EPILOGUE
SALEM, THREE YEARS LATER
A blanket of white held the cemetery in a state of hibernation. Tangles of black sprigs reached out from the snow, buried and suffocated and longing for the breath only spring would provide. We were months out still, and I couldn’t say I was looking forward to it much myself, apart from the distraction.
There was no need for landscaping in the winter. Only shovels and snowblowers. The mower was as asleep as the greenery outside, and I missed its rumbling reprieve.
The winter left too much time to think, too much time to dwell and reminisce. Christmastime especially.
I hated Christmastime and the sadness it brought. Before everything had changed again, I’d face the holidays with feigned disinterest. I had forced a blissful ignorance toward those days of celebration and continued with life as if it were any other day of the year.
But like I said, that was before.
Now, there was a Christmas tree in the corner and stockings hanging from the mantel. There were strings of garland tacked around the doorframes and twinkling lights strung along the roof and the rafters. There were in-laws and nephews on the road and a turkey in the oven.
And the kicker? It was my idea.
Stormy would’ve been fine with heading down to Connecticut to spend Christmas Eve with Melanie and the boys and Christmas Day with her family. Stormy would’ve been happy just to see them and celebrate the holiday surrounded by the people who loved us and accepted us for who we were.
But it was me who had stared at the guest room ceiling in her sister’s house in River Canyon and said, “Why don’t we do Christmas at our house?”
Stormy had hesitated despite the reluctant excitement glimmering in her eyes. “Wait,” she had said, sitting up naked to look down at me. “Are you serious? You want to host a holiday?”
I’d shrugged then and replied, “Yeah. Why not? We used to have holidays at my parents’ house all the time when I was a kid. I kinda miss it, I think.”
But what I hadn’t taken into consideration then was that Luke had been there, helping to hang the ornaments and drink the hot chocolate. His stocking had hung beside mine, and his presents had been stacked beneath the tree. There were no presents for Luke now. He lived in the sky, in a little box on the mantel beside our picture, and in the occasional scent of cigarettes, carried along a breeze while I rode his bike around the cemetery. There was no need for hot chocolate where he was, and suddenly, I had little desire to celebrate.
Whatever they told you about grief dulling with time was bullshit. You just got better at hiding it while its deep cuts opened over and over and over again, bleeding all over your broken heart.
Slender, tattooed arms snaked around my waist, hands clasping and hugging. “You okay?”
No matter how well I could hide the pain from everyone else, Stormy could sense it from a mile away. She saw me, and her blinders had yet to go up, even years later.
I sucked in a deep breath, pulling in the scent of cinnamon, black pepper, lavender, and burning wood as I lifted my eyes to the sky. “I think so. Trying to be.”
Her lips touched my back as her arms squeezed around my middle. “Ray called. She says they should be at the gate in a few minutes.”
I nodded and urged my strength to build back up, like steel-plated building blocks. “Okay. Did you hear from Mel?”
“Yep. They’re not far behind.”
“Good. You wanna take a ride with me?”
Stormy’s arms left my waist as she came to stand before me. One hand reached out to take mine while her eyes searched my gaze with an expectancy that left me turning away and laughing uncomfortably.
“What?” I asked, staring at the glittering lights peeking through the branches of our tree.
Her hand pulsed, tightening around mine. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.” I swung my eyes back to hers before I could get lost in the shine of the tinsel. “Once they’re all here, I’ll be fine. I’m just …” I lifted my hand and gestured to the window and the falling snow. “You know.”
“I do, and that’s why I’m asking. Because if you’re not—”
An impatient groan scraped through my throat as I wrenched my hand from her grasp to wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her body against mine. My lips pressed to the top of her head, and my nose was buried in her pile of thick black hair. As I breathed in her scent, with her hands lying flat against my chest, an aromatic salve was slathered over the oozing cracks in my heart, and just like that … I was whole.
Thus was life.
Over and over again, I was shattered by the force of memories both bittersweet and terrible, only to be put back together and healed by this one evergreen woman.
I hated to imagine what would’ve become of me had she not come into my life.
“I’d tell you if I wasn’t,” I said gently, my voice muffled by all that hair.
She deflated with a long exhale, then nodded. “Okay.”
She didn’t ever say it, but she worried about me from time to time, especially around the holidays. I never complained about her pressing, and I didn’t complain when she suggested I see Blake’s psychologist, Dr. Travetti. It was just nice to be worried about and cared for.
“Anyway,” she said, stepping back and patting my chest, “I’ll hang back here and keep an eye on dinner. The last thing we need is for the house to go up in flames.”
I huffed a laugh and reached for my coat. “I guess that’d be my luck. Okay. I’ll be back.”
Stormy pressed her palms to my cheeks and stood on her toes to touch her mouth to mine. “I love you,” she said, her breath warming my lips.
