This epilogue was written to honor those who lost their lives or lost loved ones on 9-11, as well as those whose heroism saved lives that day.
She's always with him when they make this annual pilgrimage, giving him a strength he's come to rely on with a simple touch to his arm. They continue to go the day after, to avoid the crowds, to honor those they'd loved and lost when the world they knew imploded around them, to revere memories as they cling to new life.
But she's not here today, and he misses her.
Their son stands beside him instead, dark curls ruffling in the warmer than usual breeze, his grip steady on his daddy's hand, dark eyes rounded and thoughtful as he attempts to take it all in.
"This is where you met Mama?"
He nods, releasing the child's hand in favor of wrapping his arm around small shoulders. There's more history here than a five year old can ever fathom, but it's hishistory, the story of how he came to be, the place that marks the death of so many but the beginnings of his life
"Yes. This is where we met."
He cannot help but smile at the memory.
"And you were both sad—you and Mama."
He stares ahead at the memorial, into the past, breathing in Septembers gone by.
"We were," he answers. "We were both very sad."
He hears the boys sigh, the sound immediately captured by the breeze and whisked away.
"But you're not sad anymore?"
He kneels down then until the two of them are eye to eye—he and his son—his future gazing into his heart.
"No. We're not sad anymore."
The boy's arms wrap around his neck, and he gathers him to his chest, the now so familiar sensation still no less magical. He picks him up and casts a final glance at the memorial, kissing dark curls that could have all too easily not been a part of his life.
"Let's go see your mother," he states, warmed by the beaming expression that gazes back at him, missing tooth and all. "And let you meet your new sister."
An eager nod is his answer, an extra hug his reward, and he cannot help but marvel at it all, at the fact that he now has two children born out of the ashes—a son conceived in the aftermath of wordless grief and a daughter born on the anniversary of what had nearly destroyed him. Those they lost would approve, he knows this as surely as he knows his own name, but the irony of it does not escape him, nor does the raw beauty of such a fractured miracle.
"Thank you," he whispers to the woman who'd taught him to love, to the man who'd first loved his wife, to all of those who had filled someone's heart until their own had ceased to beat. Then he turns in the opposite direction, carrying one child to meet another, allowing the tears he'd been fighting all morning to run freely into his smile.
