Page 104 of Falling Like Stars

Dr. Baldwin pulls me to my feet, and I’m engulfed in her hug. It’s every bit as warm, comforting—motherly—as I imagined and then some. I cling to her, my tears dampening the shoulder of her silk blouse. She strokes my hair and murmurs soothing things in my ear until I’m able to pull myself together. Then I slump back into the chair while she gets me more tissues and a glass of water.

She sits across from me. “How does that feel? That reframe?”

I look to her, my voice raw and hoarse. “I feel like I can breathe. For the first time in years, I can breathe and just…be. Live my life without an asterisk. I’m not done yet, I know. But I have something impossibly good in Zach and I’m going to love him better now and maybe stop questioning that I deserve this happiness.”

“That is the best thing I could hear, Rowan,” Dr. Baldwin says. “But you’re right, the work’s not done.”

“No, there’s something I have to do.”

It’s a beautiful late afternoon by the time I arrive at Griffin Park Cemetery. I walk a familiar path, up a small hill, past rows of gravestones. Some with fresh flowers, some with wilted flowers, some with none at all. I carry sunflowers, Josh’s favorite.

Carol Bennett is already at Josh’s grave, sitting in one of two fold-out chairs. As usual, the other is reserved for me. She’s wearing pants, sneakers, and a pink sweater. A fresh bouquet of sunflowers is already laid over Josh’s grave.

Usually, for these visits, we chat about my on-hold life, running errands on movie sets, and doing little else. And we talk about her fractured life, one that carries on but is damaged, taped together with the flimsiest of adhesives.

She doesn’t look at me as I approach, lay my flowers, and take the seat beside her.

“Hi, Mrs. Bennett.”

“Rowan,” she says.

I suck in a breath. “I’m really sorry I—”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she says. “I understand. Finally, after all these years, I understand. I’ve not been fair to you.”

I sit back in the chair. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

She nods, her eyes on her son’s grave—his name and the dates. A beginning and an end with a dash of life in between.

“I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself,” Carol says. “Asking for help when you think the problem can never be fixed feels pointless, but Graham saw what I couldn’t see.” She looks at me now. “I know that you’ve been wanting—needing—to move on, to live your life, and I’ve been like an anchor, holding you back. I could feel you start to go, so I grabbed onto your ankle, dragging you down as you tried to take even one step forward.”

“It’s not just you, Carol,” I say. “I had a lot of stuff to work through before I felt like I could move.”

“But I was no help.” She sighs. “When you didn’t answer my texts and stopped visiting, I was upset. Because when you lose a child, one of the things they don’t tell you is that the speed at which the world moves on will give you whiplash. It feels like a slap in the face. But it’s impossible to ask for it to stop spinning and give you a moment to catch a breath, even if you so badly need it to. And so you watch everyone else pick up and carry on, but you just can’t. Nothing will ever be the same. There’s not only the pain of his absence but the absence of a future. Josh’s future and mine as his mother, as the grandmother to his children.”

Carol dabs her eye.

“I thought I had a partner in you, Rowan. Both of us mourning him so completely, we couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let you go but I will. You should be able to live your life and love again, have your own children if you want them. I’m not going to get in the way of that.”

“Thank you,” I say, and feel another heavy weight lift off my heart. “But I’m not walking away. There’s a part of me that will always love Josh. He’s the one who taught me how. He cracked open my brittle heart when I wanted the rest of the world to keep out. I’ll see you again, Mrs. Bennett, and we’ll come here and remember him. He isn’t going to be forgotten.”

“Thank you, Rowan. That is the best gift I could ever receive.”

She reaches her hand out to me, and I take it, and we sit like that for a long time. Until a light breeze wafts over us, carrying a blue butterfly. It alights on Josh’s headstone.

“Oh, look at that,” his mother says. “Isn’t that lovely?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

MY PRIVATE JET lands at the Miami airport, and a car service is waiting to take me to the Four Seasons where Eva is staying in one of their suites. I’m wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a lightweight jacket that’s too much for the Miami heat. At Eva’s door, I check my phone and tuck it into the inside top pocket, then mentally brace myself.

Like willingly walking into a cyclone.

I knock.

“Come in, Zach.”

She sounds cheerful. Unbothered. I grit my teeth and open the door.

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