8-year-old Clark is heartbroken and lonely after his twin brother’s death and misses him so much that he runs off to his grave one day. The young boy’s impulsive visit becomes a nightmare for his parents when they realize it’s already past 11 p.m. and he’s not home.
It was a parent’s worst nightmare come true when the Wesenbergs lost their little son Ted one Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, it happened in a place that was supposed to be the safest for the family, where nothing should have gone wrong, yet everything did.
The Wesenbergs found Ted dead in their swimming pool. His body was floating like a pool float, and Paul Wesenberg had dived into the water to save his son, but it was too late—neither his mouth-to-mouth nor the paramedics he’d dialed could bring his son back.
Linda Wesenberg couldn’t bear the sorrow of losing her son, and she sat as pale, numb, and motionless as her late son at his funeral. Then as a week went by without Ted in the Wesenberg household, things turned chaotic, brutal even, and so harsh that little Clark couldn’t stand it…
Linda and Paul were struggling to cope with their loss, and they fought every day, every time. Clark heard loud noises from his parents’ room every night, and his mommy would get frustrated and eventually cry.
His daddy would blame his mommy for Ted’s death, and his mommy would blame everything on his daddy. Clark hid under his blanket every night, clutching his teddy bear and sobbing whenever he heard his parents bickering.
No loss is so profound that love cannot heal it.
When Ted was there with him, things had been so different. Their parents rarely argued back then, and his mommy was never sad and upset. She would kiss him goodnight and hug him before she tucked him in bed, but she no longer did any of that now.
She had also stopped making breakfast and often stayed in bed, telling him she was ill. Paul always made them toast and eggs for breakfast now, and he had started arriving home early to prepare dinner for them, but his cooking was not even close to Linda’s.
Clark missed his brother. He missed Ted so badly that he wished he had gone to the place where his brother was… because their parents no longer cared about their son, who was still alive.
All they cared about was who was to blame for their other son’s death.
One evening, things went from bad to worse. Clark heard his parents arguing again, and he was so frustrated that he couldn’t stand it. “Mommy! Daddy! Please stop!” he yelled as he stormed into their bedroom. “Please stop! I don’t like it when you fight!”
“Look, Paul!” his mother hissed. “I lost Ted because of you, and now Clark hates you!”
“Oh really, Linda?” Paul shot back. “And what about you? I don’t think Clark’s in awe of you!”
Clark’s parents forgot he was in their room and continued to argue. They began blaming each other for Ted’s death again, and Clark decided he didn’t want to stay there any longer. Their home was filled with screams and tears since Ted left, and Clark had started despising his home.
“I hate you both…” he whispered, tears running down his cheeks. “I HATE YOU, MOMMY AND DADDY! I don’t want to live with you! I’m going to meet Ted because only he loved me!”
Ted ran away from his parents’ room and out the front door. He paused to collect the dahlias he and Ted grew in their garden before running away to Ted’s grave in the cemetery only blocks away from their home.
“Look, Linda, you made him cry again. I’m sure you’re relieved now!” Paul snarled. “I don’t think we can keep going like this!”
“I made him cry? Stop acting like I’m the bad person here!”
Linda and Paul continued to bicker, unconcerned about their little son, who’d run away to the cemetery alone. Clark sobbed as he pressed his fingertips against his brother’s gravestone and ran his fingers over the inscription.
“In the beloved memory of Ted Wesenberg,” read the engraving.
Clark bawled his eyes out at the sight of his brother’s grave. He missed Ted so much!
“I… I m—miss you, Ted,” he wept. “Could you please ask the angels to return you?”
“…and mommy and daddy are constantly arguing. Ted, they no longer love me. They hate me, and they don’t care about me. Could you please come back, Ted? Please? Nobody plays football with me, not even daddy…”
Clark had never felt so alone in his life. He placed the dahlias against his brother’s grave and sat down on the prickly grass, telling him about his heart’s concerns and how ignored and forgotten he felt.
Clark couldn’t stop crying as he told Ted how much he missed him, how difficult life was without him, and how much their parents had changed. He complained to him about the burnt breakfasts, how he had stopped growing dahlias, and how lonely he was.
