching out and letting him catch her in his arms.

"Exactly Winnie Foster, exactly."