Epilogue

Snowflakes drifted languidly in ones and twos. Two minutes later a flurry descended the white sky and blanketed St. John’s graveyard. Diana and Tulisa wrapped scarves round their necks and done their winter coats up. The path crunched, yielding with every step, leaving a ghost-white footprint in their wake.

On the slight rise outside the church entrance Diana saw the hearse and the other mourners congregate around the vacant hole in the ground. The coffin lay on the ground where the pallbearers had left it. Tiny vapours of breath curled upwards and dissipated.

Diana scanned the mourners and fixed her gaze upon a frail middle-aged woman donning a black winter coat and weeping behind a black veil. The woman used a handkerchief supplied by a tall, grey-haired man, biting his top lip. The reverend read a passage from the Bible about God’s only son being our one and only saviour. How through Jesus Christ our Lord our sins would be forgiven and we - like Eric Leibert - would be welcomed into heaven with open arms.

It wasn’t that Diana didn’t believe in Christianity. What bugged her was how the reverend spoke so highly and grand of Jesus being our saviour when Eric was her saviour. Not Jesus. Jesus didn’t come down from heaven and help her when she prayed, Eric did. Jesus didn’t tell her what she must do at the infant school. Jesus didn’t instruct her on how to light a flare so she and Tulisa could seek salvation. Jesus, according to good book, had done some wonderful things during his short life. Diana didn’t dispute it for a second. However, Eric Leibert had also performed some miracles of his own. If he hadn’t Diana and Tulisa wouldn’t have been standing in a graveyard watching his remains being buried today.

Diana had every right to believe that no one had saved Eric but Eric himself.

The reverend made the sign of the holy cross. Then said, ‘Peace be with you.’ With that he closed the tome and made his way towards the path leading into the church.

Disconsolate mourners parted ways, dispersing in their own directions to carry on their lives. Diana took hold of Tulisa’s hand and moved forward and undone the top two buttons of her winter coat and placed a red rose atop Eric’s coffin.

‘Thank you,’ a frail voice croaked.

Diana glimpsed the direction she heard the voice and noticed Mrs. Leibert pulling away from the man that might have been Eric’s father or uncle. The lady walked over to her and Tulisa. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Diana Stone. And this must be Tulisa,’ she said, gazing down at Tulisa, forcing a tremulous smile.

‘Hi,’ Tulisa said, raising a gloved mitten in a cordial gesture.

‘You’re a princess,’ Mrs. Leibert said.

Tulisa shrugged indifferently.

Mrs. Leibert regarded Diana closely. ‘Is it true, about my little boy?’

‘I don’t know what you’ve heard,’ Diana said, matter-of-factly.

‘That it wasn’t just you who rescued yourselves.’

Diana considered her words assiduously. ‘Let me put it this way, Mrs. Leibert. There was only ever one hero or saviour in Rhos Meadow and it sure as hell wasn’t me, despite what the media say. The real hero who sacrificed himself is... waiting for you in a place where there is no such things misery, and the only tears are the ones of pure joy. Thanks to your son my daughter and I have our lives together in harmony.’

Diana’s chin trembled. She fought back tears out of respect for Mrs. Leibert. Her pain was nothing compared to the grief Mrs. Leibert was enduring.

‘When I first laid eyes on you at the start of the burial speech I stopped crying for myself and my little girl. The sorrow you feel magnifies mine beyond infinity. But I saw Eric’s spirit. Even in death he still gave me strength to save myself and my little girl from certain death.’

Silence descended along with the innumerable snowflakes turning everything around them heavenly white.

Diana fished out a black Samsung mobile phone and held it out for Mrs. Leibert to take.

The grief-stricken lady’s lit up seeing the phone.

‘I charged the battery. If you turn it on you will hear the only words that matter from your son.’

The gentleman donning a black suit and tie approached, seeing Mrs. Leibert struggling to operate the phone. He switched it on. Then looked up at Diana. His face creased in deep furrows, haggard. ‘What am I looking at?’

Diana took the phone off him. She found the one message and played it. Then she held the mobile up so the gentleman and Mrs. Leibert could hear it.

A hiss of static and rustling of leaves. Then in a loud, clear voice so he could be heard over the windswept trees: ‘Mum. It’s me, Eric. Nothing else matters in the world, except, I love you. Remember that above all else. I love you, Mum...’