Epilogue
DAHLIA
New York City December, Present Day
“Thanks, everyone, for coming out tonight. I’d like to dedicate this last song to a special couple who I never got the chance to meet.
” My throat goes tight. “Basilio and Katia Baez Gallardo opened the Flaming Flamingo more than two decades ago. It became the city’s heart and soul for new music.
It later turned into a coffee shop, then a clothing store, and tonight it returns to its roots.
A place to hear emerging artists, thanks to the generosity of country music superstar Beck Kershaw. ”
I wait out the cheers and stray whistles bouncing off the club’s black-painted walls, still pinching myself over the fact that I’m on this iconic stage.
Fan graffiti, album covers, and random poetry decorate every nook and crevice in this tiny magical place.
Before the crowd arrived, I swear I could hear the haunting riffs of the musical legends who’ve played here before me humming through its walls.
“The Gallardos helped a long list of young artists follow their dreams on this very stage. I never once imagined I’d be invited to join them.” My voice falters.
Teddy sits at the bar, which is so covered in band stickers you can barely see the wood. He beams his gap-toothed smile. His lips kiss the air between us, sending me his strength.
“I also dedicate tonight to my St. Ignatius family and foster kids everywhere—especially our brother Cody.” I take a breath. “I hear you singing, bro, lighting up the night sky, getting your own Hollywood marquee at last.”
I lift my shaking hand to the top edge of my guitar. An infectious laugh rises from the back of the intimate room. I shield my eyes, looking through the standing crowd. My heart starts to pound.
I see him. After all this time. I’d hoped but wasn’t sure he’d read the flyer I slipped through the mail slot of his lavender house.
He winks at me with that mischievous smile. Turned up corners, like mine. Like a scoundrel, but sexier. He tilts his head to one side, and the light near the side door reveals the Fordham University logo across his chest.
He got in. He did it.
It takes everything I have not to go to him.
I think of all those late nights at Dante’s confiding in one another about our ridiculous past relationships.
Him telling me how meeting Brynn, though it ended badly, turned out to be the catalyst he needed to work on himself, to get better.
Gave him the confidence to reach out to his mom’s family and try again with his dad—to write the future he’s always wanted.
We bonded over our shared ache for our mothers—how a chunk of us will forever be missing. We got fired up over the stigmas associated with mental health and foster youths—how he doesn’t want to be called crazy, the same way I don’t want to be called white trash.
He once told me two-thirds of the homeless in this city have mental health issues and that he wanted to do something about it.
We connected. We dreamt out loud.
Until one day, he stopped coming by. I thought he would after the Elmsford Police charged Brynn with conspiracy to commit a reckless act and involuntary manslaughter of her parents and Cody. I bet she looks bad in orange.
She underestimated me and the bond foster kids share. One you don’t want to cross. How we’ll do anything for one another—sometimes blindly—like sit behind the wheel of a vehicle while your hero runs two innocent people off the road, never dreaming it would lead to their deaths.
I haven’t touched a cigarette since that night.
Cody, I forgive you. Please forgive me too.
I let my gaze wander through the audience, soaking in the moment. A moment made possible when I quit silencing myself and thinking I was nothing more than a dumb foster kid born from rape or the forgotten child of an alcoholic teen mom.
What do I know? Apparently, a lot. I’m the mastermind, of course. I knew Brynn’s ego was far bigger than her love for my brother. That she would claim finding those news articles among Cody’s things to prove to the detectives that he acted alone in order to play the hero.
And if I hadn’t spoken up to right that injustice, I would never have met Micah. Or his generous father. I certainly wouldn’t be performing tonight on this legendary stage.
Maybe I can get the guy in the end. I grin at that guy now, my lips forming a slow wow.
His smile broadens, reaching those velvet brown eyes of his, and for one solid, marvelous moment—no one stands in our way.
I made sure of it.
“I’m Dahlia Schenkel. This last one is called ‘Escaping Shadows.’”