But I also knew something greater was in control, and it didn’t take standing on top of Cadillac Mountain to feel it. I’d felt that sensation from the moment I had run into her in the hall at BU. When she’d glanced up at me with those innocent eyes and lips so pouty that I couldn’t drag my stare away.
This girl was always meant to be mine.
“I love you.”
It was as though I’d said those words myself.
But I hadn’t.
They had come from Pearl’s lips.
I squeezed her even harder and whispered, “Baby, I love you too.”
Epilogue
Pearl
Sixteen months. That was how long it had taken for me to come here. Even though I’d envisioned this visit almost daily and I’d talked about it with Marlene several times a week, there were very few things I could have done to prepare myself for this moment. For what it would feel like when I saw the headstone of someone I loved so deeply. For when I would sit on the grass that grew above her casket, breathing in air that was so close to her body.
Like I was doing now.
My life was still so scheduled, but coming here had been spontaneous. A feeling I had woken up with while Ashe’s arms were clasped around me. Now that I was here, I expected to feel a weight lift off my chest, my lungs to open and turn lighter.
That didn’t happen.
But there was a warmth in the breeze as it passed over my face, and it reminded me of the way her hand used to hold my cheek. The sunrays were like her gentle kisses. The tingles in my ears like her tender voice.
Baby, I could hear her say in my head.
She knew I wasn’t ready for dollface. Even if that man was spending the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole, that word needed to be locked away.
At least for now.
Esther Daniels
Grandmother, mother, and best friend
I traced my finger over each of the engraved letters along with the dates in which she had been alive. The stone felt so hard and cold—things she was not. And so final. But the same way she had known I wasn’t dead, I knew that she was.
I could feel it.
An emptiness where her breath used to live in my heart.
I rested my forehead on her headstone, my hand gripping the top, tasting the tears as they hit my parted lips.
Gran.
I know I don’t have to apologize for taking so long to come here. You’re watching; you know. Just like I know you were with me in the prison, holding my hand the whole time, giving me strength.
I took a breath.
I dream about your arms. They were different than anyone else’s I’d ever felt. They had this way of holding me, like a shield, and when they were around me, I would forget every thought in my head. The softness of your skin would soothe me. The way your hand cupped my cheek would give me a peace where I knew, no matter what, everything was going to be all right.
I missed those hands.
Those hugs.
Oh God, Gran, I miss you.
I want you to know I’ve been channeling some of your strength as I’ve been writing. For a few hours a day, I sit in front of my computer, and I type small parts of my story that will eventually lead to the entire tale. I don’t know if I’m doing it just for me and the story will only ever live on my hard drive or if I’ll accept the book deal that’s been offered to me.
But I started at the very beginning, during the early years in Roxbury, the ones when I was living with Vanessa. Getting out all of that hurt has helped. It’s allowed me to start healing. I’ve even sent Vanessa a few letters to the prison where she’s finishing out the next couple of years of her sentence.
One thing I do know is that I miss the stage, but my feelings are entirely different than before. I yearn for the art, the team who works together to create that incredibly moving piece. I don’t want all those eyes on me. I don’t want to stand in the center and take a bow. I’ve done that, and I’ve survived. Now, I want to help create those productions, and I’ve gotten a part-time job at BU, working backstage to make that happen.
For now, that’s enough.
I wiped my eyes, and when my hand returned to the monument, the sun caused the ring on my left hand to sparkle. It had been placed on my finger after a question Ashe asked me a few weeks ago.
In the middle of the setting was a large pearl, two diamonds hugging each side. It was the most gorgeous engagement ring I’d ever seen.
I got so lucky, Gran. To be raised by you, to be loved by him.
To have you and Dylan watching over me.
I know, on this day, we’d be eating your favorite foods—a big steak and a twice-baked potato, banana pudding for dessert. I went to the store this morning and picked up all the ingredients, and that’s what I’m going to make Ashe for dinner tonight.
We’re going to celebrate you.
I hope you’re having a wonderful birthday. I hope you’re dancing across the stars and shimmying your shoulders through the clouds. I hope you’re feeling the love because we’re certainly feeling it in our hearts.
I pressed my lips onto the coldness and whispered, “I love you, Gran.”
And then I leaned back and looked at the markings, the deepness of the letters, the rich blackness of the stone. The spot she was buried in was situated halfway under a tree and halfway in the sun, so she could have the best of both.
“The city really did a wonderful job. This headstone, the plot—I couldn’t have picked a better spot for her,” I said to Ashe, running my fingers over the letters once again.
Gran had nothing saved, nothing to sell, so there was no way her estate had paid for this. And knowing she had died in the hospital, I assumed the city had had to put her somewhere, and this was where they had chosen.
But the more I thought about that, the more it didn’t make sense.
I turned to Ashe as he stood behind me, looking at his handsome face. “You paid for this, didn’t you?”
He nodded after several moments and knelt onto the grass, holding me from behind. We sat in silence, looking at Gran’s grave. At some point, I heard him unzip his jacket, and he placed something on my lap.
I glanced down, and there was a Polaroid with an envelope behind it.
I knew the picture well. It had hung in my bedroom in Roxbury, taken a few weeks after I moved in with Gran. We had been sitting in the park, reading one of the books she had gifted me, and she’d asked a stranger to take our photo. The memory was one of my favorites because it was when I had fallen in love with reading, and that had made Gran the happiest.
“You kept it,” I whispered.
His hand went to my chin. “I kept all of them.”
My fingers shook as I saw her writing on the front of the envelope. Her big, loopy letters, the squiggles in each line showing how badly her hand had tremored.
I lifted the flap and pulled the paper out from inside.
“The nurse told me it was too much for Gran to write the letter, so the nurse did, and Gran told her what to write.”
Within the first sentence, I knew that aside from the handwriting being different, there was no question whose heart this had come from. Every word sounded just like Gran. And even though I had to stop a few times, I got through it, and I pressed the paper against my chest when I finished.