Epilogue
HAVEN
How far do you have to go to get away from the sins of the past?
Sometimes, even the other side of the world is not far enough.
That’s the realisation I have come to as I stand on this beach in Western Australia, looking out at the Indian Ocean and contemplating all that has happened to lead me to here.
Of course, I’m no stranger to this country and nor is the man standing next to me.
I smile at Joel as we hold hands, the pair of us having returned to the place where we met back when we were just two simple backpackers with no idea how crazy families could really be.
It’s good to be back, or maybe it’s just good to be so far away from home.
Either way, we have come to realise that no matter the distance, you carry your emotional baggage with you just as much as the physical kind, and it’s unlikely there is anywhere on this planet we could go to forget about Liane and what she did and the impact it has had on all of us.
Beside Joel is his brother and beyond him is their father.
All four of us have made this trip to Australia, but we aren’t here just for a holiday or a much-needed change of scene.
We are here to do something important. Something we hope might bring a little closure to our lives.
Most importantly, something that the one person who can’t be here would have wanted us to do.
‘You should do it,’ Scott says as he holds out the urn filled with his grandmother’s ashes towards his brother.
Joel lets go of my hand and accepts the urn, although he looks unsure about doing anything else with it.
‘How about we do it together?’ he suggests, and Scott nods.
Frederik and I share a look before stepping back and allowing the siblings to step closer to the water, the waves that lap at the shore by our feet calm and steady, reminding us of how we aspire to be ourselves.
‘Goodbye Grandma,’ I hear Joel say.
‘Love you,’ Scott adds before, together, the brothers take off the lid of the urn.
Then, in one swift move, they allow the contents to flow out, the ashes catching the wind and floating across the water, making this site the final resting place for the wonderful woman who lived a very full life.
Why here? Why spread Valerie’s ashes on this beach?
The answer to that lies in one of the messages she had sent to me while Joel and I were travelling.
Having told Valerie where we had recently visited and having shared several photos with her of the lush location, she had replied to say that it looked incredible.
She wasn’t wrong. This beach in this part of Australia is truly stunning.
The golden sand. The turquoise sea. The clear blue sky.
It’s picture-perfect, and Valerie said as much.
She also said that she wished she had seen such a sight in her lifetime, and while she felt she was unlikely to make the long flight to Australia at her age, she remarked how it would be a wonderful place for her ashes to be scattered one day.
That way, she said, it would feel like she had made it and she liked the idea of her final resting place being one far from home, as if to sum up how she liked to do things a little differently in her life.
At the time, her sentiments seemed like nothing more than the whimsical musings of a lovely woman who was sat at her home enjoying some photos from her grandson’s girlfriend.
But then she died and Liane went to prison for her murder, and in the aftermath, it was obvious that Joel and his family needed a purpose to get them all through the darkest of days.
So when I remembered what Valerie had said in her messages to me, I showed them to Frederik, Scott and Joel and then, if they gave their blessing, I proposed a trip.
Here we are now, and as we all watch Valerie’s ashes sail away on the wind, I can sense that we all feel it was the right thing to be here and do this.
We’re a long way from England.
As such, we are a long way from where Liane languishes in a cell.
Joel’s mother pled guilty to the charges against her, avoiding a trial and the chance to prolong any pain and suffering on her family’s part.
She is serving her sentence now, one that likely won’t conclude until she has passed away due to old age, a peaceful death that she denied to her own mother.
Joel hasn’t been to see his mum in prison yet, and I’m not sure that he ever will.
That is up to him to decide, as it is Scott’s own decision to make too.
The same goes for Frederick, all three of these men doing battle with their own internal demons as they try to move on from what has happened and what they have lost along the way.
As for me, I know what is next. Joel and I plan to do some more travelling.
With Valerie’s money, we can see more of this world, and I think it’s vital that we do because if we have learnt one thing in life, it’s that the more you see, the more you find the good in it.
If I had stayed at home, and if Joel had done the same, our only experience of the world would have been having very dysfunctional families.
As it is, we get to learn that there is more to this planet than people who make bad decisions.
There is more to life than being hurt by people we love.
There is certainly more to the human experience than murder, lies and mistakes.
‘I love you,’ Joel says to me as he retakes my hand.
‘I love you too,’ I reply, and we watch the last of the ashes disappear over the ocean before we turn and walk back across the sand to where our hire car is parked.
Suddenly, several grains of sand fly across our faces and we realise Scott has just initiated a beach battle with his brother.
It’s one that Frederik quickly joins in on too and, within seconds, we are all scooping up sand, scampering around and throwing it before seeking shelter from whoever has the upper hand.
It’s a harmless, simple situation and anybody watching will likely smile and think about how we seem like a normal family out here having fun.
If so, that’s good because hopefully we can become a normal family now.
One day, I hope to marry Joel, and we might have a child of our own. If we do, I plan to be a far better mother to my baby than Liane was to him. But it won’t be hard to beat her, will it? After all, I just need to avoid killing anybody.
That’s easy enough.
Isn’t it?
* * *
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