Clark’s heart was so at ease after finally sharing his worries with his brother that he didn’t notice when the hours passed, and the sky darkened. The cemetery became deserted, and there wasn’t a single soul in sight. Yet, Clark decided not to go home because it was the first time since Ted’s death that he felt at peace.
Suddenly, he heard the rustling of dried leaves behind him as if someone had walked through the cemetery. Clark looked around in fright. Who could’ve come to the gravesite at this hour? He sprang to his feet in terror as the sound grew louder and louder, still searching about.
Terrified he wasn’t alone, Clark whirled back to run, but he was too late. He saw several men clad in black robes approaching him. Their faces were obscured with hoods, and they held firebrands.
“See who has arrived in our dark kingdom! You shouldn’t have risked coming here, boy!” shouted one of the men, approaching Clark.
“Who… who are you?” Clark asked in tears. “I… I was about to leave. Please let me go!”
Clark was shaking in fear and didn’t know how to get himself out of trouble. The men didn’t let him leave.
Clark was terrified of the dudes in robes, but then he heard a man’s booming voice. “Chad, back off! You’re not going to hurt that youngster! How many times will I tell you not to gather in my graveyard with your idiotic pals dressed in cult garb?”
Clark noticed the man as he approached. He was a tall, well-dressed man in his 50s. “Don’t worry, boy,” he said to Clark. “These boys won’t do anything. They’re worse than kids!”
“Oh, c’mon, Mr. Bowen!” The dude who stood face-to-face with Clark pulled off his hood and sighed. “Where else are our cult’s activities intended to take place if not here in a cemetery?”
“How about you stop burning your lousy report cards in my graveyard and start studying instead? And don’t even think about getting close to that kid, or I’ll tell your mother you often smoke here with your friends. I’m sure you wouldn’t take that chance. Now, you,” he gestured to Clark. “Come here, kid. Let’s get you home.”
Mr. Bowen seemed like a nice man to Clark. He dashed up to him and grasped his outstretched arm. Mr. Bowen took the boy to a small cabin and served him hot chocolate. Then he asked where Clark lived so that he could drop him home.
“And what were you doing here at this hour?” the older man asked Clark.
Clark was suddenly overcome with emotion as he recalled he’d come to the cemetery to get away from home, his bickering parents, and the incessant chaos and noise in his life since losing Ted.
Mr. Bowen appeared to be a kind man, so Clark opened up to him about his parents and brother, how their lives had turned into a living hell since Ted died, and how he didn’t like his parents and didn’t want to go home.
Back home, Linda was panicking. She dialed Paul several times, but he wasn’t answering. It’d been over two hours since Paul left home after their quarrel, and he wasn’t back.
She had been sitting at the kitchen table, venting to her friend on the phone all this while. Not once had it struck her that Clark wasn’t around. But as soon as she hung up and looked around, it hit her. Where’s Clark?
Linda’s heart was racing in her chest as she looked at the clock. It was past 11 p.m. when she checked Clark’s room and found him missing. Linda then went into the other rooms, the bathrooms, and the backyard, but Clark was nowhere to be found. To her, it was as if he’d vanished into thin air.
She called Paul again and again, but he wasn’t answering. “Pick your darn phone, Paul!” she cried. “Oh gosh! What do I do now?”
Linda paced nervously in her living room, gazing out the window at the street through which Paul had driven away some time ago. She had no idea where to look for Clark until… she remembered him coming into the bedroom when she and Paul were arguing.
“The cemetery!” she recalled. “He was going to meet Ted!”
Linda grabbed the house keys, locked the door, and hurried to the cemetery. As she turned to the first street, she saw Paul’s car. He pulled over and rolled down his window.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Clark isn’t home yet!” she said, getting inside the car. “Drive to the cemetery now!”
“What the hell is going on?” Paul cried, starting the engine. “But when… did he never come back?”
“No, Paul! We were, well…” she paused. “We were so busy arguing that we didn’t notice!”
Paul and Linda hurried to Ted’s grave as soon as they got to the cemetery. But there was no sign of Clark.
“Clark!” Linda shouted. “Honey, where are you?”
Right then, Paul nudged Linda. “Linda!” he cried. “What the hell is going on there!? Look!”
Paul and Linda were taken aback when they noticed a fire in the distance and heard voices performing chants. As they approached the gathering, they saw several teens dressed in black robes performing some sort of ceremony.
