Page 232

I nodded weakly, my heart clenching.

“It's where we’re all going to live as soon as you recover. The five of us and Darwin.” His voice broke, his fingers tightening on my face. “It'll be our own private sanctuary in the ocean. When you see it, you won’t ever want to leave. We’ll have the sun on our faces and the water to protect us from aphids.”

“I think I killed all the aphids.”

A sob scratched from his throat, but he cut it off and attempted a smile. “So you did.”

Roark leaned in, one hand on my head, and the other molding over the baby’s back as she slept. “We’ll skinny dip in the water every morning. None of us will wear clothes. Ever.” His brogue rolled thickly, heavy with tears. “Ye won’t be able to keep your eyes off me.”

He successfully molded his lips into a full grin, but it didn’t touch his liquid emerald eyes. He squeezed them shut and pressed his face against the side of mine as he struggled to muffle the keening in his throat.

Michio stared at me with what could only be shock as tears silently rained from his frozen brown eyes. I hoped he was ignoring the wet feel of my blood on his hands and instead was thinking about the yacht and the joy they would find together. As he inched closer, he adjusted the baby to snuggle against my neck, which allowed me to turn my face and kiss her soft, warm cheek.

His face drew nearer to mine, his tone sharp. “Don’t give up, Evie. Don’t you leave us.”

My breaths shallowed, and darkness closed in around me, but I fought it. Fought to keep my eyes open. Fought for another precious moment with my family.

“I’m not afraid,” I whispered, making every breath count. “I’ll always be with you, right here.” I stroked my finger against our daughter’s tiny shoulder. “I’ll always love you.”

We had all lost people we loved. Death had become so ingrained in us it was easy to let it overshadow what was right in front of us. But they held the tiny embodiment of life in their arms. They had never had children so they couldn’t fully understand the magnitude of happiness and love she would bring them. They would discover it soon, and they would wonder how they ever lived without her.

I couldn’t feel her weight on my chest, and my lungs lost their grip on the last of my air. My breath streamed away, acceptance of my fate stealing my fight.

“No.” Jesse said, sternly. “Don’t you dare let go. You’ll fight this. Fucking fight it, Evie!”

The sounds of Roark’s sobbing trembled the air, and Michio’s body rocked against mine, wracked with his misery. With shredded breaths, they demanded I stay awake, pleaded for me to keep my eyes open, their shouts gentling into desperate kisses on my hands and face. When each of their mouths found mine, I tasted the salt of their anguish, and I knew they tasted my good-bye.

I’d given them my mind, my heart, and my body. Staring up at them, with their beautifully strong faces backlit by the rising sun, I sank into darkness.

I was their sunset.

And she was their glorious sunrise.

“Dawn.” I managed one more breath. “Her name is Dawn.”

When Evening fell from the sky,

the ground shook with the sobs of her people.

She left us in darkness.

But from her rivers of blood rose a great star.

She’d given us the sun.

~ Father Roark Molony

Roark

Evie was gone, and the garden sank into a deep terrible silence, except for the shreds of air ripping from the fissure inside me, the empty hole where her soul used to be. I tried to reach for God, my lips numb and straining to find words of prayer, but the only sounds I could form were those of unbearable anguish.

Jesse jumped to his feet and raced to the far side of the garden. “Nooooo! No, Evie, please!”

He swung his arms through the swarm of ladybirds, his bloodshot eyes tracing their path as they flew toward the sky. It was as though they were carrying away her spirit. And ours with it.

“No no no no no.” Jesse dropped to his knees, holding his head in his hands, his body shaking with great, hiccupping sobs. “She’s gone, she’s gone. Oh God, she’s fucking gone.”

The torment inside me hardened into a knot of indescribable hell, sinking like a fiery brick. The agonizing sounds of Jesse’s vocal chords shoved it deeper, twisting and burning in my stomach.

With shaking hands, Michio gathered our baby into his arms and pressed her against my chest. The moment I secured the little bundle in my clumsy hands, he grabbed Evie’s body and dragged her into his lap, his head falling back with the sudden force of his roar. Darwin was right there with him, whining and licking Evie’s pale face, as Michio sobbed and screamed her name until his screams became my own.