Conversations Among The Dead

Carol Peletier approached the graveyard with two bottles of soda in her hands. Not only had some engineers and scientists and construction workers been added to their community, they’d also scavenged solar panels and now had limited power at the prison for running freezers and refrigerators to keep the meat the hunters brought home. They could also operate the washing machines a few hours a week, which made laundry day so much easier.

Now she had two bottles of ice cold 7-Up in hand and she approached Rick Grimes, who knelt beside the crosses of the graves of their fallen friends and family. A sculptor had made new wooden grave markers and waterproofed them to help them hold up under rain and other weather. Now Rick knelt before Lori’s grave marker and hung a wreath of flowers he and Carl had weaved the night before. It was remembrance day. All the markers had been decorated.

Carol handed Rick a soda before hanging a wreath over the marker erected in honor of Sophia, and also one on T-Dog’s marker. Unlike some of the markers that had been erected for empty graves, T-Dog’s remains had been put in the ground. She felt a lump of emotion in her throat when she remembered his sacrifice to save her.

“You okay?” Rick asked when she sat down beside him.

“Not really. I think about Sophia every day and it hurts. I hurt when I think of what T-Dog did to save me. I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him.”

Rick nodded. “I know. I’m grateful to him for that.”

She smiled at him and she looked at her bottle of soda. “These will all be gone someday,” she said. “These kinds of treats are hard to find.”

“Think society will reestablish itself in our lifetime to run the factories again?”

Carol shook her head. “No, and that’s good.”

“Really?”

Carol nodded. “Look at the way we were destroying the planet. This plague may save the whole planet. The factories will be up and running again, someday. Until then, the earth could use the break.”

“True. Still…I miss electricity and air conditioning and grocery stores,” Rick lamented.

Carol leaned into him playfully. “Me too.”

“Carol,” Rick said, after a few moments of silence. “I never thanked you for what you did for Lori when I abandoned her.”

“Rick--”

“No,” he said. He didn’t want absolution from her. He wanted to take responsibility for not being there for his wife when she was growing their daughter.

“She spoke of you often,” Carol informed him. “She spoke of how much she loved you. She hoped that you two could find your way back to each other someday.”

Rick suddenly broke. He bowed his head, his shoulders wracked with sobs, and Carol sat beside him with her arm around him. He needed that. He needed to just have someone at his side, offering silent understanding. Her touch was comforting. He was grateful for it.

“I should have forgiven her for rejecting me after I told her about Shane.”

“Rick, Lori was afraid that she was responsible for what happened between you two. She was afraid you hated her for it.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know that. I think if you’d had more time you two would have worked that out. Rick, Lori loved you. She knew you loved her. That’s what matters. She wouldn’t want you to keep berating yourself. She’d want you to forgive yourself as she would. She wouldn’t have held it against you. You deserve to live without guilt. You deserve to be happy.”

“Maybe someday I will.”

Carol didn’t think it likely. She thought it would stay with him until the day he died. “To the dead,” Carol said, holding up her bottle.

“To those who love them,” said Rick.

They clinked bottles and took long pulls off their drinks. The soda was cold and sweet and delicious. They enjoyed their drinks as they watched the sun set together. They were two friends sharing their grief, taking comfort in one another, and remembering the dead.