Hearing Melanie’s words.
“What else did she tell you?” My heart pounds in my chest and I barely manage to get the words out.
“It was her who motivated me to start designing for friends. She got me the entrance form for Vanshionista. She asked me to…entice you that night, when Mere was away at her school competition. I—I don’t know what to say, Keith.”
Clementine gets up on her shaky legs and stands in front of Mel’s photo. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes flickering with worry, she asks, “She isn’t…wasn’t very different from me, was she?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
* * *
After dropping Mere at school, Clem and I drive through the streets of Cherrywood.
I loosen my tight grip on the steering wheel and squeeze her hand in mine. “Until yesterday morning, I never believed in such a thing. But today I’m going to a place where you met my dead wife.”
She intertwines her fingers in mine and throws her head back, glancing at the car roof. “On our last call, Em said something to me.”
I take my eyes off the road and search Clem’s face. Her head tilts before her worried gaze meets mine.
“She said you needed all the powers of nature to push you in the path of happiness.”
Fuck! The car swerves before I regain my control on the wheel.
Several moments pass, until I whisper, “Maybe I did.”
When we arrive at the park, Clementine leads me to the same bench where we had lunch last time. But today on that bench sits a pink tulip.
“Tulips are her favorite,” we both say together.
I grab the flower and flop down on the bench. My eyes close as I think about the last time I had bought tulips.
It was two days before her passing.
Melanie is lying on the hospital bed, and when I enter the room, her eyes open. She’s in less pain today, I can see it on her face.
“How is the outside world?” she asks when I change the flowers in the vase by her side.
“Same as ever.”
“Can I say a real shitty, but important thing?”
“Can I stop you from doing anything, Mel?”
“Please don’t put any other flowers on my grave, otherwise I’ll have to haunt you forever.”
My hands still over the day-old tulips as I place them in an empty vase next to the television. “That’s not at all funny.”
“I told you it was a shitty thing. But do you promise?”
I peer at her and it takes me a while to form an answer. “I don’t know, Mel. Maybe, I would just do that. I’d want you to visit me, stay with me in any way you can.”
Her eyes rivet to my hard face when her comment is not received as she intended. “You cannot mean that, Keith.”
“Try me!” I cross my arms over my chest, ready to prove how much I mean it.
But when she holds her hand out to me, as always, I grab it. “Promise me, Keith, you’ll find a way to be happy.”
“That seems impossible.”