“Oh my gosh,” Linda cried out. “Could they—could they have done something to Clark? Oh no, we’ve just lost Ted, and now—”
“Linda, no,” Paul consoled her. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Wait right here. We need to ask them if they saw Clark here. Excuse me, boys,” he began hesitantly, approaching them. “Is it possible you saw this boy here…”
One of the boys smirked as Paul showed them a photo of Clark. “Your son arrived at the wrong place at the wrong time!” he shouted. “Darkness rules here, and we are patrons of the dark world. Your son should not have come! It was entirely his fault!”
Paul looked intently at the teen, then at his friends. In those robes, they all appeared nothing but naive and dumb, and they’d been burning what appeared to be their grade cards. Paul realized the boys were nothing more than disguised loafers.
“Oh really?” he asked, putting his phone in his back pocket. “Well… If you don’t tell me where my son is, I’m sure you’ll regret meeting me for the rest of your life.” Paul grabbed the boy’s collar and yanked him forward.
“Listen, kid; I’ll send you all into the dark for at least an hour with one kick. So you’d better speak out, or you’re going home with a broken nose and limping legs!”
The other boys got scared of Paul and fled. “Woah, woah, okay! Relax!” the boy Paul had warned said. “I’m…I’m Chad! And I saw your son. We did nothing to him! Mr. Bowen, the graveyard guard, grabbed him.”
“What?”
“He… he took your son, sir. I swear. He lives right outside the cemetery! We just come here every night to scare people, that’s all!”
***
When Paul and Linda arrived at Mr. Bowen’s cottage, they noticed Clark and Mr. Bowen seated on a sofa through the window. The parents wanted to burst inside and hug their son but stopped in their tracks when they overheard him talking.
Paul and Linda were embarrassed. They listened in tears and shock as Clark spoke about his heart’s worries, and Mr. Bowen advised him to reconcile with his parents. “They still adore you, little boy,” the older man said. “What’s happened in your family is any parent’s worst nightmare come true. How about we be kinder to them?”
“You’re right…” Clark agreed at some point. “Mr. Bowen, are you really the cemetery guard?”
“Oh!” he laughed. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re well dressed, and you understand people well. Even Mommy and Daddy don’t understand me so well. What’s your secret?”
The older man’s eyes welled up. “You shared your story with me, Clark,” he sighed, “so let me share mine, even though I’ve not had company in a long time to share my heart’s sorrows. I used to be a psychologist. Helped families and couples survive crises. But I was so into my patients’ lives that I forgot I also had a wife and daughter back home.”
“Did they… leave you?” Clark asked.
“No, no,” said Mr. Bowen. “Not any time soon. But my wife was very upset. One day, she packed her things and took our daughter with her. They were on a flight when… the plane crashed, and they died.”
Mr. Bowen could no longer keep his tears at bay and started crying. “So,” he sniffed. “So I quit my profession to become a guard… here. At least now, I’m always near my wife and daughter. Oh, how I miss them!”
Instead of grieving the loss of what you don’t have, take the opportunity to appreciate what you do have.
Paul and Linda could no longer wait to hold their son. Hearing Mr. Bowen’s story reminded the couple that they still had a reason to live, to be happy, and to do their best every day… because they still had a kid, a boy who was their flesh and blood and needed love and attention.
“I’m so sorry, honey!” Linda cried as she and Paul stormed into the cottage. She held her boy close as her tears flowed freely.
Paul looked at Mr. Bowen apologetically and thanked him for saving Clark. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much for what you did for our family just now. And now I’m really asking you to help us. I heard everything you said. I think…we need your help. You were an expert…you still are, and we need you to help us cope with our loss.”
Mr. Bowen wanted to refuse, but he looked at Clark and then Linda, who tearfully whispered, “Please save our family.”
Moved by the family’s plight, Mr. Bowen agreed. He decided to become the Wesenbergs’ therapist, and in a few months, idyll returned to their household. They could heal from Ted’s loss and finally look at life positively.
Mr. Bowen, on the other hand, realized that he could still save other families, who’d been as hurt and injured as the Wesenbergs, so he returned to work as a psychologist. He still visits his wife and daughter’s graves, and every time he does so, he finds fresh dahlias on their gravestones.
