Page 9 of Dancing With Redemption

“It’s so good to see you. How are you?” He beamed at Roxie as he set the plates down on their table and stared at her in amazement. “You look great.”

“Thanks.” Roxie felt her cheeks going red and ducked her head down. Her fingers brushed at the back of her neck, before she finally looked back up at him. “I’m good, how are you?”

“Great, even better to know you’ve come back. What a day! It’s not even lunchtime yet and my day has been made. I’ll let you eat. Enjoy it, girls.” Mr. Parker moved away with a small wave and June grinned at Roxie.

“I knew he’d be excited to see you.” June’s brown eyes gleamed with tears, but she blinked them away. “He asked about you for the longest time, but then he stopped one day. I guess it was painful and he knew it.”

“I’m sorry,” Roxie said, feeling the sorrow she expressed. “I guess I didn’t know what I meant to everyone here.”

“You meant a lot to a lot of people. You still do. Now, let’s eat and not start off a crying jag again, alright?”

“Yep, sounds like a plan.” Roxie picked up her fork and dug in.

The taste of pancakes covered in fresh-cut strawberries and maple syrup was too much to resist and Roxie ate everything on her plate. “These are as good as I remember.”

It was even better than the treat Lincoln had brought to her as a surprise, but that was only because this plate of food was fresh. Roxie would have told June about that surprise, but it was personal, a moment she’d shared with Lincoln that she didn’t want to share with anyone else but him. And right now, she didn’t want to think about him at all, so it was time to do something else.

“Has your dad pinged you?” Roxie asked, prompting June to look at her phone.

“Not yet, no. Shall I drive you over there now? I’ll have to head in to work after, but we can fit a quick trip in. If that’s alright?” June looked kind of like she’d said something wrong, but Roxie waved it off.

“I know you’re busy, June. I can get a cab over and back to the house if you need me to?” Roxie offered, not wanting June to feel guilty.

“No, it’s fine, I think,” June said, but her smile was tight. June would never admit she was inwardly panicking about being on time, but Roxie knew her friend, even if ten years had passed.

She’d be quick at the cemetery, then, to make sure June got to work on time. Only, she didn’t anticipate how seeing the gravestone would make her feel. As she looked down at her mother and father’s names on the single headstone in the sprawling cemetery, grief surged to life.

It came over her like a heart-wrenching tidal wave, nearly knocking her to her knees. She’d grieved over the years, in bursts, when she had time, but nothing like this. It was like a dam bursting, and it was all she could do to breathe in and out.

“Oh, Roxie, I’m so sorry.” June embraced Roxie in a tight hug. Roxie wrapped her arms around June’s small waist and tried to stop the outflow. Nothing worked though, no matter how hard she tried to swallow the tears. Time ticked by and Roxie eventually pulled away, to tell her friend to get to work, despite the grief that still stung at the old wound as though it were still new and raw.

“I think I want to stay here for a while, if that’s okay? I’ll walk back into town and catch a cab. No, really, go to work, I’ll be fine.” Roxie stopped June’s protests with a frown. “I need some time here, more than I thought. You get off to work. Really.”

“I don’t like this, but I do have patients I need to check on this morning. Here, take this phone, it’s a spare I keep for personal use.” June dug around in her phone until she pulled out an older generation iPhone. “It’s been off, but it’s charged, so you’ll be good to go. There’s a number for the local taxi in there.”

“Thanks, June. I appreciate it.” Roxie dropped the phone in her bag and grabbed a tissue. “I’ll be fine. Go on.”

“Okay, I’ll buzz you later.” June looked around, maybe for someone to stay with Roxie, but the place was empty at this time of day, except for a small funeral taking place at the other end of the cemetery, so far away that Roxie could barely see the people standing around an open grave.

“That’s fine.” Roxie leaned over, kissed June’s cheek, and then shooed her away. “Go on now.”

“See you later.” June waved, then turned to walk away. Roxie watched, saw June turn back, and waved at her to tell her to go one more time.

Finally, she was alone with her parents, well, as alone as you could be with a cemetery as full as this one. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to find you two.”

Roxie sank down to the ground and traced the letters on the gravestone. One line underneath their names nearly tore Roxie’s heart open.

We will always miss you, Chloe.

They were loved and respected. Roxie knew that because Dr. Bennet had made sure their wishes were respected. They must have chosen that sentence knowing that she would come back to them one day, here, without them in the real world. Of all of their accomplishments in life, of all the things they could have boasted about on their gravestone, they’d chosen to let their daughter, and the world, know that she was loved just as much as they were.

Tears streamed out of her eyes and her nose was running, but the deep sobs of grief had passed. “You have a granddaughter, you know? Her name is Lily and she’s so beautiful and smart. Like her dad in many ways, but so many things about her remind me of you two as well.”

Roxie paused, pulling her lips in to try to stop another sob. “You know her dad, Lincoln Young. We made her together, on the night you died. I didn’t know what to do, I was so afraid, but she was this spark that I couldn’t get rid of. I wondered when Dr. Bennet told me that I’d been accepted into the Paris Ballet Academy if I’d have chosen differently when it came to her, but now? Now, I know I’d have kept her. I needed a part of you two with me, and she is that. A part of you, me, and her dad. I think I made the right choice, knowing what I do now.”

Roxie brushed at her face with another tissue and tried to smile. “This is kind of strange, talking to you like this, but I think you can hear me. I hope you can anyway. I know you two were wrapped up in each other, but despite that, you still made me feel loved and I miss that so much. I haven’t allowed myself to think about it really, because it hurts so much, what happened to you. But I want you to know, I haven’t wasted my life. It hasn’t turned out the way I planned for it to, but it hasn’t been wasted. And I won’t ever waste a moment of it, I promise you that. I’ll find the people responsible for your deaths, somehow, and I’ll make sure they pay.”

The one-sided conversation had gone a little dark there, but it wasn’t like anyone was around to hear her. Roxie heard a twig snap and looked around. There wasn’t anyone about, not that she could see, so she put it down to a cat or squirrel.

“I’ll make sure you two are always proud of me, no matter what I do with my life,” she said at last, and got up from the ground. “I’ll come back before I go back to Myrtle Beach.”

She touched the gravestone and held her fingers there for a lingering moment. It was as near to her parents as she’d ever get again. She wanted to hold onto them for just a moment longer.