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Suddenly he was on their porch. He looked up and there she was, smiling at him, looking the same as she had months before. He had thought then she was the most beautiful thing in God’s creation, and he thought it now.
“Abbie, what is happening?”
Her smile turned sad as she studied him.
“We’re saying good-bye. I think.”
He could feel a sob stuck in his throat as she joined him on the swing. She sat closer to him than she had ever before allowed, and she laced her fingers through his.
“I’m not sure. I can’t move on. You are holding me. Our bond won’t let me go.”
“So come back with me.”
Her eyes were wet. She didn’t look at him. She just rested her head on his shoulder as he wished she had done many times before.
“I can’t. That I’m sure of.”
“What is there for me in a world without you?”
Crane took several moments to compose himself. This was his fault. If he had been better, she needn’t have shouldered so much of their burden on her own. He should have seen it. He should have told her so many things so long ago. How had he been such a coward?
“Next time, you’ll be braver,” she said, reading his thoughts.
“Will you go to heaven?”
She faltered. Her head lifted so that her eyes met his. Both were brimming with tears. “I don’t know what’s next. I really don’t know.”
He looked at the angel before him and was certain there was no other place she could end up, after all she had given the world. And him.
“What will it be like, Crane?”
He cleared his throat and smiled. He tried desperately not to cry. “Oh, it will be as beautiful as you are. And everyone you lost will be there, waiting for you. Your mother. The masters Corbin. Mr. Brooks. And no one will ever leave you again.”
She was crying now. Tears full of fear and longing and exhaustion. He wiped them delicately from her face.
“But you won’t be there.” The tremor in her voice hurt him more than anything ever had. He had an irrational impulse to clutch his heart, as if he had been stabbed there.
“Not yet. But soon. Eventually. And if I am to appear there as I was when I was happiest in life—“ He took her face in both hands and kissed her on the head, lingering in her nearness.
“Then I will be exactly the Crane you know, and I will be looking for you.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and all her tears fell at once, leaving streams that he brushed away with his thumbs. She took his hands in hers and held them in her lap.
“I don’t want to leave you. I’m… I’m just so tired, Crane.”
“I know.”
She stood, releasing his hands and crossing the porch. Only then did she turn to look at him. It was time to say farewell, and she couldn’t find the words.
“Can you forgive me, Crane?”
He crossed the porch in two long steps. His arms wrapped around her and his face rested against her neck. He breathed her in. He held her. His partner. His lieutenant. His hope.
“I love you, Abbie.” Their arms tightened around each other. “I want you to rest. This world has taken so much from you. You deserve to rest.”
“I’ll be there when it’s your time. Don’t rush it. But don’t be afraid.”
He pulled away to look at her face one last time, to watch her read his thoughts, to find another way to tell her that she was his everything.
But as soon as he let her go, she was gone.