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She turned to him with her eyes avid. “I knew it. In my heart and mind, I knew it. Because death’s not the end. It’s a new beginning. And when you’re on that next journey, you not only see and hear, you feel.”
Her heart just overflowed with the joy and wonder of it.
“Feeling, that’s the miracle, doll! Because it’s another kind of life. It’s why we let them go, Sam, why we send them home. We’re leading them into that new life.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, I guess.” He looked at her, his eyes filled with admiration. “You’re so deep, babe.”
“We’ll start working on a new one. I think it might be we got more detail because more time had passed since he died, as was meant. More time for him to miss that door we’re opening. For his soul to remember more clearly.”
“Vacation first,” he reminded her.
“Vacation first.” Pleasure had her pressing her hands to her cheeks, wagging her shoulders. “I still can’t believe you did that for me, doll. Four days and three nights in Aruba! You work so hard, and now you’ve spent all that money on me. I’ve never had such a wonderful Christmas present.”
He wanted to give her everything. This trip, their very first together, marked a start.
“We’re going to have a fine time—and out of this winter for a few days. We’ll sit on the beach and drink cocktails with little umbrellas in them.”
“And when our time comes, we’ll never regret we didn’t live this life.”
“Let’s live it some more now.”
Giggling, she went into his arms. As they rolled together, Arthur Rigsby’s terrified face, tears caught on his cheeks, stayed frozen on-screen.
During the month of January, Sloan strapped on snowshoes and handled a mild round trip. She moved up to ten-pound weights, and put back five pounds she’d lost.
When she studied her body, she concluded most of that five pounds was—finally—muscle.
She took and she passed her written exam, and began to prep for her oral interview.
Because she had no way around it, she had three sessions with the department shrink. Reluctance turned to relief before the end of the first session.
It helped, she realized, to talk to someone who wasn’t family, wasn’t connected emotionally. She could admit her frustrations with what felt like a slow recovery without feeling bitchy.
And when she talked about the occasional nightmares and flashbacks, she didn’t feel weak and foolish.
She decided maybe the truth could set you free when after the third session, she was cleared for duty.
When Joel and Sari came for the weekend, she enjoyed every minute they spent together. Then she drove back to Annapolis with them with Sari stroking the baby blanket nearly all the way.
It felt right, it felt good to pack up more of her things, to arrange for movers to bring her furniture.
She walked out of her apartment for the last time with good memories and no regrets.
The drive back to Heron’s Rest in her own car felt like freedom.
The freedom of knowing she’d made the right choice.
She spent the first night in the house that now belonged to her wakeful, but not worried. In time she’d grow familiar with the creaks and sighs of the place, as well as with the views outside her windows. And with the sense of being alone and on her own again.
Twice she got up, just to walk through it all again, to see her furniture where she’d put it, to consider and reconsider changes she’d make over time.
When snow began to fall, she opened her front door just to watch it from her own threshold.
She reported for duty the third week of January, and that fed her mind, her spirit. Light duty at first, standard patrols, reminding those on public land of the rules and enforcing them when necessary.
It felt good to be back in uniform, doing the work.
She took an early call to a vacation cabin adjoining the public land buffer strip in Deep Creek Lake.