Epilogue - 10 years later

Tess's POV

For years, I've contemplated Life's meaning. What did it all mean anyway? How could something be given as easily as it was taken away?

I remember when I almost died. How that plane hurtled towards the earth and suddenly the earth was on fire. How I lost everything I ever knew. Including the memories of everyone I've ever loved.

But slowly, it comes back. It comes back like the prodigal son, like a runaway child. Some thoughts still escape me at times, and every day Matthew reminds me. Reminds me of how we fell in love and how he will love me until the end of time. He reminds me how he'll remind me even when we're old and gray and withering like autumn leaves.

I think about Life. I think about Death. How I've been minutes away from it, Matthew a fraction of a second. How we've seen too much. How there is too much.

But, moreover, I think about Love. How I find it where I never thought I would. How it makes us so strong and so weak. How some people can give up on it so easily. I would tell them, "Love shouldn't make you give up. It's something you should fight for. You just have to look for it in places you wouldn't expect."

"Mom, what are you thinking about?" Eva asks, sitting next to me on the bench outside in the gardens.

She's grown so much. At fifteen years old, she's proved herself more than any teenager would. Intelligent, gracious, and genuine. She thinks too much, and I'm afraid she got it from me. She's also gotten a little rebellious, sneaking into the gardens late at night when she thinks we've all fallen asleep. The rebellion definitely runs in the family.

"Mom's probably thinking about work and how she'd love a glass of wine," Michael quips. He's sixteen, a little bit of a smart aleck, but one of the kindest people in the world. He is terrified of girls, and much more comfortable with a book and a bow and arrow. In three years, he will have his own Selection.

But none of us like to think about that yet. It makes everyone feel too old. As if we can see Time slipping past our fingers.

"Isn't wine bad for you?" Sebastian asks. Seb was the surprise baby. He was born a year after Matthew woke up from his coma, which makes him nine years old and farther behind his siblings when it comes to age. But it doesn't hold him back from trying to beat his older siblings at anything. Sometimes he wins, and when he doesn't, Michael and Eva are there to comfort him and challenge him again.

"Wine is actually terribly good for you," Matthew says, sprawling on the grass still in his suit. He stares up at the starry sky, like he's counting, but I know inside he's thanking God every day he's alive. "You know, without a little bit of wine, your mom probably would have never even fallen for me."

"NO WAY!" the kids yell, lying next to their father. I wish I had a camera right here, so I could keep this moment forever, because someday my faulty memory will erase it against my own will.

Our kids like to ask about our story, how we got together, how we happened even though it was against the rules. We usually exclude the part about our first drunken kiss, but this time we let them know. We can't keep secrets from our children forever.

But some will stay hidden until they are old enough to understand.

Like why sometimes their mommy has a hard time remembering their childhood memories and why she writes tedious things down. How Matthew's back is riddled with scars and how some days they ache and how some nights they serve as memories in his dreams. How we never really go to the beach, and when we do, Matthew never comes. How their Aunt Eva and Uncle Michael really died. What the country was really like before they were born.

But perhaps for the first time, we now have Time. It can all wait.

I join them on the grass, sandwiching our kids with Matthew on the other end, and all is forgotten.

"Actually," I say, "I was thinking about how Mommy loves all of you. I'm so proud that you guys are growing up to be who you want to be. Never forget that."

We lie like that, staring at the moon, at the stars, until Seb breaks the silence. "Mommy, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Eva laughs. "Yeah, Mom, I don't really think long-lost princess and queen was on that list."

We laugh at that. I consider it for a moment, wondering if I should tell them I wanted to go to college and be a doctor. It's awfully pragmatic for a moment like this.

"I...I wanted to be happy."

Matthew props himself on his elbow and looks at me with the eyes I could drown in forever. "Are you?"

I look at him, really look. The Boy Made of Light who grew up too fast. Whose heart almost literally broke, but maybe it was because it loved too much.

And he looks at me. A girl who ran into too many surprises. A girl who finally learned what it meant to love and to be loved. A girl who knew how to live.

I smile. "I am."

And so Life goes on.

The End