“Hi, Mama.”
“I always imagined our daughter would have your hair and green eyes,” Jayson whispers.
I close my eyes and picture her. There’s a memory there, and I grab it, forcing it forward. I’m opening a silver star. The same as the ones from my dreams. The same as the ones he gave me. Inside is written: “A daughter who has your eyes and your smile.”
Jayson and I would imagine what Elizabeth Ann would look like, but nothing could have prepared me for this moment, and I burst into ugly tears, overwhelmed at seeing my daughter for the first time.
I stagger forward on shaky legs, the distance between us infinite yet instant all at once. “Oh my god.” I have her in my arms before I can take my next breath. It’s like holding heaven and goodness and sunshine if they were tangible things. I clutch Elizabeth Ann to me, my tears releasing years of sorrow, of love never given, of lullabies never sung. “You are so beautiful,” I rasp into her hair. She smells like jasmine. Like me. “I love you so much, my sweet girl.”
Elizabeth Ann nuzzles her cheek against mine, her skin softer than feather down. “I love you, too, Mama.”
I touch her face, memorizing every detail—the Cupid’s bow of her mouth, the smattering of freckles across her nose—seven just like Jayson—the delicate arch of her eyebrows.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you,” I cry, my heart feeling like it might splinter apart from the pain of knowing I failed her.
“It wasn’t your fault, Mama.”
Her instant forgiveness both annihilates and heals me. “I never got to be your mother.”
Elizabeth Ann cups my tear-ravaged face and kisses me lightly on each cheek. “You have always been my mother. I feel your love every day. I hear your voice and the stories you read to me, the songs you sing. You are always with me.”
Ryder presses to my back, his arms coming around me. I grab hold of his bicep, completing the connection. Me, her, him.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” I’m not able to tear my eyes from the daughter I have loved with all my heart but never got a chance to love in this life. The life that Peter took from us.
“The best parts of you and Jay,” he says, his lips in my hair.
The fairy lights begin to dim, allowing the darkness to creep back in.
“It’s time,” Ryder says, and Elizabeth Ann solemnly nods.
“What? No! Not yet. Just a little while longer,” I plead, refusing to let go, but they slip away from me like smoke.
“I love you, Mama.”
“Always and forever,” Ryder says.
“No! I want more time! Please don’t go!”
Their forms shimmer against the darkness as more shadows take shape around them. Mom. Dad. Hailey. Randy. They’re all here. Every face I have loved. Every precious soul I’ve had to bury.
Grief, sharp and suffocating, geysers out of me in a torrent of heartbreak and tears. “I’m not ready to let go.”
Hailey’s gentle smile caresses my battered heart. “You don’t have to let go to move forward, Lizzie, because we will always be with you, like footprints in the sand.”
Elizabeth Ann turns, and she reaches her hand out, but there’s nothing there, just another shadow not fully formed. “We’ll take care of him, Mama. And when you’re ready, we’ll be right here, waiting for you,” she says.
The familiar words crash into me like lightning.
“I’ll wait until you’re ready. However long it takes. A year or an eternity. I’ll always be standing right there, waiting for you.”
No. No.
Please, no.
Not even God himself would be that cruel.
“No!” I scream to the heavens. “No!” I grip my head and fall to my knees. “No!” I scream so loud and so long that my voice shatters from the pain that erupts out of me.
