Melissa
I stand at the window, long after Jamie has left. It's night but I think I can see the sun coming up, slowly, still hidden, but it comes.
Now that I'm alone I allow myself to cry, too. For Jamie's mother and his brother, but more actually for my own parents. Hearing him talking about his family made me realize once again just how much I have lost – and this time I feel it without self-pity, I just feel the amount of life, of living time that has been destroyed in one second. And it hurts. It hurts so bad that I couldn't even say goodbye to one of them. They're all gone.
Only Alec remains – and Alec's far away. For the thousandth time I tell myself I should go and visit him, even if I have to fake getting along with Clarice. He loves her, he is happy with her, and I am happy when he is. Simple as that. It's a shame that I need a police officer to remind me how important it is to keep your loved ones around you.
Then again, Jamie didn't come as a police officer tonight. He came because he trusted me – maybe not to be all normal, but to be a person who can listen. He thanked my about a thousand times when he left, thinking I had done something for me.
While truly he just did something for me, something very important.
Dawn breaks the morning of Independence Day, and I feel good. And - less independent than ever. Maybe it was a mistake thinking I have to go through this alone. Maybe it is okay to depend on memories, if that's all that is left. In any case I know that I can't be safe and sound without knowing that Alec is, too.
And Jamie. It's stupid, and chances are high he'll avoid me from now on, but I need him to be safe and sound and happy as well. I just hope he'll get over the loss of his brother somehow.
When I find sleep after all, at about nine o'clock, I dream of them – of mom and Mary Reagan sitting next to each other on the plane, instead of me sitting next to mom. I don't know who the man besides my father is – he looks like a mixture of Alec and Jamie. My subconscious isn't creative. I guess it should be Joe. There should be other people on the flight, too, but there are none. There are no empty seats, either. It's just four of them, made for two Samuels and two Reagans. No room left for me on this last trip through the sky that will not end. Though even in my dream I know that I should be thankful, I feel betrayed. And alone. Very alone. I'm flying somewhat over the plane, and I see one of the jet engines starting to smoke. I want to shout and warn somebody but I have no voice. I can't do nothing. My parents die and I can't do nothing against it.
I know this part of the nightmare – for this is what it has become – I dream it regularly. Sometimes I even see Alec dead with them. Blood everywhere, and snow. And silence.
This time instead of Alec I see Joe Reagan lying on the ground, his arms wrapped protectively around his mother – in vain, since she's dead, too. I have a voice now, and a body that aches with horror and grief and the coldness of winter on the mountains, and I'm – not totally alone. At the other end of the wreck I can see someone moving, and without really looking I know who it is. I want him to look at me and hold me and tell me everything's gonna be fine, but I know he won't. Not because he doesn't want to but because right now he can't. It's me who starts to walk towards him, slowly and shakily, but I do. Step after step, and the nightmare loses a bit of its cruelty.
I wake up in the afternoon and go out, through the celebrating city, directly to the cemetery. This is one of the few ways I'm never afraid to go. Seeing my parents, even if only their names engraved on the headstones, reminds me that sooner or later it will end – and I'll see them again.
The dream still sways around me when I reach the graveyard so I don't wonder at first when I read the name "Reagan" on a stone five rows before ours. It's only after I pass the row that I realize both what I have been dreaming and what is reality.
Reality is that there was nobody to comfort me, and from what Jamie told me he didn't get the comfort he needed from his family, either. I try to think about what Alec did directly after the accident, but I don't know it. All I know is that once he learned from our parents' deaths he called our lawyer to make sure everything would go the right ways, very calm and concentrated – and then he left. Without a word he was gone, he didn't visit me, he didn't even attend the funeral. At first I blamed him for it – I really would have needed someone to lean on then, psychical as well as physical.
Now I understand that everyone has his own way to cope with such a loss, and Alec could only run. Till today I couldn't say if he ever has visited their grave. Does it really matter? I know my brother, and mom and dad knew their son. Whatever he does, however he gets on with his life is good.
I really need to see him.
But first I kneel down in front of the headstone of Mary Elizabeth Reagan and thank her – for the love she has had for her children, for fighting so strong, for being there and holding on till all of her family were in the hospital to say goodbye. I don't know if I'm supposed to cry for a woman I never knew, but I do cry a bit. And when I move to Joe I can't help but crying more.
