The Story of Arthur Truluv (Mason, #1)

by Elizabeth Berg

He cares about words. He taught her one of her favorite words: hiraeth, a Welsh word that means a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or that maybe never was; it means nostalgia and yearning and grief for lost places.

“What if the souls of the dead become stars that can always watch over everyone?” That was right before she died, and Arthur answered in a way he still regrets. He kissed her hand—so light, by then, a kind of husk of a hand—and said, “We don’t know anything.”

That’s what being with another does. He remembers now with something like a full-body flush, he remembers what it means to share something with someone, the particular alchemy that can light things up.

Everybody makes mistakes, sometimes even before we get up in the morning. We can’t help but make mistakes. The important thing is to keep trying. And to apologize when you need to.”

What would a wink mean, anyway? Well, it would mean that it was a boy. Who just might be called Arthur, you never know.

They walk hand in hand toward the exit, and Maddy drops the last rose on a stranger’s grave, because he is not a stranger at all. It’s a Sweet Afton, pearlescent white with a pale pink reverse; she knows its strong scent will last and last. Truluv taught her that.