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My heart aches, picturing her sitting all alone in the dark, grieving without anyone there to hold her hand.
“Ame,” I call out when I arrive.
“She’s with her mom,” Linda, one of the nurses, mumbles.
I make my way through the living room and down the hall to the library. The door is ajar. I peer inside.
Ameline sits on the edge of the bed, head in her hands. Her body shakes with muffled sobs.
“Ame, baby, are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbles.
She clings to me desperately, face buried in my chest. I stroke her hair, murmuring words of comfort. Telling her I’m here now. That she’s not alone. I regret leaving her two days ago. Why in the world did I think it was okay to just continue the holiday tradition without Ameline? My family might not understand why I married her, and they might not like that I can’t just spend time with them, but that’s not important. All that matters is Ame.
* * *
The next two days pass in a blur of paperwork and arrangements. Ameline and I meet with the funeral director to discuss options. Cremation seems the simplest choice.
“We can hold a memorial service later, when you’re ready,” I suggest gently as we finalize the paperwork.
Ameline nods, eyes distant. She clutches the urn containing her mother’s ashes carefully in her lap during the entire drive back to our place.
Once home, Ameline places the urn on the mantle with reverence. She steps back and stares at it for a long moment. I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, resting my chin on her shoulder.
“Where am I supposed to put them?”
“Take all the time you need to decide what to do next,” I murmur. “There’s no rush.”
She lets out a shaky breath and whispers, “I think spreading her ashes somewhere special would be nice. But maybe after my surgery. I want to be clearheaded when I choose the place.”
The surgery. In everything that’s happened, I nearly forgot it’s coming up in just a couple of days.
Ameline turns in my arms to face me, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Thank you for being here. For everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I reach to brush away an escaped tear with my thumb. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” I tell her sincerely.
As we stand, I’m struck by the intermingling beauty and fragility that exists between us.
There is something beautiful about our relationship, our love. There’s an unbreakable thread that stretches beyond time and space. Yet at the same time, I am reminded of all the uncertainties and fragility of life—how quickly things can change and how powerless we are against it. Before the ocean danced upon the shore and before the stars took their place in the sky, somehow, we already existed. There was a trace of her and me.
Our souls have been one since the beginning of time—even when life wasn’t created. We were one, and we’re becoming one again. Our connection feels both comforting and daunting all at once. We just need to get through this one last step, her surgery.
We’ll be fine, I remind myself.
It’s almost over and then I’ll spend the rest of our lives making her happy.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Gabriel
As we enter my room, I can feel the tension in the air. Ameline is exhausted, her body aching from the ordeal she’s been through. She looks up at me, her eyes filled with sadness. A sadness I haven’t seen before. My heart almost breaks at the sight of her, and I don’t know how to make this better.
Slowly, I lean in, my lips brushing against hers in a tender caress. She sighs softly, her eyes fluttering closed as she leans into my touch. The kiss deepens, becoming more passionate as our tongues dance together. I groan, feeling her warmth against me. I pull her closer, my hand trailing down her back.
I break the kiss, breathing heavily. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you,” I whisper.
Ameline smiles, her eyes shining with tears. “I know. It seems like a lot has happened since we left Baja, and it was just us and the fantasy of being together,” she responds.
