38. THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-EIGHT
Rory took them to Cardiff State Beach, which was smaller and usually less crowded than Moonlight Beach. They drove mostly in silence, except for Kieran humming along to the radio, holding tight to the decorative box in his lap.
They pulled into the parking lot, and Rory tossed his California State Parks pass onto the dash to avoid a ticket. He killed the engine, leaving his hands resting on the steering wheel as a heavy silence filled the cab.
Through the windshield, the ocean rolled dark and endless. The sun had already set, leaving behind streaks of purple and gold bleeding into gray.
“There’s something in the back,” Rory said.
Kieran turned and saw the wreath. White gardenias woven in a perfect circle, glowing even in the dim light.
“Rory.”
“I know you didn’t ask for it,” Rory said, still not looking at him. “But I thought…she deserved something. Something beautiful.”
Kieran’s hand tightened on the box. “Gardenias were her favorite.”
“I know. You told me.”
Kieran’s breath caught. He’d never even said his mom’s name to Rory. Not once. My mom or she, careful sidesteps around the syllables that hurt too much. And still, Rory had remembered. Had gone to a florist and ordered flowers for a woman he’d never meet.
“Thank you,” Kieran managed.
It wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. But it was all he could get out without his voice breaking.
Rory squeezed his shoulder once. “Come on.”
They got out. The evening air was cooler than Kieran expected, that specific coastal bite that meant the marine layer would roll in soon.
He should’ve brought a sweatshirt. But he hadn’t been thinking clearly when he got dressed, just grabbed the first thing he found and tried not to think too hard about what he was about to do.
Rory retrieved the wreath from the back seat and carried it with quiet, careful reverence.
Kieran followed with the box, flip-flops crunching on gravel, then sinking into sand.
The beach opened up before them, vast and gray in the dying light. The waves were louder here, more insistent.
Kieran stopped above the tide line. Rory stood a few feet behind him, close enough that Kieran knew he was there, but far enough that he had space to breathe.
Kieran looked down at the box. Dark wood. Brass hinges. Such a small container for a whole life.
“She would’ve liked you,” Kieran said. The words came out rough. “She would’ve said you were too quiet. That she couldn’t read you. But she would’ve seen…” He paused. “She would’ve seen how good you are.”
Behind him, Rory was quiet.
“Her name was Diane,” Kieran continued. “Diane Marie Doyle. She was fifty-nine. She liked terrible reality TV and made the best banana bread and always sang off-key in the car.”
His voice cracked, slightly, but he steadied it.
“She had this way of dancing in the kitchen when she thought no one was watching. Just swaying. Like the music was playing inside her and she couldn’t help but move to it.”
The ocean answered with its endless rhythm.
Kieran closed his eyes. Saw her, not pale and diminished in that hospital bed, but radiant. The way she’d looked when she’d taken him to the beach as a kid, when she’d thrown her head back and laughed at nothing and everything.
That was the version he wanted to remember.
He opened his eyes. The sky was deepening to navy now. Stars beginning to emerge.
After a few minutes, he started walking toward the waterline.
He didn’t look back. He knew Rory wouldn’t follow.
The waves lapped at his feet. Cold.
Kieran stopped where the foam reached and looked out at the vastness.
The wind picked up, carrying salt spray and the scent of gardenias.
“I’m letting you go now. Not because I’m not angry anymore. Not because I understand everything. But because carrying you in that box while pretending I wasn’t destroyed, that has to end.”
He looked down at the container in his hands.
“I’m putting you where you wanted to be…sort of.” His jaw tightened. “I’ll remember how you always knew when I needed you, even when I didn’t say it. I’ll remember the good parts. And I forgive the rest. But I need you to be at peace now. And I need to be…allowed to live.”
He opened the box.
Inside, the ashes were fine and gray, with fragments of white. The last physical remnants of a woman who had sung and laughed and suffered and loved.
Kieran tipped the box forward.
The ashes caught the wind and scattered across the water, some drifting down to the foam, some lifting up toward the horizon, like dust. Like stars.
He watched them go, dissolving into the ocean she’d loved. Gray swirls that the waves quickly claimed. Others taken by the wind, dispersing into the gathering dark.
Gone.
He held the empty box, watching the last traces disappear.
His hands were steady. His breathing was even.
And only then did Rory’s hand settle warm on his shoulder, his solid presence stepping up behind him, wrapping one arm carefully across Kieran’s chest.
Rory didn’t say anything or offer platitudes. He just grounded Kieran while the ocean took his mom home.
They stayed there. The water lapping. The stars emerging overhead. The weight of grief still there, but somehow less impossible to carry.
Kieran closed his eyes and breathed. The smell of ocean and gardenias. The sound of waves and Rory’s heartbeat against his back.
Finally, Kieran spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Do you think she’s at peace?”
Rory’s arm tightened around him. “Yeah. I do.”
Kieran nodded. Believed it, because Rory said it, and because he needed to.
“Okay,” he breathed out. “Okay.”
They turned together, walking back up the beach. The wreath sat where Rory had placed it on the sand, white petals glowing in the gathering dark.
Kieran bent down and picked it up. Held it, breathing in the sweet, clean scent. Her perfume. Her shampoo. The candles she used to burn in the bathroom.
Then he walked back to the water’s edge and set the wreath gently on the surface.
It floated. The waves caught it, pulling it away from shore. White flowers glowing against the darkening water, a perfect circle of light drifting slowly out to sea.
They watched until they couldn’t see it anymore.
When they finally made their way back to the truck, Kieran’s hand found Rory’s. Their fingers laced together.
“Thank you,” Kieran said as they reached the parking lot. “For…all of it.”
Rory nodded.
Kieran found himself smiling.
They got in the truck. Rory started the engine, and the radio came back to life, a soft and familiar song that neither of them reached to change.
As they pulled out of the parking lot, Kieran looked back once at the beach, at the dark water that now held his mom.
“Goodbye, Diane,” he whispered.
And this time, saying her name didn’t hurt quite so much.