Epilogue
(There Was a Rainbow)
Honestly, for as often as my husband and I go hiking, I'm getting too old to do this on my own much longer. It’s just steep enough to be considered careless, the path still familiar, but unwalked for years now.
I glance toward a fence I can’t see from this far below, and I know Simon's waiting nervously in our backyard, just in case he needs to come to my rescue.
Our rescue, actually, because I'm not on my own today. I'm just the stronger one. Physically, anyway. Probably not emotionally. Emotionally, I'm not sure, because I've never been in a situation like this, and I’m in no rush to understand it any better than what empathy allows.
I’m in no rush to be the one saying goodbye to the man I love.
“It’s been so long.”
I startle when his gravelly voice cracks the quiet morning, partly because I’m too far inside my head and partly because he's spoken so little lately. That could change today, but I’m not counting on that just because we’re making this climb together, nor will I push to make it happen.
I’m not even going to ask him what he’s referring to. It could be a lot of things.
And though it’s a surprise to almost everyone who knows me, I haven’t felt much like talking lately, either.
I’m mourning too, and nobody would expect less, but I think they expected me to be louder about it.
I’ve ached for days and weeks and months.
I think maybe it’s been more than a year already.
I’ve pressed my hand to my chest and I’ve cried, my husband holding me close when I’ve needed that crushing promise that every once in a while, time slows down to let love catch up.
I look up to the man I’m holding close now and remember so many lessons he’s taught me about that.
Time. Love. How the loss of one doesn’t have to mean the loss of the other.
Of course, he’s been teaching me for years.
And from the moment I first walked into his classroom, some five decades ago, I think I knew my life was about to change.
Moments are like that sometimes.
With my arm around Mateo’s waist, I continue to guide him forward, and several seconds later, the sight of the bench is enough to make a few tears fall.
Mine, at least. I’m not ready to look too closely at him.
Reminders of his age are reminders of mine, and while I rarely mind getting older, it’s harder when the lines around his eyes are teeming with the grief that lines my own.
“Watch that last step,” I warn softly. “The ground here isn’t as flat as it used to be.”
He nods and moves to hold my hand as he sits, any stubborn need for independence weakened by the privacy we’re given here.
I look toward the house Simon and I own now, Mateo and my dad having deeded the property to us when they moved into the downstairs guest suite, steps increasingly too much for a leg pieced together so many years ago.
Then I turn back to the sky. The sun shines down on us through the lingering fog, a promise of what waits on the other side of this morning, but there was nobody on the shore when we approached from below.
It’s only the two of us here, laying a third to rest.
“Thank you for coming with me,” he says.
Once I’m settled next to him, I use my free hand to reach for the thin gray hair he keeps shorter than he used to, but still long enough to tuck behind his ear. “I’m sorry I had to. I’m sure you would’ve preferred to do this part alone.”
“No,” Mateo argues, as tender as he’s ever been. “He and I had too much time alone, away from you. More than we should have.”
It’s something we’ve talked about so many times—the secrets they tried to keep from me for too long—and even though it’s been a while, we don’t need to do it again. It hurt back then, but we’re very far away from a grudge I barely held.
“In that case, I’m glad I’m here.”
“I should’ve brought tomato basil soup.”
“Oh my God. New Year’s Day, when I caught you here.” I laugh in spite of myself and shake my head. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
“My memories are remarkably intact,” he says. “A blessing and a curse.”
“Will you tell me something I don’t know? About you and my dad? A memory you consider a blessing?”
Mateo squints at the misty morning and the sunlight determined to brighten our day. “He and I watched the sun rise over all five oceans.”
“Intentionally?” I ask. “I mean, obviously I know you two traveled a lot, but were the sunrises always part of the plan, or just luck once you realized you could check another ocean off the list?”
“Very intentional—from a cruise ship in the Arctic and from beaches for the rest. We collected those sunrises. They were a reminder that our time together would always count.”
“That’s from your wedding vows—that your time together would always count.”
The smile he gives me is fragile. “It’s from the very beginning.”
Mateo continues with another story, and then he doesn’t stop—not for a while.
He stares at the ocean as he talks, our hands clasped together between us, and he tells me about their long, long life together.
A few anecdotes are ones I’ve heard, but most aren’t, and my chest aches from the weight of so many small stories piled on top of one another.
He and I have suffered losses that weave their way through layers of memories, and we smile and cry about them together.
His family had swept Simon and me into their arms the moment we met, and those who are gone now—Mateo’s parents, one sister, and one nephew—only said goodbye when there was no other choice.
