Epilogue
“Impossible - Incapable of having existence or of occurring.”
Piper
I wrapped my hands around a steaming cup of coffee and shivered against the cold. It was the coldest morning yet this year. Dex hated the cold. I hoped he was warm wherever he was.
I felt the rush of tears to my eyes and I didn’t bother to blink them back. It had been a week since he was recalled. A week since I watched his spirit pulled from his body. I kept hoping he would come back, that he would find a way back to me.
I looked for him everywhere I went—in faces of everyone on the street, in the clinic, and in the diner. I searched stranger’s eyes for just a glimpse of someone I knew. I would take him in any body, but the more days that passed, the more I realized he really was gone.
He died so I could live. He did so more than once. And I was so very afraid that death would not be his only punishment. I didn’t want him to suffer.
I loved him.
I probably always would.
I knew being with him wasn’t our destiny, but I would’ve at least liked to know wherever he was, he was happy.
I walked to the window to look out at the snow-covered street, but my eyes never made it that far. They zeroed in on the frozen flower box that decorated my windowsill. It was iced over and mounded with a white cap of snow. Yet, in the center something grew…
It grew impossibly—wonderfully—right out of the snow and ice.
Its green stem was sturdy and it stretched up toward the morning rays of sun. Its petals, wide and smooth, were completely open and welcoming. It was the most perfect daisy I’d ever seen and it was growing in the middle of winter.
It wasn’t lost on me that this was mine and Dex’s flower. It represented so much.
And it was an answer.
I sat my coffee aside and opened the window, laughing when snow fell onto my slippers. I ignored the harsh biting wind to reach out and tug the perfect flower from the ice. It wasn’t cold like it should be.
It was warm.
It radiated heat in the center of my palm.
I knew then without a doubt that Dex was okay. He was better than okay. He wasn’t being punished for the things he did.
A single tear fell from my eye and landed on one of the perfectly formed petals. When the moisture touched, it shimmered purple and then soaked in.
Dex was in heaven. He was safe and warm… He was at peace.
I knew someday I would meet him again and whenever that was, it wouldn’t matter what form either of us took because…
We would be together.
The End