Page 64 of Absolution

Sixteen

Kerry

I stand outside the university. It’s been settled with the dean and I can pick up where I left off. I have a lot of catching up to do, and I decide to wait with any other commitments. I paid back everything to Evan, everything from when he stole from his company. I know I could keep it, but it makes me sick. I don’t want to see him get hurt, I don’t want to know what he does with the money. I still have savings, but I’m gonna have to look for a paid job soon. Mom has a contact, some old friend of Dad’s. I really do want to work with kids and his wife runs a daycare for children with special needs. It would be perfect. I hope that it will work out. I don’t want to be dependent.

I’ve found a daycare for Cecilia. She’ll be two years old soon and she is very social, very easy to get along with, and very curious about other people. It’s not fair to keep her hidden. I clench up at the thought of not keeping her in my sight at all times. What if Salvatore just takes her? What if she’s gone one day when I come to pick her up? But seven months have passed, and there’s been nothing but silence. I’ve slowly begun to relax, to allow the fear to subside. The only thing that remains as strong as ever is the aching hole her father left in me.

The sky is cloudy, orange-tinged, and the air is humid. There’s talk of a storm rolling in tonight. They come early this year, it’s still spring. I can’t help but smile, thinking about how I’ll sit with a glass of white wine and rest my eyes on the fury of the ocean as the waves pummel the beach.

Twisting the tendrils of hair at my neck, flipping them between my index and middle fingers, I turn the stroller north and start walking along the narrow sidewalk, avoiding the largest cracks in the concrete. My hair is still short, but it has a ragged style to it I like very much, a styled style. I had the hairdresser get rid of the black. They had to dye it red, but it’s close enough to my natural color. I wonder what he would have thought of it.

And I really don’t know why I just wondered that. I have to stop thinking about him. He’s a monster. He helped us, sure, but at his core, he’s like Salvatore, a stone-cold murderer.

I’m so happy I can start studying again. I need it for my sanity, for my mind. I need to feel like I’m doing something. I can’t just drift.

Cece sleeps like a log, her dark hair curled against her forehead in the moist heat. I walk on light feet until I reach the shore where I struggle against the wind for a while before I hail a taxi that takes us home.

*San Francisco*

Christian

She doesn’t know I’m watching her.

She doesn’t flinch when strangers pass too close, and she doesn’t glance over her shoulder time and time again. If she did know I was here, though, she’d know she has nothing to be afraid of.

I really do hope she’d know that.

They are beautiful together. Cecilia has grown since I last saw her. She’s a self-conscious little lady, trotting next to her mother, cute, her dark hair tied into ponytails, bouncing as she runs in circles, jumps, runs back and forth. Just as active as ever. I smile when I see her. I can still recall the feeling of the little body in my arms, fever-hot, still, a heart thumping rapidly. An involuntary shudder passes through me, as always, when I remember how she slid and disappeared over that edge.

I want to touch them.

Them.

Cecilia.

Kerry.

Her hair has grown, it’s back to its beautiful red, and I do believe she’s actually paid for a haircut because she doesn’t look like she ran over herself with the lawnmower anymore. They look happy, relaxed, but I detect a briefly passing haunted look on Kerry’s features from time to time, like an underlying sadness. I can’t imagine why. Everything has turned out for the best for her. As far as she knows I’m dead, she has no need to look over her shoulder anymore. And still… she kind of does.

I should keep away. But I already know I won’t.

I can’t.

---