“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Rodel said to my duck, turning it away from the window.
My shoulders started shaking. I couldn’t contain the great booming laughter that rolled from my mouth. I had been holding it back for too long. Rodel’s face split into a grin. And then we were hunched over the table, laughing until our ribs hurt. Around us, polite patrons held their sandwiches mid-air, watching us like we’d lost our minds.
“No.” I shook my head when the waitress finally got the nerve to come up to our table with a teapot. “Coffee for me.”
I could finally drink the stuff. Nothing else was going to cut it for me now.
Rodel ordered for us and sat back in her chair. “I love when you laugh.” Her voice was soft as she gazed at me. “You know what’s amazing?”
“What?”
“That we’re both sitting here laughing, a year to the day that we lost Mo and Lily.”
Our hands met silently across the table and held, taking comfort in each other.
“I called Sarah today,” I said. We hadn’t talked since Lily’s funeral, but I knew she missed her just as much as I did, and today of all days, I felt the need to reach out to my ex.
“And?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think she’s ever going to forgive me for what happened to Lily.”
Rodel squeezed my hand softly. “People will love you. People will hate you. And it always has more to do with them, than it does with you.”
We sat in comfortable silence, lost in our thoughts, until our food arrived.
On the way home, Rodel nudged me into a newspaper shop. “Let’s go in here.”
Metal signs and fridge magnets hung on the walls. Porcelain dolls were lined up in a glass display case by the cash register.
“I’ll be right back. You look around,” said Rodel, making her way to the back of the store.
I tinkered with the wind chimes while I waited for her.
“Ready!” she announced.
I turned around and froze. Her face was almost lost behind a bouquet of six yellow balloons.
“Do you still keep them in your study?” she asked.
“Some people like to keep flowers in their room. I like yellow balloons.”
“Well, come on then.” She dragged me out by my hand.
“Where are we going?” The sight of her walking down the street like that, reminded me of Lily running ahead of me in the mall, holding her balloons. It did something to my heart.
The banners from the ill-fated duck race hung over us as she led me back to one of the arched stone bridges that spanned the river. The crowds had dispersed, and the river stretched out before us. A few tourists sat on the grassy banks. Beech, willow, and chestnut trees swayed in the summer breeze.
“Here.” Rodel handed me the balloons as we stood on the bridge. “For Lily.”
My throat clogged up as I took them from her. I picked three of the strings out and gave them to her. “For Mo.”
Her eyes turned bright with unshed tears, but she gave me a smile. “Together?”
“Together.”
We let the balloons go and watched them drift away into the sky. It was paradise-blue, infinite and endless.
Something floated up inside me, light as a feather, as the balloons soared higher and higher. Lily’s last words:See you on the other side.
