20. EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

2022

The path down the lookout had grown over, and the weeds tangled together with the roots under the soles of my boots. Kids didn’t appreciate make-out spots like they used to. I sighed, tugging out my cell phone, and used the flash to light my way.

“There you are,” I muttered to no one but the cool air and restless wildlife. I inhaled slowly, my lungs never really filling with air. I was drowning on dry land. I was not sure I was ready for the walk ahead of me, but I knew I had to take it for the both of us. Each step up the steep path felt like my heart was shattering again.

We had known a day like today would come.

We always had.

The selfish idiot in me wanted more time.

It felt like there had never been enough hours in the day to love her.

But I couldn’t control the time passing, and the things I could control I let slip through my fingers in a grief-filled blindness that threatened to ruin everything she worked so hard to give me. I stopped just before the opening, pressing my hand to a tree to steady myself, my eyes already welling with tears, my chest heaving with exhaustion, my throat dry and sticky with guilt. I bit down on my tongue just to feel something other than the swallowing sensation of overwhelming loneliness. I closed my eyes, hearing her laugh in the back of my mind, remembering how nervous she had been the first time I had shown her my spot. How tiny her body felt against mine as she tensed up and wouldn’t take another step. Just a little further.

The path broke open to that vast clearing perched above the town in complete darkness and welcoming silence.

And finally, I could breathe.

The air stung as it went down, nipping at my lungs and reminding me I was alive.

“Hey, Starlight,” I whispered, looking at the night stars and watching them burst across the sky like she was greeting me back. “It’s weird being up here without you chewing my ear off about the stars, but you became one of them, just like I always knew you would.”

The funeral had been brutal. People that I barely knew showed up, and the ones that should have been there, I couldn’t find the courage to call. I wanted to give them all another week, another month without the immense grief of losing her. It was selfish, and I knew that, but I couldn’t stop myself from protecting people , even if I were doing it the wrong way. Mary was going to be pissed when she found out, and I wasn’t entirely in the mood to take an earful from her, no matter how right she’ll be.

Cael wasn’t speaking to me again. I had gotten in the car at the cabin and drove all the way to Texas, sleeping in a few shitty motels before rolling into town in three-day-old clothes and puffy eyes.

I walked to the cliff's edge and sat down in the spot I had been sitting in for twenty-some years. Only it felt cold without her shoulder brushing against mine. “I came up here to tell you how much I love you, but I think you already know that better than anyone. I saw Mary on the way into town. She didn’t see me, but she was selling flowers from the back of her truck.”

I pressed my tongue to the side of my lip and inhaled a shaky breath. “She still sells those massive lavender bundles. She had a little cardboard sign that told people she was sold out. I don’t know how long I sat there just watching her smile and laugh with people. And I don’t even have the courage to tell her that you’re gone. She's going to be devastated, Rae. How dare you make me tell her," I gritted my teeth together.

“Saw Robert too. He’s still on the farm. His wife gave birth to twins. I promised to talk to him more. He said Riona and Rory visited lots…. It made me feel guilty, but something about that place made me feel suffocated. They named one of the twins Rain. He said it wasn’t for you, but I could see it in his eyes how much he missed you, too. We all do. You were too good to all of us Cody kids. We didn’t deserve that kindness half the time.”

I remember the days she spent on the farm when I couldn’t get away, playing with my siblings in the long grass while Robert and I did chores. I missed the way her laughter floated through the grass, and the way her skin was freckled-kissed after a day in the sun.

Giving her useless updates on life, my family, and our family seemed useless most of the time, but just talking lifted an invisible weight off my chest. It was hard to do that with anyone anymore; my office walls got the blunt of my frustrated one-shots and disgruntled sighs.

“Riona is doing a good job taking care of Cael.” my brows knitted together. I was mad at myself for letting his life become what it had. Chaos, drugs, parties… Riona had explained it that he was seeking a high that couldn’t come from oral ingestion but rather something that his mind couldn’t produce for him after the death of Lorraine.

Happiness.

She told me that it wasn’t something we could just give him, that handing over half-assed niceties and fake interest would only make the distance grow. Cael was too smart for my bullshit. A fake smile and a dad joke weren’t going to cut it.

He had grown up with Lorraine as a mother. There was no competition.

“I remember the day that funny-looking boy was born like it was yesterday. What a lanky baby,” I laughed. “With his giant blue eyes and full head of blonde hair. He’s always been the best of both of us.”

I paused, trying to contain the wave of emotion that rolled through me. “His heart never stopped growing, Rae. It’s too big for this world, and it gets him in so much trouble because he just doesn’t know when to stop.”

Sounds like someone else I know.

I could hear her scolding me for the remark, knowing full well that she’d scolded me for it countless times. Give him a break. He’s just like his daddy. When he sets his mind on something, he won’t stop until he has it.

“I don’t know how to protect him from the world without making him hate me. Seems like everything I do is wrong, but I just—” I stopped, running my hands through my hair with a heavy sigh. “I’m losing him, Rae. He’s slipping through my fingers, and I don’t know what to do.”

