Page 55 of Reaper
“Of course, they lived,” Odin says. “They missed you like crazy. And they were sad, but life has a way of giving you exactly what you need when you need it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Reaper asks.
Odin flicks his wrist, freezing on a picture of Heidi and Hunter standing with a woman in her forties or fifties. My kids are older, and they look happy.
My babies.
“Do you recognize her, Reaper?” Odin asks.
Reaper squints as if that’ll help him figure out who the twins are with. Odin and I watch as he struggles to put the puzzle pieces together, and the moment recognition hits, his eyes light up.
“Erica.”
“Wait a second,” I say, glancing up at him. “Erica as in your daughter?”
“I think so,” Reaper whispers.
“It is Erica,” Odin confirms. “She and her husband, Seth, were foster parents. Heidi and Hunter were placed with them because Jason was deemed an unfit parent. Within a few months, he relinquished his parental rights, and the twins were adopted by Erica and Seth.”
“But, how?” Reaper asks.
“Like I said, life has a way of giving you exactly what you need when you need it. And it doesn’t hurt to have a god pulling a few strings when it’s necessary.”
Reaper whips his head toward Odin. “You made it happen?”
“I gave a few gentle nudges.”
“One thing I don’t get,” I begin. “You’ve shown us what appears to be full lives for Heidi and Hunter. But I’ve only been dead for less than a day. How is that possible?”
“Time is different up here. Minutes and hours here are years and decades there. Heidi and Hunter are now eighty-three. Hunter married and fathered three boys. Those three boys gave him seven grandchildren. Heidi married as well, and she had two sets of twins. Those two boys and two girls gave her and her husband nine grandkids. Between the two of them, your twins have seventeen great-grandbabies.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, and Reaper wipes them away with his thumb.
“Are those happy tears?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Now, we have some decisions to make,” Odin states.
“What decisions?” Reaper asks, stiffening as if waiting for Odin to drop a bomb.
“First, when it’s their time, do you want Heidi and Hunter here in Valhalla with you?”
“Yes.”
Reaper and I answer simultaneously and without hesitation.
“Good. Second, I have the ability to turn back the clock and have them arrive as the six-year-olds you left behind in the human world. Is that something you want, or would you prefer they come as they are?”
Reaper and I exchange a look. “It’s up to you,” he tells me.
“Is it selfish of me to want them as six-year-olds?”
“Absolutely not. You deserve to have a long afterlife with them.”
“Will they age when they get here?” I ask Odin.
“And that’s the third thing. They can, or I can slow the aging process so that they never get older than you.”
