Chapter One
Final Goodbye
A cold blistering wind cuts through the black cashmere coat of the woman standing at the edge of the cemetary. Her blonde hair was scrapped back into a tight bun, and her dark red mouth was pressed into a thin line. A single red rose was clutched in her gloved hands. The gloves, like everything else she wore, were black. It was a day to wear black. Another person in her life had died. Albeit a person she hadn't seen in years. Twenty years to be exact. Twenty long, lonely years.
Small bits of the ministers words drifted over as another gust of wind blows. "..loving father and husband...will be missed..." The woman stiffens a bit, her dark gaze shifts from the minister to the widow, whose shoulders were stooped over as she sobbed. A tall boy stood next to her. A seventeen year old version of his father. The woman didn't have to see his face to know that. The thirteen year old girl cuddled against her mother's side also bore a striking resemblence to her father. The striken looks on their faces credited the minister's words as truth.
The service didn't last long. It was over before it even began. One by one, the mourners filed by the yawning dark hole in the ground, each scooping a handful of dirt to trickle into the grave. The woman looks at the rose in her hand. If she was stronger, braver, she would join them. So many of their lives had been ruined because of her.
Lowering her head as a familiar woman passes, she continues to stare at the rose. What had possessed her to buy it, she doesn't know. The bloom was perfect, blood red in color, almost the exact shade of her lipstick. A single tear drips onto the bloom. She hadn't known she was crying, yet she must be. When she finally has the nerve to look up the cemetary is empty, except for the groundskeepers shoveling dirt into the grave. Her body jerks with each thump as earth covers the coffin.
Not caring that her heels were sinking into the ground, she makes her way toward them. "Would you mind?" She rubs a finger over the velvety petals, smiling sadly. One of the groundskeepers motions for her to do what she needs to do. "Good-bye Alex," she whisphers, pressing a kiss to the bloom before throwing it into the hole. With tears blurring her vision, Isobel Stevens turns her back and walks away from Alex Karev for the last time.