It wasn’t the first time I had spoken those words. It certainly wouldn’t be the last. Raising a son like Cael was like climbing a slippery mountain without a rope. You could only hope that the next thing your hand grasped onto was a ledge wide enough to perch on as you caught your breath.

I had screwed up before. I would screw up again. I knew that, and as if Lorraine was cementing the statement, the wind kicked up through the trees, and I sighed. Maybe raising Cael wasn’t about how I could do it, or Riona, or himself. But caring for him the way she had, the way she had for all of us.

It had never been easy for us, coming out the gate with our relationship and the ups and downs of her illness. We had never walked a well-paved road. Her father hated me until the day he died, her mother even more. But Lorraine held true. She never cared what they thought. She went to school. She got a degree and worked in the school right there in town until the day we left. My dad died shortly after I graduated, never even saw me play my first game in the minors. Everyone else came, Lorraine rounded up anyone she could.

It felt good to step back on the field, and for a while, my career was promising. We got married in a small church with only a handful of people around, and not long after, Mary dragged Landry down the aisle. We bought houses across from each other, and our little family was exactly what we had all been craving for our entire lives. It finally felt like we didn’t have to flee that shitty town like we had made it somewhere we wanted to be.

When March rolled around, I was knee-deep in baseball, and suddenly, Lorraine and Mary were sicker than dogs. It took Landry longer to connect the dots, but it seemed both our wives were pregnant.

It felt like a whirlwind, “the world hasn’t stopped moving since, Rae.” I mumbled to myself and the stars. “They were born together, and no matter how hard I tried…”

They belong together. A collision of stars. It's romantic, Ryan.

I could hear her whispering.

“Eta Carinae.” I nodded with a smile. “I hate that even in death, you’re always right.”

The wind pushed through the surrounding trees again, and it caused a funny laugh to bubble up from my sore chest. “I thought separating them would help them thrive. Being together, they could only reach so far. But I might have been wrong, Starlight. I might have snuffed out whatever of your light was left in Cael.”

I'm too stubborn to admit I was wrong and too sad to pretend like I have the energy to fight with him. “I’m stuck between standing in his path or letting him run himself into the ground, and I don’t know what will be worse. He never wants to talk to me, and I don’t blame the kid. I wasn’t there for him when I should have been.

“I know we made a promise, Rae, I know…” I choked up on the words. “I know you didn’t want me there…”

I could hear her words in my head, clear as day.

“Promise me Ryan. Promise you won't come see me. I can’t–” she stopped, choking on the pain that flooded her chest. “I don’t want you to remember me like that. You have to promise me to stay away.”

“I’m not making a promise as stupid as that Rae,” I shook my head and grabbed her face in my hands brushing the tears that fell to her cheeks with the pads of my thumbs. “I’m not letting you die alone.”

“I won’t be alone, I’ll have the boys there. But you can’t come, you can’t remember me like that. Sick and dying… I won't let you.” She said with conviction, the strength waning in her voice.

“It’s not up to you.” I argued, so sick of her need to protect me. I was begging her to protect herself, just this once.

“If you don’t promise me, I’ll call Mary, she’ll take me home. I'll force your goodbye, don’t do that to us. You can’t let your love die with me.” She said.

“You’re doing this to us, how am I supposed to look that boy in the eye and tell him that his Mama asked for this? Begged for it!” I snapped, losing my temper and immediately regretting it when I saw the look on her tired face. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared, Starlight. This is scary.”

“I know, baby. But I can’t ask that of our boy, our baby. I can’t keep him away.” She hummed, “I need you to say goodbye now, when we can do it and I can remember it. When you can remember it. Don’t do it when I can’t hear you. Please, Ry.”

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” I growled, sinking to my knees at her side. “I can’t…I can’t do this without you. Raise Cael, raise myself…” I don’t even know when the tears started, “You’re all I’ve known.”

“You’ve loved me so loudly for so long that you don't know how to love anyone else but Cael is ours and he needs you. Like I needed you to fill all the broken spaces with your love, you’ve done such a good job but I won’t let you watch the light die in me, not when Cael burns bright. He’s your star now, baby. Follow the sun back into the light.”

“Cael burns bright,” I hummed, remembering her words. Even now in the middle of so much grief, like a supernova that boy burned.

“You know, he doesn’t sleep anymore, and when he’s not crying he’s yelling at me for abandoning you. I just…Maybe I spent too much time sneaking around to avoid his questions, Rae. I couldn’t look him in the eye without seeing you and all that heartbreak.” I bit down hard on my lip to steady my breathing.

“It was painful, living through that twice over. I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you left. I wish I had been there. I shouldn’t have listened to you, I should have just come. It was cruel for you to ask that of me.” I stared up at the sky for a long moment and inhaled.

Now I was arguing with the stars.

I rubbed my hands over my face and exhaled a heavy breath.

“I’ll do better by the boy Rae, at least I’ll try. I’ll never be able to fill your shoes, but…”

The stars seemed to surge brighter back at me for a split second.

“I’ll try.” I pressed my fingers to my chest, tapping with what little energy I had left to show her that I would be okay, closed my eyes, and cried.