“I’ve been saving this for your birthday, Cupid. But I’ll leave it here, and you can wear it in heaven.”
Warrose places a hand on her shoulder as he towers behind her. Off his weapon’s belt is a golden sword, glinting in the sunlight.
“And for all the times you told me you deserved to be a knight of Vexamen because your muscles were bigger than mine…” Warrose lowers the sword to his casket.
“And because you knew how to pick a lock which made you smarter than us,” Ruth adds, cheeks wet and rosy yet chuckling along with the rest of us.
Chekiss approaches the daunting space with a cane and a heavy, wide book.
“I know you used to accuse me of favoring Skylenna and calling you a little shithead behind your back—and I did.” We laugh, and I know that this is what Niles would have wanted. He would have begged us to mourn, yes, but also to laugh. To tease. To remember the good memories too. “But…I also kept all of your accomplishments here, in this book.”
The laughter is gone. As Chekiss’s rough voice cracks, and he cries into his fingers, we all lose it once again.
“The article clippings of you rebuilding the blueprints for a women’s sanctuary. The first photographs I took of you and little Niklaus. The confetti from the Christmas ball you threw. I kept your best moments because you are my proudest moments as a papa, Niles. This is not the first time I’ve had to bury a child. So, my only regret, is that this should be you here—burying me.”
Niklaus does not say a word as he drops a letter on top of the casket, leaning down to graze its glossy finish with his fingers.
I walk straight to Marilynn leaning on Dessin for support. My offering isn’t for Niles.
“In two days, you and Niles would have been married for twenty years. Niles had enlisted my help for three months to help him write these words to surprise you and renew your vows in a ceremony we planned.”
Marilynn closes her eyes and lowers her head, nodding somberly at the dreadful fact that they were days away from celebrating their twenty-year anniversary.
“When you’re ready, you can read it. But it’s between husband and wife.”
I hand her the pristinely folded envelope, wrapped in an adorable pink bow. Marilynn holds it to her chest, as if exposing it to the air will make the pages dissolve in a cloud of dust.
“Thank you, Skylenna.”
I don’t know how much she knew of the prophecy. But I do know Marilynn tried for a long time not to fall in love with the most lovable man in the world. And she failed, despite her greatest efforts.
She must have known enough.
And I cannot imagine a heavier burden than knowing your soulmate was going to die and not being able to stop it.
As Marilynn leaves a delicate kiss on Niles’s vows, I remember something I watched him do after he finished tying the bow. My face cracks a big smile. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that Niles pushed this memory forward to tell his wife. To make her smile one more time.
“If you’re wondering what that smell is, it’s Niles’s cologne. He sprayed it, and said, I quote,my wife needs to get a whiff of my sex appeal thus she will never leave me, and our marital bed shall be iron clad.”
Marilynn and Dessin fall into a fit of laughter. Though her laughs are harmoniously entwined with her distraught whimpers.
I tuck Marilynn into a long hug, feeling Niles’s spirit and his love through her embrace.
“You knew your whole life, didn’t you?” I whisper.
She nods slowly against my shoulder.
“What a burden that must have been.”
“No,” she mutters. “At first, I thought so too, yes. But after falling in love with our golden boy, I was so grateful to know how it all ended. I cherished every second with him, Skylenna. I held each millisecond of his time with me like a coveted holy grail.”
That’s all he wanted too. To be loved and to love someone.
“If you knew, why wouldn’t you do something to warn him?”
I hate that I am even asking that question now at his funeral, but I have to know.
She looks down at our black heels and shakes her head grimly.
