CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Epilogue
I drove to the cemetery outside Newark to visit my sister one last time.
For fifteen years I had been in a state of perpetual grief, an emotional zombie. I hadn’t realized it until the FBI agent Lucy Kincaid said that Kip had turned his grief into rage and I had turned my grief into a lifestyle.
You have done so much in a short time, Lucy said. Emancipation, graduating from college early, teaching at an impoverished school. Think of what you could do for these kids you love if you were happy yourself.
Rachel’s ghost was with me every day. She never aged, and because she was always eleven I still felt like I was nine, trapped in a grown-up body. I still ate Trix for breakfast and grilled cheese for dinner. I still felt guilty staying up late watching movies and eating in front of the television. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie rated PG-13, let alone a movie rated R. Maybe I never will. But it won’t be because I think I’m nine.
I love teaching, and I know I can be a better teacher if I go to school without the weight of grief and guilt on my heart.
And the first step was letting Rachel go.
I turned and saw a man I’d never met walking toward me with a little girl I feel like I’ve known forever. Carl Sanchez and I had spoken on the phone several times over the last two weeks. He’d prepared Missy for this meeting.
He’d known all along that Missy wasn’t his daughter, but he loved her.
He loved her so much, he was willing to share her. With her biological father.
I turned my back on the headstone and walked across the green lawn. Missy looked like me. More, she looked like Rachel. With dark curls and big blue eyes.
Carl and I shook hands. “Thank you,” I said and he smiled at me.
I squatted in front of Missy. “Hello, Missy. Do you remember me? We talked on the computer.”
She nodded and smiled, her big eyes so round and inquisitive. “I remember you, Daddy.”
Then she hugged me and all the pain I’d ever felt washed away in a river of pure, unconditional love.