Standing there at the side of the baseball field, I feel my cheeks getting cold from the wind that blow on my tears. Maura looks up at me and cups my cheek with her right hand. "Jane," she whispers.
I shake my head and manage a small smile. "She's not in pain anymore."
Tears well up in Maura's eyes. She shakes her head. "She's not."
"I miss her."
Maura bites her lips and nods. She turns and wraps her arms around my waist as she hides her face into the crook of my neck. "So do I."
"Maur?"
"Hm?"
"I love you."
It's been weeks since we've said it out loud. I know she knows I love her, but we haven't said it. We didn't talk about our feelings. Love is a feeling, so we didn't talk about it. But something changed on that night we spent on the floor. We're in pain now. We're not empty anymore.
"I love you too, Jane."
"We'll get through this."
Maura nods.
"I have no idea how, because the pain is just excruciating. But we'll get through it."
Maura nods again and pulls away to look at me. "Excruciating."
"She's not in pain anymore," I repeat softly. "She's better now."
Maura cries softly and hides her face from the people a few yards away. She nods. "No more cancer."
Tears spill onto my cheeks. I remember when Julia said those words. When the moustache was gone, along with all hope, she asked us where she would go if she died. We told her she would go to a beautiful place.
No more cancer?
No more cancer.
She asked us if we would go with her. We told her no. She said that was for the best, 'cause the world needed us here. Bad guys needed to be caught and dead people needed to be cut-up. It was the last time we shared a laugh with her.
I turn my attention back to the game and smile when I see Hannah hitting second base. She wears Julia's shirt with pride and even though she's not very fast, she's doing it in memory of her best friend. Her best friend who is now just a memory.
No. Not just a memory. A memory. The most amazing, beautiful, most valuable memory in the world. I will treasure the memory of my little girl for the rest of my life. Julia is not just a memory. She's our daughter. She's our child and she always will be. Not just a memory.
We will never see Julia again. But she'll always be a part of our lives. She's a piece or our hearts. A part of us.
We didn't get to see her grow up. But we got eleven years with her. Eleven amazing, beautiful years. It's too short and we wanted many, many more years. But this was all we got. We got eleven years with her. And now Julia is gone. To a better place. No more pain. No more tears. No more cancer. All that is just a memory.