"Mama?" Cosette asked in disbelief. A vision of a blonde-haired woman had been a common occurrence when she was young. Often when she was made to go into the woods to fetch water in the dark, Cosette liked to imagine a lady all in white accompanying her and encouraging her. And now, standing in from of her was this lady. As a child, she thought this lady was an angel sent to protect her, but now she knew it was her mother.

"Cosette, my darling child!" Fantine said, holding out her arms as Cosette ran forth."It is so good to hold you once more. What a young lady you have become!"

Cosette looked at her mother in surprise. "I am very old now. I haven't been a young lady in ages."

"Look at yourself," her mother said, turning her toward the mirror.

Cosette saw not her wrinkles or white hair in the mirror but rather the person she was when she was perhaps 18. "How can this be?" she gasped. When her hair turned white, she had missed her rich chestnut-colored hair.

"I think you return to the age you most want to be, and I think that is the same way you see me, no?" Fantine said, pulling Cosette's hair back.

"I suppose it is nice to not ache after a long walk," Cosette laughed before covering her mouth. "Can anyone hear us?"

"No, it is just us," Fantine said before saying, "Cosette, we must take a journey. Are you ready to leave?"

"I can't leave; Marius would be very concerned to find me missing," she said, looking toward her husband, still asleep.

"I am afraid you have already departed," Fantine said, not quite looking Cosette in the eye.

It dawned on Cosette. "You mean I am already dead?"

Fantine nodded. "This place we are now is where we wait for those we loved the most. When Marius dies, you can be the one to greet him and take him on this journey as well."

Cosette felt tears prick her eyes. It was a bit of a shock to find death not being painful or dramatic. It just happened. Cosette then left her mother and went over to Marius.

"You cannot hear me, Marius, my love, but know that I am waiting for you. I love you with all of my heart." And with those words, she kissed him lightly on his forehead. He shifted a bit, and a slight smile seemed to dawn on his lips. Cosette smiled at the sight. He did this when she kissed him every morning as she was an early riser.

She turned then to her mother and nodded. Without moving, the scene changed. Suddenly it was a small apartment. Cosette felt like she had been here before but really couldn't remember why.

"Come sit," Fantine said, gesturing to the old bed. She produced seemingly out of thin air, a cup of tea and handed it to Cosette. "Do you remember this place?"

Cosette shook her head.

"This was where we lived before I had to go to Montreuil to work," she said, looking at the place fondly. Cosette's face dawned with recognition. "I remember. You always kept wildflowers on the table! And wasn't there a small bird in a cage that would sing in the morning?"

"I cannot believe you remember all that!" Fantine said while sipping her own tea.

Cosette sat down and began to blow on the tea before realizing it didn't need cooling.

"I suppose in Heaven; everything is perfect," she commented.

"Well, in some ways. Heaven is perfect like you might have heard but is a place of reflection and tranquility."

"That sounds pretty nice."

"It is when you see people you haven't seen in a very long time. I missed you so much, my darling girl," Fantine said.

"I missed you too, Mama," Cosette said before feeling a bit antsy.

"What is it, dear?"

"Mama, I must confess, I tried to remember you. I really did! I used to tell my first doll, a rag doll, about you. Oh, goodness, I cannot remember that doll's name, but no matter. I even told Catherine, my porcelain doll that Papa gave me when I first met him, about a lady in white who watched over me. And I thought maybe you were the lady in white, but I really couldn't remember, and that made me so sad that I couldn't remember my own Mama," Cosette said slowly.

"Oh, my darling girl, I wanted you to live the best life you could, and if that meant forgetting me, that would be fine. I wanted you to forget the misery of your early years so badly. I watched you from here, and it broke my heart to see your suffering. As you grew up, I just wanted you to be happy."

"But Mama, how could I forget you? Papa told me all about you in his last letter," and with those words, Cosette nearly lept up. "Mama, what about Papa? Where is he?"

"I suppose I better explain," Fantine said, settling her daughter on the bed again. "You see, in this afterlife, you meet people who impacted your life the most, whether it be good or bad. I do not know this for sure, but I think you will see him. I welcomed him into this place when he passed. I saw your tears, and I don't know if you felt me hold you, but I was there."

"You were there on that awful day?" Cosette asked. "Yes, I thought someone else was there beside Marius, but I never told anyone for fear someone would think me mad."

"I wanted so much to erase that pain," Fantine said.

"So, I will see him? When?"

"I cannot say. I found that once clarity has been achieved with one person, you see the next."

"Mama, if I might ask, who did you see?"

"I saw a few people, but I suppose the one you might care to know about was your father. He was killed by the brother of another girl he had relations with. He was quite furious Felix, your father, went around ruining girls' reputations and especially his sister's and took it upon himself to end the sadness."

Cosette gasped. "That must have been quite awful to see him! Papa told me a man, my father had mistreated you, but he never went into detail."

"Seeing him was quite a shock, I must admit. I was quite angry," then a sly look crossed Fantine's face. "I must confess I did something quite naughty; I threw a vase at him."

"No! You didn't," Cosette said while a giggle escaped her. Her Mama, someone she always imaged with such grace, chucking a vase at someone.

"I speak the truth," Fantine said, laughing as well.

Cosette sat with that fact a moment. Everything her mother told her was re-shaping years of imagined truths. Her Papa never revealed too much in life, nor in his confession, he had given her. She had imagined her mother to be many things, but in the end, she was simply a woman who had faced challenges in her life.

