CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: EPILOGUE

He sat on a bench, cradling his sleeping daughter. The sun shone through the dark green canopy of the oak trees that filled the park. Long tendrils of moss hung from their branches. Idly, he thought of Selene…how did she fill her days and nights? Had she returned to the military precision of her former life? Did she ever wake with his name on her lips? Had she, even once, wondered about her child?

"She doesn't think of you," said a woman walking by.

"What?" Michael looked up, frowned. "What did you say?"

"I said, she doesn't think of either of you. She won't allow it."

Michael looked back down, studied his shoes. Willed the moment to pass, the roaring in his ears to subside. When the sun again returned to his horizon, he looked up. "How in the hell do you know that? And, I might ask, how did you know what I was thinking?"

The woman sat beside him, pushing her flaming hair behind her ears. "I can tell you the last words your father said the night he died. I can tell you what your great-great-great grandmother was dreaming of on the boat over to Amerika from Ukraine, and how she caught the eye of a boy fresh from the Carpathian Mountains. I can even describe for you the inside of your forefather's castle, what treasures it held nearly seven hundred years ago, son of Corvinus."

Michael sighed. "And next you will tell me that you are a witch or some kind of seer."

She laughed, reached out and touched the toddler's cheek. "Why? You've said it yourself already."

"Ok, let's suppose I believe you. What else can you tell me?"

"I know that you and that little girl on your lap aren't any more human than I am. And I know that a day hasn't gone by since she was born that you don't mourn the loss of her mother. But, you need to let go. She isn't coming back."

"Is there anything that isn't real?" he asked in a tired voice.

"Beg pardon?"

"Witches, fairytales…"

"Werewolves, vampires," she added.

"Look," Michael turned to her. "I can't do this."

"Do what?" she asked gently. "Sit in a park and talk?"

He glanced down at his daughter and then back at the woman beside him. "Yeah."

"Well, then let me tell you other things I see when I look at you. Let me give you some peace."

Michael made a dismissive sound. "Peace?" he muttered.

"You will be a doctor again; you will see a day in which you heal others. You will raise your daughter in this city. You will come to know great, great love and you will pass your capacity for that love on to your daughter. It will be your most precious gift to her."

"And you see all that?"

"I understand that you don't believe me and that's OK. But to answer your question: yes, Dr. Corvin, I can 'see all that' as you put it." She laid a hand on his arm and smiled warmly. Her eyes were the color of sea glass. Her hair was an absolute mutiny of red curls cascading down her back. Tentatively, Michael smiled at her.

Almost four years to that day in Audubon Park, Michael wrote to Selene's attorneys, enclosing a letter to her.

'I am writing to tell you that I think you of every day, he wrote. I watch our daughter grow and know I will never, never regret her or you. I'm not writing this to hurt you or anger you. But I have to say this, this one last time Selene. I have to tell you this. I love you. With everything that I am, I love you. I am also writing to tell you that I am doing what you asked of me. I am moving on. I am letting go of what I had with you. As I know you let the tie that bound us fall from your hands the night our baby was born. There have been times it has hurt so much that I felt I could not breathe or make sense of my life. But a strange thing has happened to me…it hurts less than it did…every day it hurts a little less. I feel you have a right to know what I must now say. I am sharing my life with someone. You have a right to know this because she is raising your child, the child we created together. It is foolish to say she has not tried to replace you, because you made it clear that you had no desire to ever become a mother. Just know I did not make this choice lightly. There are so many things I wish I could say to you, things I want you to know. So I give you this one thing, this one small thing that I know you said you never wanted. Eve. That is your daughter's name. Her name is Eve.'