Page 91 of Our Sadie
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER: SADIE
Today is an important day. Dom is driving us through the city traffic as Jerome and Zach sit next to me in the back bench seat. My right hand is gripping onto theirs like they’re holding me together, and right now they are.
I’m finally tackling a task that’s long overdue.
“It’s here on the right,” I say, even though I’m sure the GPS is showing him the same thing. Dom has the voice feature turned off or the volume so low none of us can hear it. My directions are unnecessary, but I need to keep my mind active and engaged.
Because the area we’re aiming for is along one edge of the property, we’re able to park right alongside it. I’m able to make out the twin stones from where I’m sitting already. The curved tops of the granite. My breath stutters out, disappears.
“Breathe,” Jerome murmurs to me. “We’re here. We got you.”
Blinking, I do as he says, forcing myself back into my body, back into this present moment. I feel my guys next to me, the warmth of them feeding into the coldness that’s settled over me, and I know I can do this. I can face this.
Even if I’ve had the opportunity to do this before. Both Maxine and Winter offered to help me with this a long time ago. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. Wasn’t capable of making such a monumental effort with a heart that had been thoroughly ripped apart.
Yet since then, my heart has healed. Has been healed by these three crucial individuals with me today. It’s been a long road getting here, literally and figuratively, but with them at my back, with them here to support me, I know I can be strong enough.
It’s Dom who catches my eye in the rearview. “Wanna get out?”
I nod.
Zach slides out and offers to help me down, but I wave him off. I need to do as much of this as I can on my own. Jerome appears from the other side of the Sequoia, and Dom from the driver’s side. They stay nearby.
I’m ready.
Slowly, I raise my eyes to the headstones. The granite is polished to a fine shine along the front, and although there are two separate oval monoliths, they’re connected at the bottom to create a single whole. They honestly look more united in death than they did in life. Than they did in their marriage.
But I don’t want to think about all that. Not now. Now is about celebrating their lives. The lives I once shared with them.
On the left are the engraved words of Craig Andrew and on the right Bridget Samantha Keaton with our family name of Vincent in bold along the bottom. Silk flowers sit in two bursts of color in front of each, probably something Maxine arranged. The flowers are high-end, expensive, and so well formed that from a distance they look real. It’s only as I stand over them that I can tell that they’re not.
My guys stay back because even with them here, I need to do this part alone.
“Mom,” I begin with her. It feels like the best way to go. “You were a difficult person sometimes, but you taught me so many valuable lessons about tenacity. About resilience. About giving a goal hell until you achieved it. I certainly never wished you gone. And I know in your own way, you loved me. Thank you for that. Thank you for my life.”
My vision has blurred, and it’s only then that I recognize how full of unshed tears my eyes have become. One blink has them rolling free. Then, as I face my dad, the tears flow faster.
“Dad...” But I break off. This is so hard. Because as imperfect as I am, as imperfect as each of my parents were, I always felt closer to my father than my mother. That’s just how it was. There’s a crunch of dried winter grass under someone’s foot behind me, but I shake my head. I’m all right. “You might’ve had a big ego, but you knew how to show me you cared. And you did, again and again. Thank you for that. For loving me. For also giving me life.”
I twist in place to take the wreath we special ordered from the local florists. It’s covered in tiger lilies, stargazer lilies, and easter lilies, yet the last flower species was the most difficult to procure. I had to have them, though. Despite lotuses or water lilies not being traditional in wreaths, I wanted them included because of what they symbolize.
And what they symbolize is resurrection.
I place it right in the center of their headstone. I’ve never been overly religious. None of my family members were. Yet not only do I want to believe that my parents will have a peaceful afterlife, I also have experienced my own resurrection over this past year.
I’ve come back to life.
When my sobs overwhelm me and I fall on my knees to the ground, it’s not only grief that I’m feeling. A lot of it is joy and gratitude for the journey I’ve taken. For the journey I’m still on.
And as my guys surround me, huddling around as my personal support system, I smile.
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