Then, I found myself smiling, although it was a bit reluctant at first as my brain left the dreary cellar of memories and the people I missed. I kissed her again while sliding my arms into the sleeves of my coat.
“I love you too, my love. So much.”
***
“Uncle Charlie, what’s that?”
We had barely gotten out of the truck when Miles pointed toward one of the mausoleums in the distance.
Ray and Noah were busy unloading their car of presents while Soldier helped Melanie unpack hers, leaving me to wrangle three rambunctious boys who’d spent too long on the road on Christmas Eve.
“It’s a house for dead bodies,” LJ quipped, running over from his mother’s car.
“No, it’s not!” Danny fired back, angry and insistent.
“Tell him!” LJ shouted, looking up at me. “That’s where you keep the corpses.”
“What’s corpses?” Miles asked as Noah trudged past the younger boys, a bulging bag of presents in his arms.
He glanced at me with that old, tired look I’d learned to expect from him in the years since I’d met him.
“You wanna help me out here?” I asked, nudging my head toward the gaggle of little kids crowding at my feet.
He smirked and kept walking as he said, “Nah. You’re on your own, bro.”
Warmth flooded my chest, even as the mounting panic of having to explain what a corpse was to a five-year-old rattled my nerves. I couldn’t say when I’d gone from being simply Charlie to bro, and I wasn’t sure he would ever be comfortable calling me Uncle despite my two-year-old marriage to his aunt. But I had learned to take whatever I could get from Noah, and I was happy.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Mel grabbed the attention of the three young boys as she hurried from her car, a bundled-up Little Charlie in her arms. “You guys leave Uncle Charlie alone. Don’t be asking him questions you don’t want the answers to.”
I snorted. “Oh, I think they very much want the answers to them. I just don’t wanna give them.”
Her nose was already reddened from the cold, her cheeks a pinched pink. She smiled and bumped her hip against mine. “Thanks for having us up here.”
Little Charlie—or LC, as we’d started calling him—reached his mittened hands out toward me, and without hesitation, I gathered him in my arms. “Come on, guys,” I said to Danny and LJ. Miles had already begun running toward the open door, where his aunt Stormy was waiting. “Let’s get inside before I have to stuff you in that mausoleum over there with the other corpses.”
LJ and Danny gasped while Melanie gawked.
“Charlie!” She swatted at my arm. “Oh my God, you can’t say that! They don’t even know what a corpse is!”
“You might wanna ask them about that,” I said, leading the way up the hill to the open door, where the scent of dinner and home carried through the wind.
Somewhere in the mix, I thought I might’ve caught the faintest hint of cigarettes, or maybe I just wished I had.
***
Ivan and his lady love, Lyla, showed up a little while later, just in time for dinner. I greeted my best friend with a hug before giving one to his better half. They quickly joined the others at the table and made themselves at home with the people they’d grown to know and love over the years since Stormy’s and my families came together.
My side at our wedding hadn’t been all that much smaller than hers, as it turned out. In fact, it’d been nearly even.
Stormy hurried out of the kitchen, carrying the last tray of food, and laid it down before taking her spot at one of the two remaining empty seats. I stood back for a moment and took in the sight of the living room, unable to believe that, not too long ago, this room only held two wingback armchairs and a little table for my sketchbook and marker. Now, those wingback chairs were shoved against the wall beside the couch, blocking the view of the TV, to make room for the two folding tables positioned end to end to accommodate all our guests. All our friends. All our family.
Blake, Cee, and their respective partners and kids—along with Blake’s twin brother, Jake, of course.
Ivan and Lyla.
Chris and Barbara.
Ray, Soldier, Noah, and Miles.
Melanie and the three boys who all bore an uncanny resemblance to my brother and me.
It was a full table, a full house. One I’d never envisioned having for myself again after I lost everything repeatedly without fail, but here I was. The spider who hadn’t just weathered the storm, but watched it pass to make way for a sunny day and a brighter future. One where loneliness wasn’t an option … and I was good with that.
“Hey.”
I had been staring at my mom’s wall clock when Stormy’s voice penetrated the barrier of my thoughts. The spell was broken, and the chatter of voices and clatter of utensils met my ears.
I looked at her and her uncertain smile as she asked, “You okay?”
Was I okay? I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. It didn’t seem right to be okay in a world full of holes, spaces that the people I’d loved and lost left behind. But how could I not be okay when those spaces no longer felt so vast in a life now full of people who wanted me in it?
I walked around to sit beside my wife at my place at the table. I put my arm around her shoulders, kissed her temple, and inhaled her particular scent of cinnamon, lavender, and spice.
Then, I said, “Yeah, I’m okay.”
And you know what?
I actually meant it.