"Your brother really misses you" I tell him, as if he didn't know – up there wherever he might be. "I just hope you know how hard he's trying to make you proud. In any case he loves you, and he will carry you with him wherever he may go. Try to look after him, okay? He's suffered enough. Watch out for him, down there we need people like him. Cops, but… not only. Also just… people. People like Jamie." I realize I'm not really talking to Joe anymore, so I stand up and turn around – to face Jamie.
Jamie
After lunch the family splits up for a short time, tradition as well. Danny and Linda take the boys to Central Park, Erin and Nicky get manicured – a mother-daughter-tradition Erin invented when her marriage started to break up. It was one of the easiest ways to shy John away for hours. Yes, I still blame him for leaving like that. Not everything I talked about to Melissa was good.
Dad and grandpa go fishing, at least they try, and I – I used to spend the day with Sydney. This year I'm alone. Of course, Danny and Dad and even Erin offered me to go with them, but I decline. These hours till dinner belong to parents and their kids, and I… well, I have my dad, but he deserves to be the younger one at least for once. Most of the year I'm not sure who's more mature, Dad or grandpa. I decide to visit mom again – I haven't really had time for her this morning, and during the mass I was so busy with fighting against sleep that I couldn't really concentrate about praying.
As I reach the row where the Reagan's are buried I see a young woman kneeling at our graves. It takes me a moment to realize it's Melissa. She jumps as she sees me.
"I'm so sorry" she stammers, blushing, "I know I shouldn't be here, I was just… I… wasn't stalking you, you've got to believe me."
Stalking? I have to think before I remember why the thought of a stranger following one's every movement occurs to her that quickly. It's completely crazy but when I went to her yesterday I had totally forgotten why we had met in the first place.
"I know you weren't" I say quickly, but I can see she doesn't really believe me. "I shouldn't be here" she says again, "and I wouldn't if I hadn't seen their names on the way."
"On the way?" Once again I realize how few I know about the girl I poured my heart out before. Melissa looks down. "My parents. They died in a plane crash. I was the only one to survive." Her voice is very low and pressed. She's far away from being over it, or was it me stirring it up with my talking? I don't know. But it is obvious she's close to tears – or has just cried – and doesn't want me to see her in tears.
I didn't realize she was so proud.
"I… I better go" she says softly and walks past me, eyes still cast down. At the end of the row she turns around as if to say something, but then doesn't.
I watch her wandering to another row and kneeling down in front of another grave for a long time. Through the wind I think I can hear her cry, and I remember what she told me just a couple of hours ago.
Sometimes when you lost people you love so much it can help to talk about them. Make them remembered by the world, even if it's just few people. It's too heavy to carry those memories alone for all your life.
I say a prayer for mom and then move on to Melissa. She cries but as she looks up and sees me, there's a trace of a smile on her face.
"Do you… do you wanna talk about them?" I ask, unsure how to do this. It seemed so natural yesterday, but now…
Melissa seems to sense my awkwardness. "You don't have to do this" she says gently, "but thank you."
That girl drives me crazy! "But I want to" I protest weakly, and I do my best to stare down her mocking glance. "Talking about my family really helped me yesterday, Melissa. I can't tell you how much. And I want to know about your parents. I really do."
I really do. And I hope she believes me in this. I sit down beside her, waiting to start. She looks at me for a long time.
Melissa
I can't. I can't start talking about my parents all over again, I did it hundreds of times with my therapist, and as often with the doctors, and with the plane company's lawyers… the stories differed a bit, but the main line was the same throughout every version: My parents died, and 43 people died with them. I was left alone to survive, and I have no idea why. All I know is that it isn't right.
But how am I supposed to tell a cop that I feel like I have killed my parents? I bite my lips and shake my head, so wildly that my hair flies around.
"Thank you. But please – just no." I bite my lips even stronger but I can't stop the tears from falling. I see them again, dead faces in the snow, broken limbs lying around me, every wish, every thought, every plan cut off and gone forever.
"Shh, it's okay. It's okay." I don't dare to breathe as Jamie pulls me into an embrace, soft and warm and steady, though I know that if I want to get out he'll release me at once.
Not that I'd ever want this moment to stop.