Instead of cleaning up dinner or helping or wiping down the table even I was given a whiskey and sent out to the front porch last night. It's dark and still warm. An owl is trying to talk to me softly. There's no other sounds. So, so quiet. I hear the door close softly, so even the noise of the boys talking and washing pots and pans and loading the time machine inside doesn't reach me here. Not like it usually does, I hate to tell them but I appreciate the gesture all the same.
Oh. This is really nice.
I take a few minutes to myself.
Just a few, here in the dark. A toast to the ghosts. A glass to the past. A shot for the not. I don't shed any tears, though.
For once.
Why?
I have Cole's sweater, his memories, his friends and his stupid temper that lives on in his brother Caleb, who mellows as he gets old in an intense, passionate and sort of defeatist way, forced to conform to the rules of the Collective or be denied all that he wants. That familial passion is what keeps me from missing Cole.
I have Jacob's ring, his son and his best friends too. I have his memories. I have his faith and I have his future tucked in with my own. I feel like he'll be watching over me for the rest of my life and when the time comes I'll see him again. Maybe there's a heaven. Maybe. I hope there is. There's one right here in this house, that's for sure and if this is actually it then it's enough for me.
