Epilogue: Spiritus
It was the day Haley's headstone was to be put in, replacing the little green marker with her name, as if she were a houseplant or a garden row.
Jack was with Jessica. Hotch had only been able to bring him once since Haley had died, and that was for the funeral. He'd have to bring him again, but not today.
When he got the headstone ordered, he'd taken Rossi. Jessica had been with Jack then, too. But Rossi had simply showed up and gone with him.
There was a rose on it, underneath her name. And then the traditional 'Beloved Wife and Mother'. And a quote, from Haley's poetry book.
"Know that you were loved utmost."
He suspected the hand of heavy-drinking contemporaries of Lord Byron were responsible for that. Or a postwar German who came of age in the fifties and sixties. Possibly, and most likely, it was something Haley had written when her aunt died last year.
He could see himself tending that headstone until he was old, more married and faithful in her death then in her life. He would pull back weeds and plant her favorite flowers-violets, Shasta daisies. Jack would join him for a time, but then he would grow older, and rather be with friends then at his mother's grave. And Hotch would tend it himself, until he was bent and buried next to her. And then Jack would tend their graves.
"Don't live for death, Aaron," Rossi had warned him after her stone had been ordered. "Make sure you live for life, too."
"I won't ignore Jack, Dave," and Dave had shaken his head, convinced Aaron hadn't heard him.
He had. He knew he'd have to move on. But not yet.
Author's Note: I apologize for the horrible poem in Chapter Five. I wrote that. Myself. Because I couldn't find one expressing what I wanted. Please review, I love them!