The day was sunny earlier, but now the sky is lead gray, threatening rain. The wind buffeted the truck as we drove here, but Loreena didn’t seem to mind. She isn’t in a somber mood.
I walk around the truck and open her door for her, taking her hand to help her step out. A year and a half after she first tried to go outside, she does it with apparent ease now. She might never be fully comfortable and there might always be a split second of panic or a moment of hesitation. Most people wouldn’t notice, but of course I do. I know this woman better than I know myself. She’s my twin flame, the other half of my soul.
Her blue eyes sparkle as I wrap an arm around her waist. She has a large bouquet of flowers clutched in one hand, holding onto it reverently.
The wind tugs a few strands of hair out of her braid, whipping them around her face and presses her long cotton dress against her body. She’s not wearing a sweater or a jacket, since the day was sweltering earlier. I pull her tighter into my body and she turns to give me the soft, sweet smile that she saves just for me. It’s never going to fail to make my heart flutter madly.
We walk the little sidewalk into the graveyard and take the first right, into the newer section. We head past the impressive sculptures and stop in front of a plain black granite headstone.
Loreena sighs softly as she bends down and sets the flowers on top of the small grave. Miranda didn’t want anything fancy. She asked that most of her funds go to charity, with only the smallest amount possible to cover funeral and burial costs.
Within ten days of our visit, she called us and told us that she’d like to come to Hart. The old ladies banded together and helped Loreena arrange everything. It turned out there’s a hospice in Hart run by the most wonderful people. I don’t know who pulled strings to get Miranda a room, but she had her own private space. She never had a shortage of visitors. One of the women from the club went with Loreena every single day to visit Miranda. They made the last few months of her life as comfortable and as beautiful as they could be, and the afternoon she slipped into a deep sleep and passed, the entire room was packed with men and women from the club.
True to her word, Loreena donated all of the money Miranda left her, and every cent from the sale of Miranda’s house to various charities in Seattle and a few in Hart. Sylvie comes out to visit as often as she can, and there were nights when she and Loreena spent hours and hours poring over different options.
Miranda didn’t have a burial plot set aside beside her husband in Seattle. Her son is buried in a different graveyard altogether. She surprised us when she said that she’d like to be buried here in Hart. She’d joked that it would be less work for us, but in reality, I think she just found the same measure of peace here that so many of us have come to know, and she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Loreena stands up and reaches for me. I link our hands together and step close, always her protector and her shield. Even though she really doesn’t need me to be that for heranymore, I think it will always be my first instinct to keep her safe.
She turns into me, sweeping her glistening blue eyes right up to my face. “Thank you,” she whispers, even though we’re alone in the small graveyard. “Thank you for bringing me to Hart, Maverick. Thank you for the life we have, for all our friends, for how treasured I know I am here. Thank you for my freedom, for courage, for always thinking of me. Thank you for never letting me go, even when I was such a mess. Thank you for always seeing me, for knowing me, for your letters, your trust, your kindness, and your heart. I wouldn’t have a home without you. I wouldn’t have a relationship with my family, or—”
I bend and kiss her lips. Not to silence her, but because she doesn’t need to thank me for any of those things. I’d be happy to give them to her a thousand times over. Loving her is the easiest thing in the world, even when it’s hard.
“You once gave me a reason to live,” I tell her, cupping her face in my calloused hands and running my thumbs over the silk of her skin. “Your first letter was that spark of hope and it’s never faded. I was on the brink of disappearing altogether, and you brought me back. You gave me hope. You made me want to stay. There was never any doubt for me that I was always going to love you, in one way or the other. I’m the most blessed man that it’s this way, at your side, as your husband.”
We have our own house in Hart. It’s small, but it’s warm and cozy and it’s full of love and generally also packed full of good friends.
Loreena worked hard to rebuild her relationship with her family. They haven’t put in the effort that I’d like to see, but sometimes, things happen slowly. It’s been about a year sinceshe first reached out and told them that we’d moved her things out of her apartment to Hart, and she broke the news that we were engaged. It was a lot for them to process all at once, but to their credit, they’ve tried to understand that Loreena needed her own private time.
She spends most mornings with her online clients and three times a week in the afternoons, she comes to the clubhouse to help Loretta with the club’s legal work.
I love working together with my partner. Living with her, working with her—every moment I get to spend with her is a blessing and privilege that I’ll never take for granted.
“You’ve helped so many people,” I tell her, drowning in the softness of her gaze. “I know it was Miranda’s money, but it was you and Sylvie and all the women who made it happen.
You’re the bravest woman I know, with the warmest heart and a truly loving soul. You’ll always inspire me, in our worst moments and our best.”
She flushes, as she always does when I give her tender words, or when I hand her a new letter. “My heart,” she says, curling her hands around mine. “My soul. I know you better than I know myself and I know that there isn’t a single part of me that you don’t have knowledge of.
You’re not just my twin flame. You’re the flame that’s going to burn in me eternally. In this life. In death. In anything else that follows.
I’ll know you in any universe, in any time, always. Life is hard, but you’ve given me so much happiness.” She guides my hands from her face, down to her waist, curling into me. She sets ahand on my chest and takes that first step back to the truck. “Let’s go home.”
I fall into step beside her, matching her stride for stride.
Home. We’ve made that a place now, an actual building, a family with the cats, but home for me was Loreena’s first letter, her words reaching out and wrapping around a heart that was forever destined to be hers.
THE END
