Disclaimer: Go back to Chapter One.
Author's Note: This is an epilogue to the story. It's set up differently though.
Dearest Mother,
Well today was my birthday, and that makes eighteen years since you left this earth. I'm sitting out in the living room, in the chair that faces the wall with Poppa and mine's favorite picture. I sit out here every night; just wondering about you and me and what it would be like if you were here. Poppa has only caught me once down here, and that was a few years ago. I've never taken off that necklace he gave me that day. It's my tangible link to you, just like I am to Poppa.
Everyone at County think that I look just like you. They say that my eyes, and my nose and my mouth are all like yours. The only thing, they tell me, that makes me not your twin is the fact that I have Poppa's dark, thick hair. Dr. Weaver told me once that I have your stubbornness. She told me it was your stubbornness that was the quality that she most admired in you.
Graduation is tomorrow, and I'm graduating valedictorian. My speech is going to be about you. I'm going to talk all about how one event in your life can change it forever. Like when you married Poppa, and when I was born. Only Chuny had heard the speech, and she said that it put into words what all of us have been feeling for the past eighteen years. When I walk across that stage, I know that you'll be with me, because you're always with me.
Chuny has become sort of a mother figure for me. She is someone that I can go to no matter what, and she won't judge me. If I need to talk to a woman about something, I know that I can go to her. She, Abby, who did end up marrying Luka, Deb and Elizabeth, will sometimes invite me to go out clubbing with them. It's like with all of us there, you can be there too. They will tell stories about all the things that you did, and some of them I'm amazed at.
Ella has become a very dear friend to me too. She's twenty-five now, and is getting married this winter. We talk about you and her poppa and what you two might be doing with Lucy at any given point. The both us losing a parent before we could make any memories of them is the bond that holds us together the tightest. My favorite is all of you sitting on the swing looking out on to the field of golden grass, drinking Mai Tai's, and talking about all of us. She asked me to be her maid of honor, and in a few weeks, we are going to go shopping for her wedding gown.
I'm starting pre-med at Harvard this fall. I want to go into emergency pediatrics. When I told Poppa, he just started to laugh. I asked him why, and he told me all about Doug Ross. I promise you that I will not do anything that he pulled, ever. I wish I could have been there to see all of that. Maybe I can do my internship at County. That's were Poppa did his, and he turned out fine. If I recall correctly, you were the one who help teach her, along with Ella's poppa. If I'm lucky, maybe I can get a job in the ER. If I did, wonder if Poppa will become John and I get called Carter.
The clock just chimed out four-thirty, which means that I've been down here for three hours now. The time just seems fly by with warp speed when I think about you. Thinking about you is what keeps me going sometimes. Every night I'm thankful that you come and sing that lullaby to me. It always calms my nerves and gives me courage to face the coming day. When you stroke my hair, it's when I feel the most human, the most alive.
Always and forever,
Arianne Grace