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Green-Wood cemetery was a sprawling, strange space in Brooklyn. Famous people were buried here, but there were also spaces available for people with the money and connections to make it happen.
It was also the final resting place of her sister, Rowan.
Esme hadn’t been here for many, many years. In fact, the last time she’d been here had been at her sister’s funeral. She remembered the day clearly — it was the first funeral she’d ever been to. It was overwhelmingly sad, and she spent the whole day crying.
Today, however, she didn’t feel as though she was going to cry.
She stepped through the entrance arch and was struck by how beautiful this place was. Her folks had spent a huge amount of money finding Rowan a spot. A traditional casket burial would have been too rich, even for their means, so they’d had Rowan cremated first, before finding a smaller plot for her.
Esme kept going over this information in her head. She had done for years, mainly because she was sure that if it had been her to die, her parents wouldn’t have fought hard for a burial in a picturesque cemetery. It was a privilege that only her perfect sister would be offered.
Today though, she didn’t feel angry at her parents. And for the first time, maybe ever, she didn’t feel angry with herself.
She’d planned the route around the cemetery in advance, just like Daddy had taught her to. In the past, she’d have just turned up and hoped that she found the right plot. Not anymore, though. The new Esme didn’t leave anything to chance.
Past ancient tombs and marble mausoleums, past headstones and flowers and countless other symbols of grief. Crosses and rosaries, statuettes of Christ and small, orthodox icons.
It was a far cry from the ritual items that Esme used for her tarot readings, but something about the situation put her in that deep, meditative mood.
Eventually, she found it. A small, unremarkable headstone. She knew that somewhere beneath the earth were her sister’s mortal remains. Just ash, most definitely ‘gone’ now. It was strange to think that the most real, tangible remains of her sister were the memories of her that she still had.
The headstone was green marble, with white veins running through it.
Rowan Adams, 1998-2012. Beloved daughter and sister.
It was almost nothing really. Five words for a whole life.
“Ro,” Esme said, sighing a little as she spoke. “I haven’t visited in a long time. I’m sorry.”
The sun, which had been hidden behind clouds this morning, broke out, casting long shadows behind the gravestones and trees which surrounded them.
“I wanted to come see you because I miss you. When I think about the person you would be today… it just kills me. And I wanted to say sorry. I don’t blame myself for your death anymore. I don’t blame anyone except the man who hit you. But I wanted to say sorry because I haven’t been honoring your life. I’ve been doing nothing, hiding behind fear and self-hatred. I’ve let my talent and ambition shrivel away. But I’m here to say that I’m stopping that now.”
Esme held up her hand to her heart, closing her eyes.
“From this moment on, I’m going to live, Rowan. And you’ll be with me, living inside me, seeing all the wonders that life has to offer. That’s my promise to you.”
As she breathed in and out, she felt warmth, light, forgiveness on the breeze. For a moment, she considered throwing her arms around the gravestone, embracing the piece of rock.
But it was pointless. It wasn’t her sister. Her sister was insideher, wrapped around her heart, beating in time to the rhythm of possibility.
“Rowan,” she said, finally succumbing to tears, “what I wouldn’t give to see your smile one more time.”
Then, across the breeze, she heard something, she was sure of it.
Smile for me.
He’d forgotten just how much like him his brother looked.
When they’d been kids, people had asked if they’d been twins. Course, that used to drive Rainer nuts, seeing as he was the older one. Tuco had loved it.
Now, sitting across from his brother, a pane of safety glass between them, many years later, it wasn’t like looking in a mirror, not at all. It was more like looking through a portal into a parallel universe. If Rainer hadn’t been released from prison, this could well be how his life would have ended up.
Rainer looked at the wrinkles on his brother’s face — so much deeper and more severe than the ones on his. Tuco’s hair was graying even faster than his, and he had facial tattoos — tears and spiders’ webs, as well as Roman numerals that Rainer couldn’t decipher.
Fuck.
It had been years.
