Lou stood at the graveside, alone.
She had asked Gage to give her some time.
The little headstone was small and perfect, just as Skye had said she wanted. It was engraved with the words ‘Free at last’, also on Skye’s request.
And more importantly, it stood beside Hannah’s. It seemed fitting to Lou that she was visiting Hannah’s resting place for the first time on this day. She had told Skye she would come here with her, but Skye had only gotten sicker, and had not been able to make it out of the hospital to the cemetery. So on the day she said goodbye to her mother, she was also seeing Hannah for the first time in twenty years.
Lou had been contained during the ceremony, lost in thoughts about all she had to do, and what would come next. But now, now was her time.
She kneeled between the two small graves, closing her eyes and picturing the two people who had defined her life. The empty space inside her where her mother had been felt raw and ragged, despite the years of estrangement. There was something entirely surprising about finding yourself motherless. Lou felt anchorless; as though her very nature was somehow changed. She no longer had a mother, albeit a flawed one.
She was just Lou.
Hot tears grabbed at her eyes as she pressed her hands into the dirt between the two graves. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.’
She straightened her shoulders and turned to Hannah’s grave, where earlier today she had placed white daisies. ‘Baby girl,’ she whispered, seeing the little round body and hearing the sweet voice, as though she had only just been taken as well. A fresh wall of grief smashed into Lou as she knelt beside her sister’s grave. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She knelt in the dirt, tears pooling near her knees, for a long time, wondering how she would get up, how she would ever leave them both.
Then she realised she didn’t have to. She could come back here; she could see them again. She could work this through with the help of the people who cared about her, one step at a time. She turned her head and looked up the hill. Gage was a distant figure, his long black overcoat flapping in the breeze. The sight of him sent a surge of strength through her and she managed to clamber to her feet.
It was time to go home.