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“Who makes all these dumb rules?” Bunny snarked, her agitation spiking. “Don’t they think it would be somewhat beneficial to have some business continuity up in this place?”
“Upper Management works in mysterious ways,” Connie said loftily, as though she’d made her peace with that a very long time ago.
“So I keep hearing,” Bunny replied, deadpan.
Her mother turned to face her, taking both of Bunny’s hands. “We don’t have much time.”
Bunny studied her mom’s face, suddenly feeling wary. “Aren’t you coming back with me?”
There was a sadness behind the acceptance in Connie’s eyes. “No, hon. I can’t.”
“But why not?” Bunny pushed, feeling the tide of her emotions start to rise. “Death didn’t take you, someone else did!”
“Because my time is done,” she explained, squeezing Bunny’s hands. “Thanks to you, I can move on to where I’m supposed to be.”
Bunny blinked, trying to hold back the tears that were starting to overwhelm her. “Where’s that?”
“Heaven.” Connie smiled through her own tears. “You know I will always love you. And your brother and father. Everything I ever did, I did for y’all.”
“We know that.” Bunny said, her voice breaking.
“Then you know why I can’t come back with you,” Connie told her gently. “My purpose has been filled. That’s what being human is all about.”
“So you’re just staying here?” Bunny asked, confused.
“No. This is Purgatory.”
Bunny swiped her tears away and looked around. It was wall-to-wall white marble. If this wasn’t Heaven, she didn’t know what that would look like. “This isn’t the Purgatory I saw.”
“That’s because you weren’t supposed to be there,” her mother chided gently. “The Soul Dealer took you into his version of Purgatory… suffice to say it’s not the one where most good folk go.”
“We gotta go, Connie.”
Both women turned to look at Mike, who was standing a little ways off. Bunny immediately tightened her grip on her mother’s hands.
“But I’m not ready,” she said to her mom, before pleading with Michael. “Can’t she stay just a little while longer?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said kindly, shaking his head. “This is going to be hard enough to smooth over with Upper Management as it is.”
Connie took a deep breath and then fixed her daughter with a warm smile.
“None of us are ever really ready for anything, Flopsy,” she confessed, reverting to Bunny’s childhood nickname. “That’s what makes life so special. You have to make the most of the time you have.” She pulled Bunny into a hug, squeezing her tightly. Bunny squeezed back, trying to store up the feeling of having her mom’s arms around her so she would be able to remember it until they met again.
“I love you,” she murmured, her cheeks wet with tears.
Connie kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”
And then Bunny’s arms were empty, even though her heart was full. Connie walked across the iridescent marble floor, pausing to press a motherly kiss to Death’s cheek. She murmured something to him that made him smile and say something back. And then the white light above them all intensified to the point where Bunny was forced to close her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was sitting on her couch in her apartment, the sunset streaming in through her living room window.
