(Three months later)
Addison, Luke, Hugh and Celeste Brandon, and Helen stood together in front of Roxanne Rafferty’s headstone. In unison, they bowed their heads and paid their last respects by offering a moment of silence in her honor. And although Marjorie was not in attendance, Addison felt her presence, certain she was somewhere nearby, watching and perhaps offering some kind of respect of her own.
The buzz surrounding the double murder had finally started to die down—not completely—but enough to allow Addison the space she needed to breathe again. Luke continued to work on the house, and sometimes, she even joined him.
When the moment of silence was over, Addison lifted her head. A conversation started about the quote Addison had requested to be etched beneath Roxanne’s name on her headstone: Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life - Shakespeare. Addison, however, wasn’t reading along with the group. She was staring off into the distance, watching two little girls in matching yellow dresses chase each other around a headstone. It seemed so odd that they’d been left unattended. Where is their mother? Addison looked around. She saw no one. The girls stopped as if realizing they were being watched. They joined hands and stared directly at her. One waved. Then they took a step back and disappeared. Addison squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. They were gone.
“Are you all right?” Luke asked.
She entwined her hands in his and they walked back to the car. “I’m...fine, I think. I thought I just saw—”
“What?”
“Nothing. Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he replied. “You know that.”
“Have you ever been to the beach?”
***