Operative Jamison/A Spider's Christmas

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

There, by the headstone, the spider stood.

The grave had started to become overgrown, and not surprisingly. The grass choked the marker of a hard woman, a woman who was remembered by few, and liked by less. A woman who never fully recovered from the disappearance of her husband 8 years before.

The spider stood, alone.

Barely 45 at her passing, the neighbors who bothered to say anything at all simply said she had likely worried herself to death, shrugged, and continued on their way. They were right in a way. The simple granite slab marked the eternal resting place of a victim of "heart failure due to environmental stress." The sun was setting, evening coming to wrap the Isles in its cold embrace.

The spider stood, still.

As the last sliver of light finally sank beneath the horizon, a single voice spoke. "Merry Christmas. I love you, Momma. I miss you." Hannah gently set a poinsetta on the grave.

The spider wept.