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Verla pulled up a chair to sit beside my bed.
“I’m sorry you had to go through this,” she said softly. “Losing a child is not something I wish upon anyone. I know all too well there’s nothing I can say or do to make this better, but please know that I am here for you. Whatever you need—anything—you let me know. I mean it.”
“It all just happened so fast,” I said without taking my eyes off Marcus. “You’re the only person I know who can understand what Lucas and I are going through.”
“I do,” Verla replied kindly. “When I lost my son, I had no one. At the time, I was so confused, and I didn’t know what to think. I think I had to go through that to know what I was up against, because no one helped me, but now I can help you. I like to think it was meant to happen this way, because your baby Marcus is important, and so are you.”
“Did you ever get clarity?” I asked.
“I don’t know if anyone can provide us all the answers,” Verla admitted. “What I’ve come to learn is that some of us have to die so others get to live. Dean loved his brother even in the womb. That’s how powerful love is. We give ourselves up for the ones we care about.”
“He really did love him,” I agreed.
I paused a beat before adding, “What was your son’s name?”
Verla hesitated, like she wasn’t used to people asking the question. I wasn’t sure she’d ever told anyone, to be honest. It was like his name was sacred, so special and loved. I wasn’t sure she was going to answer.
“Allyn,” she finally said. “He was named after my father.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” I told her. “A beautiful name for a beautiful baby boy.”
Verla turned to Marcus with a sad look in her eyes. I didn’t mean to hurt her with the question, but I understood why it would bother her. One day, someone was going to ask me the same thing, and I could only imagine what it would do to me.
“I know you lost your child, and that's a devastating thing, but you still have Marcus and he's a great blessing,” Verla said. “I know you'll tell him about his brother and never forget about him.”
I was really sad Dean was gone, but at least I had Marcus. Verla didn't have anyone.
I stroked his fingers with my thumb, and Marcus’s fingers curled around mine ever so slightly. My heart melted, and I knew there would never be a greater love than this. “He’s the greatest blessing of all.”
Chapter Twenty-One
LUCAS
The forest was cold and damp as I trudged back toward the house, weighed down by the calamitous gravity of having just buried my newborn son. Losing a child was not a misfortune I wished upon even my worst enemies. Nobody should have to go through something like this.
Our friends had already given Dean a proper goodbye by singing and writing messages in his notebook, but burying him was something I had to do alone. Nadine wasn’t well enough to come with me, and intuitively, I knew she couldn’t watch anyway. I’d snuck outside and hadn’t told anyone what I was doing, because I didn’t want them to follow.
I hadn’t used any tools, but instead, dug my hands into the wet earth in order to make my son’s grave, laying him gently beside Helena. Dean had been given a proper burial right next to her. I liked to think she was with him, watching over him. He deserved to be with family, and his great-grandmother would make sure he didn’t rest alone in those woods.
Thinking like that was the only way to get through this.
An all-consuming numbness took over me somewhere on my way back to the house, because I couldn’t remember walking inside. Brown water swirled down the kitchen drain as I washed the dirt from my hands. I couldn’t process how quickly it had all happened. A few hours ago, Nadine and I were sleeping soundlessly in bed. Now, our whole world had flipped on end.
Talia had said she foresaw a tragic fate no matter what path we traveled. We’d broken the Reaper’s Shadow curse, and Nadine and Marcus had both been saved. But we’d welcomed one baby boy into this world, at the cost of saying goodbye to another. It wasn’t fair, and I cursed all the gods in all the pantheons for allowing such a tragedy to take place.
Nadine hadn’t died, but there was a part of both of us that did when we lost Dean. I could already feel it. None of us would come out of this the same people we were before.
All we could do was keep moving forward, if only for Marcus’s sake. We were parents now, and we had to learn how to be there for him, and not just ourselves.
I only bemoaned the fact that Dean wouldn’t be here to share our new lives with. I didn’t know when the pain was going to stop, when this heaviness in my iron heart was going to lift.
It wasn’t until Dean was in the ground when I’d realized it never would.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I realized I’d been standing over the kitchen sink for Goddess knew how long. The water ran clear, and yet I still felt the need to scrub every inch of my hands. There was no amount of cleansing in the world that could be done to erase the heartbreak of losing a child.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Professor Warren standing there. I didn’t really want company, unless it was Oliver or Nadine, but I didn’t know where Oliver had gone. He must’ve been off sleeping in another area of the house.
Warren shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss.”
