The widower noticed that all the flowers he left on his wife’s grave kept disappearing. He decided to set up a camera to find out the truth—and was surprised by what he saw.

Elena was waiting for him, sitting cross-legged beside her brother’s grave with a small book in her lap.

“I was reading to him,” she explained, holding up what Harold could see was a collection of fairy tales. “Michael always liked stories before bed.”

“That’s wonderful,” Harold said, settling into his portable chair between the two graves. “Would you like to read one out loud? I think both Margaret and Michael would enjoy hearing a good story.”

Elena’s face brightened with joy. For the next thirty minutes, she read “The Brave Little Tailor” in her clear, careful voice while Harold listened and occasionally helped with difficult words. When she finished, Harold shared some of his own memories of Margaret, describing her garden and her love for roses.

“She sounds like she was very nice,” Elena said thoughtfully. “I think she and Michael would have been friends.”

“I think you’re right,” Harold agreed.

As the weeks passed, this Sunday routine became the highlight of Harold’s week. Elena would meet him at the cemetery, and together they would tend both graves before spending time reading or simply talking about their respective losses. Harold learned that Elena lived with her mother in a small apartment across town, that she was in third grade and loved math, and that she missed her brother with an intensity that reminded him of his own grief.

Elena learned that Harold had been married to Margaret for thirty-seven years, that they had traveled to Ireland for their twenty-fifth anniversary, and that Margaret had been a librarian who believed books could solve almost any problem.