She had put her job before her love. Before her happiness. Betrayed Grant and herself. She saw it now. Saw it with the kind of scorching clarity that comes like a storm when it’s too late to take cover. When there’s nothing to be done but face your failing, take the pain, and push on.
Sirens pulled her back into the moment.
They were still miles away, and wailing through the mountains like a tragic anthem.
Sophie started to rise.
At first, she thought it was the light from the rescue party, but it couldn’t be with the sirens still too far out, and besides, this light was coming from the sky. From straight overhead. A blinding luminescence hovering just above the trees. Brighter than anything she’d ever witnessed and yet there was no pain, no urge to look away.
As it descended toward her, she lay back in the snow, still holding Grant’s hand.
Closer and closer, but no fear.
Only mystery and peace as it finally enveloped her in a sphere of pure light which held some component of familiarity that broke her heart.
Where are you going, Grant?
I don’t know yet.
I want to come with you.
It’s not your time.
I want to be with you. I always wanted it, but I was too afraid.
I know. I was too.
I’m so sorry.
Have no regret.
Please. I see now. I see everything.
There’s still time for us. This is not the end.
She blinked and the light was gone.
Sophie sat up.
She was alone in the forest and her heart was pounding.
That rush of euphoric joy was fading, and she was still holding her partner’s cold hand. Time had passed—more than felt right. Up the mountainside, she could see the schizophrenic flashing of the light bars, and there were EMTs and lawmen halfway down the hill.
Already she could feel Sophie-the-skeptic muscling in to discredit what she had just experienced, to undermine it, to subject it to the rigid empiricist that had governed her life up to this moment.
And her first instinct was to listen, to carry on as before.
What has your lack of faith ever done but cause you pain and keep you from the man you love?
No.
Something had happened in these trees.
Something beyond her experience.
Something magic.
She could choose to believe.
EPILOGUE
Paige is dying.
Paige is five, chewing a piece of spearmint gum.
He’s in the CR-V.
His father’s ‘74 Impala.
It’s day.
Night.
“Pay attention, guys, you’ll remember this game one day.”
The guardrail rushes toward them through the fog.
The play-by-play announcer says, “The crowd will tell you what happens.”
Paige says, “Daddy?”
Paige moans, “Daddy?”
“Oh shit.”
The engine revving.
Grant bracing, realizing neither he nor Paige is buckled in and wondering does it even matter at this point.
Jim says, “Everything will be—”
Straight through.
The engine redlines, goes silent.
Grant can hear the tires spinning underneath him. He and Paige lift off the seat and his head bangs into the ceiling as they plummet. The urge to hold onto something is overpowering, but he just squeezes Paige, her eyes gone wide.
Don’t be scared, Paige.
But I am.
I won’t let anything happen to you.
You promise?
I promise.
Swear.
I swear to you, Paige. I’ll protect you.
Through the windshield, the white mountainside is screaming toward the front of the car which is now pitched earthward, nothing but g-force pinning Grant to his seat.
He looks down into his sister’s eyes a half second before they hit.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Paige.
Just like me?
Just like you. And she had an older brother named Grant.
Just like you.
Yes, just like me.
Did they have parents?
No. Paige and Grant lived in a beautiful house all by themselves, and they were very brave.
The sound of metal crumpling.
The shock of snow tearing into the car.
Grant, still clutching Paige, accelerating through the windshield.
And then he is outside, the car flipping beneath him down the hillside in a spray of snow and safety glass.
Paige no longer in his arms and still he’s climbing skyward, as high as the tree tops now, the forest falling away beneath him.
The light starts as a pinprick, peeking through the forest below.
It begins to grow.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Consuming everything it touches like a fire burning its way through the center of a movie screen. The trees and the fog and the SUV still cartwheeling down the mountain all disappear into its edges, and it seems to Grant that the world is just a shroud for this blinding molten light behind it.
Except for one thing.
Her.
She is below him, crying in the snow.
He is being pulled, but he resists, fighting to descend.
And then he is with her.
The most sensual moment of his existence.
Effortless communication.
Mind to mind.
There is not enough time, but he makes every word, every second count.
He is ripped away.
And then...
Dad? Are you there?
I’m here.
It’s so bright.
Don’t close your eyes. Look right at it. No matter what.
I can’t feel anything.
That will pass. Just keep watching.
The light is everywhere and it touches everything. He feels his body blown away from him like sand. Old and new pain leaving.
The light begins to splinter. To condense into pinpoints. Beyond counting.
Are those stars?
It is Paige. Not her voice. But her.
Some of them.
Is that where we’re going?
If you want to. We can go anywhere you want.
Can we see Mom?