by JayneFresina
Well, some things should always remain a mystery.
Epilogue
Ever Lasting
"Why did you buy that coat, Astrid?" It was not in his wife's character to spend so much money on a coat that would never be seen and it had puzzled him for some time.
"Ever always had a fascination for all things Victorian. Since she found that brooch, I suppose." She stopped, swallowed and looked down at her crossword puzzle. Astrid didn't like to talk about the brooch, naturally, since it was a reminder of how their daughter once disappeared when she was six. After a pause she added, "When I saw that coat, I thought how much she would have loved...and it was well-lined, nice and warm. I didn't want our little girl to be cold, wherever she was going."
Everett Greene understood then. And knowing his wife was not keen on lavish displays of affection, or having her emotions forced out into daylight, he said nothing more about it. Especially not about the tears she blotted away with a Kleenex shortly after, while complaining about her eyes being sore and needing another light on.
He looked over at the windowsill, to where young Ever, perched on a swing in the back garden, her hair blowing in a summer breeze from some fifteen years ago, smiled back at him in a slightly faded Polaroid. The silver photo frame was kept well polished, never allowed to collect a single speck of dust or tarnish, as if time was never to touch it. Just as it would never touch the image in the photograph.
Beside it was another picture, a grown-up Ever on the day she received her history degree via correspondence course. How hard she had worked for that. How proud they were of their daughter who had struggled through so much, overcome so much. Of course, Ever had not succeeded in her dream of becoming a teacher. Her years in and out of hospitals and clinics had put paid to that. She wasn't considered stable enough.
Astrid didn't like that second photograph of the grown up Ever. She would never say why, but her husband knew the reason. If one looked closely it was possible, through the pink spring blossoms of a cherry tree, to see the sign that warned at the top of their road "Wrong Way". The sign that a driver had ignored a few years later, when Ever crossed the road after fetching the newspaper from the shop on the corner. She was in a coma for four months, on life-support.
Her parents had clung to hope, but finally they had to make a decision. The doctors said there was no brain activity.
"If anything happens to me and I'm stuck wired up to one of those horrible machines in a hospital," she'd said to her father once, "don't let them keep me there. I don't want to be left lingering between life and death. I hate hospitals!"
She'd spent a lot of time in them, of course, in her childhood.
"We're not made for lingering like sloths," she'd added with a smile. "Our fingers and toes aren't long enough and we'd fall out of the trees."
So they had to let her go.
The dear daughter, who had been through so much, finally drifted away from life at seven thirteen on a Wednesday morning, as they sat by her hospital bed and said their goodbyes.
"Don't stay here just for us," he'd whispered to his daughter, squeezing her cool hand. "You must do what is best for you."
And his wife had kissed Ever's brow gently. "You can't stay here any longer. It's time you went. Your father and I will manage."
She seemed to understand.
When her father thought about that last day, and how they had waited around her bed, watching her slip away from them, he remembered that she had smiled. Right at the end.
Or perhaps, he should say, right at the beginning.
For, although he never told his wife, he was quite certain that as their daughter left this life behind and took those first brave steps into the unknown, she whispered a soft word— not in fear or anguish this time, but in love and relief.
"Pumpymuckles."
At last she'd found him and she was no longer afraid of flying to the moon. He didn't have to chase her, because she ran to him. Now she understood.
All it took was for her eyes to adapt to the dark.
His wife looked up from her crossword. "What on earth are you humming, Everett?"
He broke off to mutter, "Sinatra."
Having no time for anything but the classics, she rolled her eyes and shuddered. She still had not forgiven him for insisting on playing "Fly me to the Moon" at Ever's funeral. "What must people think, for heaven's sake?" she'd hissed when the music started in the church. "Have you taken leave of your senses?"
But Ever wouldn't have wanted them to be solemn and sad. She no longer knew fear, so why should they?
He looked down at the book of poems he'd been reading. A scrap of paper kept the place for him and on it Ever had once written, People should learn to treat books with greater care. He didn't know when she wrote it, but he recognized the handwriting, so he kept it to mark his page. These were Ever's favorite poems and he'd read from the book at her funeral, surrounded by a mass of flower bouquets and arrangements. Ever, of course, would have preferred that people plant trees or donate to worthy causes instead of send flowers to her funeral. She would not have liked the overbearing mix of fragrance.
With a snap, he closed the book, and leapt to his feet.
His wife looked up. "What's the matter with you now?"
He took her hand and made her put the crossword aside. "Dance with me, Astrid."
"What about your bad leg?"
"It's not so bad today. Come on, dear, dance with me."
Surprisingly she did. Perhaps she was too shocked to resist.
While he hummed "Fly me to the moon...let me play among the stars...let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars..." his wife let him swing her around the room.
In her photo on the windowsill, Ever Greene, with her newly dark-adapted eyes, squinted through a brief flare of too-bright, blinding sun, and laughed on.
To Death, Love and Dreams
Also from Jayne Fresina and TEP:
Souls Dryft
The Taming of the Tudor Male Series
Seducing the Beast
Once A Rogue
The Savage and the Stiff Upper Lip
The Deverells
True Story
Storm
Chasing Raven
Ransom Redeemed
Pumpymuckles
Ladies Most Unlikely
The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers
The Danger in Desperate Bonnets
A Private Collection
Last Rake Standing
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jayne Fresina sprouted up in England, the youngest in a family of four daughters. Entertained by her father's colorful tales of growing up in the countryside, and surrounded by opinionated sisters - all with far more exciting lives than hers - she's always had inspiration for her beleaguered heroes and unstoppable heroines.
Website at: jaynefresinaromanceauthor.blogspot.com
Twisted E Publishing, LLC
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