Epilogue Georgia
Epilogue
Georgia
Two Months Later
When I wake in the morning, the first thing I do is reach down for Puds. His tail thwacks the side of the bed, and I roll
out of it and follow him to the kitchen, where I pour him a bowl of kibble. He’ll get a piece of the bacon I make for breakfast
later too. Both of us are making great progress on gaining back the grief pounds we’ve shed.
It’s cold this morning, so I pull on a heavy overcoat before I slip into Junie’s clogs, my feet in thick socks. I wander out
to the garden to check on it for her. Long gone are the lush greens, the abundant vegetables, the flowers that bring butterflies
and the buzz of bees. But still, I come. Still, I check. Long ago, I cut back the brittle branches after reading some gardening
blogs online. Still, I will keep watch over the winter. Maybe it’s for me, too, a meditation on my love for Junie.
It felt good to watch the garden die as fall turned to winter, a physical example from the earth of my insides curling up in my own pain.
It felt right that her garden would mourn Junie too.
And right as it was, alongside it also sits a belief in the depth of my belly that it may be gone in the version that once existed, but it will come back anew.
It’s a promise that though this garden will sit dormant and icy for the next few months, it hasn’t forgotten me.
Us. It’s an example we can all rely on to show us how to come back too.
If we’re willing to first endure the winter.
Once I’m satisfied with the condition of the garden and now fully awake from the chilly morning air, I head back inside and
start making coffee. I make eggs and toast and the bacon Puds sits so patiently and waits for. I sip my coffee before I do
the dishes.
I shower and do a quick cleanup on the house. I shuffle aside the legal paperwork I received last week from the class action
suit against the lousy genetic testing lab. Researching it and getting us on the list of plaintiffs was Eddie’s grief project
in the weeks after Junie passed. Anything we get in a payout we’ll put back into our community, help someone out who needs
a hand up. Just like the community helped June’s.
I stop to check a text from Eddie confirming our dinner plans for this evening. He just accepted a position as the medical
director of the clinic and officially resigned from Vanderbilt. He’s staying, and I’ve even wondered if maybe, one day, he
and I could live here in the Clementine together. It’s a someday thing for now. I set down the phone and open the fridge to count the juice boxes, double-check the pantry for snacks. And
then comes the chime of the doorbell.
“Good morning, Ms. Georgia,” the Brownies announce as they push through the door, remove their shoes, and line them up neatly.
“How many today, Ms. Rosalinda?” I ask, stepping out onto the porch.
“Seven girls today. I just dropped four.” Rosalinda looks then points at another car pulling into the drive. “And here come
the others. Once word got out that you were having them this week, everyone changed plans to make it.”
“These are my best Saturday mornings.” I smile, and I feel it run into the rest of me.
I step back as the new arrivals rush up the steps and past me into the house.
“What can I say?” Rosalinda says. “You have a gift. The girls adore you.”
“Excuse me, Ms. Georgia,” the leader of the Brownies, whom I now know dearly, Reese, says. “Can we please, please, please do braids first?”
“You girls know I can’t say no to hair!” I play like it’s painful to admit, and the girls love the act.
I wave Rosalinda farewell, and she heads off to greet the other parent driver before leaving.
Reese whips a large box from behind her. “Good. Because we brought supplies.”
The group erupts in giggles and squeals and requests for pink or glitter or clips with unicorn hair.
I spend the next few hours braiding seven little heads of hair. Big French braids. A few baby braids. And some just want clips.
We laugh and chat, and I hear all the gossip from the elementary school—not that it makes much sense to me at almost thirty-three.
When I first volunteered to take some Brownies shifts from Rosalinda, it seemed like coincidence that what they always wanted
to do was hair. I do theirs or they do each other’s.
And for the longest time I thought it must just be the trend. Or their ages.
But today, as I hear this house come back to life with the patter of these small feet, their giggles and shouts and well-meaning
demands, I do wonder if there is any celestial way possible that Junie sent them for me. That she put them in my path to urge
me to say yes, to listen to their woes and triumphs, and each and every time be reminded that I am still a big sister.
That I can be that part even without her. Even if it’s different.
I can remember her now without crying every time. Not most times yet, but some. It’s progress.
I even signed up to start cosmetology school.
I’m doing it, living, step by step.
Braid by braid.
I’m doing my best, and to be entirely truthful, for now that’s all I can ask of myself.
“Ms. Georgia?” Reese asks. “Can I tell you something?”
I nod. “Of course.”
She runs her hands over my hair, examining it from root to tip. She grips my cheeks in her hands and grins. “You are having
a really good hair day.”