My grandparents died years ago, and I couldn’t begin to guess which one of us had a more complicated relationship with them.
After a while, my dad didn’t speak to them at all.
When we lost Kai, it cut all of us deeply, but I think Mateo was surprised by how much he hurt.
He’d been so busy making sure we were okay that it took him a while to mourn the man who’d remained good to him even while he and my dad struggled to hold on to what they’d never let go.
I remember my dad telling me about the day it finally hit Mateo, and how they’d spent the night with a mess of tears and greasy appetizers.
Speaking of people who’d remained good to us, I don’t think any of us were prepared for the news that Taylor McKeon was killed in a car accident about five years after my dad last coached with him.
Publicly, he’d never stopped supporting them with the same abrupt and vaguely condescending tone with which he addressed anything.
Privately, he'd become a close friend, maybe even more so to Mateo.
His death devastated the hockey community, certainly, but I watched it rip ugly holes in the hearts of two men who took a while to heal.
The day our family announced the death of Jameson Sinclair—the choice to keep Jamie for ourselves was all his—the ripples throughout the sports world were different.
While I’d been correct that they didn’t scratch his name off the Cup or kick him out of the Hall of Fame, the slurs never fell fully silent.
Fortunately, neither did the gratitude. Even without having been on the ice in years, coming out like he did unlocked doors for other players.
Unlocked, not opened.
It still took time and effort for anyone else to walk through, but in the past 40 years, a handful have.
All of them thanked my dad, and it never failed to overwhelm him.
As often as he sought attention, being with Mateo was never about that, and I think it always surprised my dad that his greatest hockey legacy was love.
“He won a stuffed penguin at the church carnival the year you told him to stay with me, and he gave it to me at the end of the day.”
I chuckle. “I think I only knew about the trio of church ladies wrapped around your finger and your disgust at his need to add heaps of toppings to his funnel cake. Oh, and that it set off a weird tradition of significant spring breaks for the two of you.”
“We flirted our way through the midway games. Or I guess we flirted our way through the whole day,” he amends, glancing sideways at me. “But he won, and gave the penguin to me, and it was ridiculous how happy I was.”
“Not ridiculous at all,” I say. “Although he used to give me all the stuffed animal prizes.”
“I should give it to you now.”
“Mateo. No.”
“You know I’m right. It will be yours either way.”
I do, and it will, but it’s nearly impossible to swallow around that reality. “I’m more patient than he was. There’s no hurry.”
He shifts a little then, turning toward me and letting go of my hand to put his against my jaw. I’ve been grown for a long time—I was grown before I ever saw them kiss—but Mateo can still make me feel like a young girl, eager to learn from someone thoughtful and wise.
“I’m sorry you’ll have to do this again so soon.”
More tears fall. How could they not? “I’ll be okay. I’ve got Simon.”
“You do,” Mateo smiles, his shaky thumb brushing across my cheek. “And you’ve been married even longer than we were.”
That extra year has been a long-standing joke in our family, but my wedding night was good for all of us, so there has always been a meaningful depth to it that many wouldn’t understand. I’m careful when I reach up to curl my fingers around his wrist, and even more careful when I speak.
“You don’t regret any of it.”
I’m not naive enough to have suggested it was a question, nor does Mateo take it as one.
“Not a single moment. We did a lot wrong in those first ten years—nonsense rules and misplaced priorities and people we’d never love right—but our devotion never wavered.
It was always going to be us. It’s still us. ”
I nod. I sigh. I look at the ocean, then back at him. “Is it time?”
“I think so,” he murmurs. “But I don’t know how to do this. It’s still us, but I’ve never known how to say goodbye to him.”
“That's why he hated saying goodbye to you. So much.” I pull away from him so I can pick up the heavy box I’d set next to me on the bench.
It’s held my dad’s ashes for a couple of weeks now, but this was always the plan—leaving him here, where he'd spent years trying to let go of everything and shut out all the noise. When I open it, there’s a small cup inside, and I nod to Mateo. “I’ll hold this. You go ahead.”
As I help him stand and he begins to scatter the ashes, the sky offers us a rainbow, and I quietly sing.
It’s the same song my dad used as a lullaby when I was little, and more like a requiem now.
Its movie is well over a century old, but lemon drops and bluebirds and wishes are everlasting, and I have little doubt Mateo understands the promises the lyrics hold.
When he’s done, he returns the cup to the empty box and lowers his head, taking several deep breaths as he prays. I’m silent, giving him as much space as I can here, but then our tired eyes meet, and he pulls me into a hug we both need.
“It’s okay, Harper,” Mateo whispers. “He’ll wait for me.”