Epilogue
NYLA
Two and a half years later
The garden lies still before me. A little paradise in the warm light of the afternoon.
Between old stone paths that crunch softly under my steps, lavender bushes grow.
Their scent hangs heavy in the air, sweet and spicy.
Roses in deep red and delicate orange climb along wrought-iron arches, their blossoms like soft chalices whose petals brush my skin as I pass.
The narrow brook babbles quietly, as if whispering stories about life and love, about what touches our hearts.
I return to the terrace and see Jaden step out of the house. His hands clasped behind his back, he smiles at me; Nero circles his legs, tail wagging, then sinks down contentedly onto the sun-warmed terrace slabs.
‘Do you know what day it is today?’ Jaden asks.
Of course I know. ‘My third second birthday.’ We both have two birthdays – the day we were born and the day we beat our illness – and year after year we celebrate them extensively.
He steals a kiss from me. Then he brings his hands forward, in which he is holding a photo book. ‘Happy birthday.’
On the cover I spot a picture of the two of us. I open the album, and Jaden steers me toward the bench under the apple tree. As I sit down, I look at the first photos.
Jaden and me at the animal shelter. Him in a baseball cap, with hair just starting to grow back underneath. Me with Nero, who was two years old at the time, in my arms, his button eyes looking curiously into the camera.
Jaden chuckles. ‘If we’d known back then what a little rascal he’d turn out to be…’
‘…we still would’ve taken him with us,’ I finish his sentence.
Nero lifts his head as if he knows we’re talking about him. Beside him, olive trees cast shade, their gnarled branches rustling softly in the wind.
With a contented sigh, I turn back to the album. I see the two of us in Jaden’s apartment, him in bed, exhausted but still optimistic. And the house that gradually turned from a construction site into a home.
I took care of a lot of things while Jaden was fighting his illness, but he was always involved. When he was too exhausted, I showed him these pictures; when he felt better, he came to the construction site with me and kept me company from a comfy armchair—and apparently took photos like crazy.
He even captured the moment when, while we were painting, all the plaster suddenly crumbled off the wall and I was fighting back tears from exhaustion and disappointment. This house wore us down more than once, but it was worth every effort.
‘Oh man, the move,’ I say as I turn the page and see all the boxes. And there’s the shared flat too, that crazy, warm-hearted, one-of-a-kind place that was my home for a while.
‘At least I was able to help out again by then,’ Jaden says absentmindedly as I discover a photo of my roommates.
Autumn, Olive, June, and Sonora in front of the moving van.
Each of them in a different pose. Sonora is showing off her nonexistent biceps, June has her hands on her hips, Autumn is rolling up her sleeves.
Olive is holding a cordless screwdriver and looks like a DIY heroine on the hunt for criminals.
‘Those crazy chicks.’ Gently, I let my fingertips glide over the picture.
‘Crazy?’ Jaden laughs. ‘I don’t know if that’s the right word.’
We really were something, the five of us. Especially in those first weeks after we moved in together. So much changed for all of us during that time. None of us is still the girl she was back then, and yet we’re still, unchanged, the best of friends.
Smiling, I turn the page. ‘What’s this?’ I ask as I look at a photo that consists only of dark gray and black.
‘That’s us on our night hike,’ Jaden replies, and in that moment I see, on the next album page, the picture of the sunrise we watched together when we reached the summit.
On the next pages the two of us are dancing tango in Brazilian dance outfits, Jaden is walking over hot coals and getting ready for his first day at university. Full of anticipation at continuing his medical studies.
Finally I find a photo series of me tasting fried frog legs. I knew Jaden had taken pictures of me, but I didn’t know he’d set the camera to burst mode.
‘My God, that expression on your face.’ Laughing, Jaden points to the picture where I’m eyeing the frog legs critically before eating them. ‘Divine.’
The next page is a close-up of a starry sky next to a selfie of Jaden and me, wrapped in thick jackets, our hoods pulled low over our faces.
‘It was impossible,’ I murmur, remembering how we tried to fulfill Lilly’s wish and count the stars over Greenland.
Jaden puts his arm around me. ‘I think Lilly’s proud of us anyway.’
I look up, take in the property, and I know Jaden is right.
This place is a dream come true. The terrace of light natural stone nestles against the house, bordered by wild herbs.
I smell lavender, damp earth, and the ripe sweetness of apples, hear the hum of bees, the song of water, the whisper of the wind.
And for a moment, everything feels light. Timeless. Perfect.
‘Yes,’ I say, thinking of Lilly, who can no longer experience her most beautiful garden in the world herself, and yet is somehow still here. In our hearts, through what we’ve created here for her. ‘She definitely would be.’
I close the album and press it to my chest. He kisses the crown of my head, my temples, my cheeks, and finally my lips.
‘Thank you,’ I breathe between two kisses. ‘The album was a wonderful idea.’
Not just because the pictures are so beautiful, but because of what this photo album means.
Jaden has captured memories in it.
Moments he doesn’t want to forget, that he wants to look back on. And he hasn’t only preserved the good times in this album, but also the difficult ones.
The ones when he was weak. The ones when we had to fight. The ones when we were afraid.
And as we sit here together, in the garden behind our house, healthy and full of happiness, I feel one thing with absolute clarity.
None of us knows how much time we have left. Whether the future we long for will ever come will never be certain. We ourselves and the ones we love will one day go, and that day could be tomorrow. Nothing seems more certain than that, but there is something else that is just as sure.
We have the now.
And it’s up to us not only to think about what will be, but also about what is right now.
We should dance when we feel like it. Take the time to watch the sun rise, even when work is waiting.
Forgive ourselves our own mistakes and those of others.
Let go of what we’ve been carrying around with us for far too long.
Live.
Not tomorrow.
Not yesterday.
Now.
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