"You're thinking something," Fantine said, tipping her daughter's face towards her. "Even as a toddler, you were always so pensive and thoughtful."

"Yes, Papa often said he thought me pensive and a little sad. He worried so much for me, and I often wish I was more expressive so I could allay his worries."

"I don't think being thoughtful is bad."

"I suppose not."

"But what were we thinking about? It seemed quite serious."

"Oh, I was just thinking about how you were such a huge presence in my life that I knew nothing about. I made up all sorts of fantasies about you. When I was little, I remembered you better and thought you were cursed by a witch and had to leave me to protect me. That morphed into you being an angel, which I guess you always were. And then, as I got older and my childhood more distant, I knew I had a mother but could not imagine who she might be, and eventually, you disappeared from my mind. It wasn't until Marius asked me about my mother, faint memories emerged of someone carrying me, but I could not say who."

"I see. I am sorry, my child. That must have been confusing and your Papa, bless him, he did not tell you much about me."

"Why, though? Why didn't Papa tell me anything about you? When I first met him, all he said was that my mother was with God," Cosette said a bit angrily. She rarely felt anger with her Papa but the few times she did was when he kept certain truths from her. Some of those truths were for their safety, and she understood that, but truths about her own mother, those were the ones she felt she had a right to.

"Your Papa, he suffered more than you know, and for him, forgetting the past was his way of coping. But that is for him to share."

"I don't think he will," Cosette said so quietly.

"Please grant him grace, and when you see him, implore him to tell you. Now that all is safe and well, he might just open up," Fantine said.

"You're right. It is cruel of me to not give him a chance," Cosette said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each in quiet contemplation. But Fantine broke the silence."I know it was hard for you not to know me. I wish you had known something about me. I knew when I lay dying that we would never meet again, and I had hoped so much that you knew I loved you."

"That I did know! Papa always told me you loved me and that you probably loved me more than him," Cosette said, brightening up.

Fantine laughed. "That might be questionable. When I welcomed him, all he could talk about was you. I thought he would run out of words, but no, he never did."

"So, it is really true," Cosette said happily.

"What do you mean?"

"You always loved me," Cosette said.

"Yes. Always. Every moment I was alive, I thought of you. I worried about you. My last words were about how much I loved you. When I was here, I wasn't always able to see where you were, and in those moments, I thought of you. But when I could see you, by some miracle, I always told you that I loved you even though you could never hear me. I even had a small locket with a small curl of your hair. I sold that locket, but I still kept that tiny lock of hair."

"Oh, Mama," Cosette said, embracing Fantine.

"Did you often worry? Worry, I mean that I did not love you?"

"Yes, and I am ashamed to admit that," Cosette said. "Yes, Papa told me you loved me, but something deep down gnawed at me and made me wonder if Papa was just trying to protect me as he so often did. I worried Madame's words were true. She often told me that you dumped me so you could have a better life. I knew logically that was a lie, and Papa said as much. But I did worry."

"My darling. That family was wicked and evil. I never knew their cruelty, or else I would have fetched you and brought you to the city. By then, you would have been old enough to keep out of trouble. I am so sorry that I put you in the same place as those people, which is a regret I have carried these many years. But you are safe now," Fantine said, kissing her daughter's forehead. "But know you know. I never stopped loving you for even a moment. And you mustn't feel ashamed. I can only imagine how hard it was to never know."

"I forgive you! I never blamed you! Even with Madame's words, I remember you kissing me, and I thought no mother would do that if she truly despised her child. No, I suppose deep down I knew you never meant to leave me," Cosette considered. Fantine nodded, relieved that her daughter did not harbor hidden animosity. "Papa and I would often walk together through the gardens, and I would see mothers with their daughters, and I often wondered what you looked like. The mothers and daughters always shared something similar, and I would spend hours looking in my tiny looking glass to try and find you, and it would seem we do look alike!"

"Yes, of course! Your hair is brown, no doubt Felix's doing, but we have the same eyes," Fantine said.

Cosette sighed. It was nice to know that her doubts were cleared. That her Mama always loved her and that she had no reason to feel shame for years of wondering. She thought herself wicked for harboring questions about her mother's love's authenticity and thought she must be the worst daughter in the world to wonder such thoughts.

"Cosette?"

"Yes, Mama?"

"I believe our time is nearing its end," Fantine said.

"No! It can't be! I only just started talking to you! If this is heaven, surely we can have more time!" Cosette said, panicking.

"Shhh, shh, my love," Fantine said calmly. "You will see me again, but you have seemingly learned what you needed to with me."

"That cannot be! How could I have reflected on anything in such a short time," Cosette said.

"I think you have, thought what it was I cannot say," Fantine mused.

"But I will see you again?" Cosette asked.

"Yes, this I can promise. Heaven is about tranquility like I said before. But before that, we must come to peace with those things that bothered us in life. But you have another to meet. But we will see each other again."

Just like that, the scene dissolved. Before Cosette could put her teacup down, she was now in a courtyard where several establishments faced a central yard.

"Mama?" Cosette asked, worried as she turned around. Behind her was not her mother but the entrance to the courtyard. It didn't take long for her to realize where she was. She was at the inn her mother left her all those years ago. A wave of fear washed over her. It was a place Papa had told her she would never see again.

"Cosette?" a voice asked behind her. The voice was smoky, and as Cosette turned, she saw her.

"Eponine?"