CHAPTER 36
Finn
Guilt churns and stabs until it becomes a bitter sadness. My eyes fill, and I let the tears stream down my cheeks. There’s no one here but me and my Amy.
And that’s when I feel it, rolling like thunder inside me and surfacing, something I haven’t permitted since the day Amy died. My shoulders shake. My chest burns. I curl in on myself and let out a scream that rolls over the landscape.
“Fuck it!” I yell. “Amy, I miss you so fucking much! It’s not fair! I failed you, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself. I’m so sorry!”
The hurt flows from me until I’m limp, hollowed out. And when I finally come to my senses, I’m on the ground, a flower glued to my cheek with hot tears. I feel a gentle breeze caress my face, and the Acacia leaves above my head quake and whisper in the wind.
I close my eyes again and listen, imagining that it’s Amy’s whisper I hear, sending me a message from outside of time and place. But honestly, that’s never been the case. When she passed, there was only a bottomless void where her laughter and kisses used to be.
My love for her remains. It will never die. But her death felt like she’d been ripped from me and from the earth in a sudden act of violence. No matter how many times I’ve come to visit her grave and asked her for advice on how to raise our little girl, I’ve never gotten an answer back.
Never.
The trees continue to rustle in the breeze. The gentle wind is a sensual pleasure, cool against my skin after the run across the meadow and the flow of hot tears. I decide to remain still just a bit longer.
Just be here. With Amy. I rise up to sit on my heels.
My eye catches movement. I’m startled to see a blue butterfly enter on the breeze. It lands on Amy’s tombstone, wings beating as soft and steady as a heartbeat.
I don’t breathe. I don’t move. I just stare, not certain that this is real.
Jasmine’s words come back to me. Whenever I see a blue butterfly, I think of Mommy.
“Amy?”
The breeze picks up, and the trees rustle louder. I’m afraid the motion will frighten the butterfly away, but it seems content to perch on the tombstone and simply visit with me.
Then, I hear it.
I hear her.
As clear as day, I hear my beloved Amy speak to me. Four words.
Be happy, my love.
I gasp, wheeling around on my knees, absolutely sure that somebody is pranking me. But I’m alone. It’s just me, the family cemetery, and the breeze.
And the butterfly.
“I’m sorry, Amy!” I jump to my feet and spin around. Finally, I can apologize. Amy can hear me! “I’m sorry I—”
Be happy, Finn.
With them both.
I freeze.
What the actual fuck is happening?
And just like that, some sort of cosmic switch gets flipped. The breeze stops, the whisper of the leaves ceases, and the blue butterfly is gone, though I didn’t see it fly away.
I open my mouth to say more, but Amy has gone, too. I feel it. She said what I needed to hear most and left me to it.
Eventually, I leave the cemetery, stunned, tingling from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I take my time walking home because I know I need to regroup. I’m a raw nerve open to the elements, like I’ve touched a live wire.
I think maybe I have.
With each tap of my boot against the earth, a kind of peace washes over me. I no longer feel the sharp blade in my gut. The wound is healing, being filled with the promise of something good.
From the here and now. The present.
That was the gift my Amy just gave to me. The freedom to live in the present.
To be happy.
With them both.
Now all I have to do is figure out a way to make it happen. I know it won’t be easy to win Emma back after what I’ve just done. I can be such a massive fuckhead sometimes.
I stop in my tracks.
What if I don’t do any of those things? No figuring out. No making or trying or winning. What if, instead, I give Emma the time and space to choose what she wants here?
If she wants to give me another chance, she’ll let me know. And if she doesn’t, she’ll let me know that, too.
Doing nothing isn’t my standard operating procedure. It’s alien to me. I’ve been called a control freak at times in my life. Like from the day I was born until today.
Standing back and letting things fall into place—or not—is a fucking terrifying concept. But maybe it’s time to try something new.