Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Eighteen

Now, Spring 2023

"Mom and Dad's doing good, all things considered. He still misses working at the diner, but he has us to keep him busy at home."

I shift my legs, trying to get comfortable with the way I'm sitting on the ground.

"Leann's coming home next month," I continue. "She's trying to get her pitch picked up by Netflix or something. She's very nervous about it, but she's optimistic. She says she knows all the right people. I've read her stuff too, and she's really good!

"I don't think I need to tell you about Cole. He sees you more often than I do. He's Lucy's best friend, did you know? He absolutely adores her. He's such a good uncle. You would've been really proud of him."

There's a reason why I don't visit very often.

It still hurts, nearly three years later. It's the kind of pain that's so unimaginable, one that you'll never be prepared for, but you'll have to live with every day. It's something I know I'll always carry with me.

There are days that I can't even bear to read the names carved on the stone.

I lightly kiss the bouquet of camellias, whispering prayers as I do so before placing them down gently, against the gravestone. I picked the flowers out earlier from the backyard, arranging them quickly but as neatly as I could.

"I miss you, Tony," I say to the flowers. The wind breezes past, my thin but long hair fluttering along.

It'll be three years soon. Three years since my brother's been gone.

What hits me the hardest is the fact that I wasn't with him when he passed. That I wasn't here to hold his hand and say goodbye.

I couldn't even come to the funeral.

It all happened so fast. One moment I was away in another state to get my master's degree, and then the pandemic hit. I'd booked a flight home, thinking the lockdown wasn't gonna last any longer than two weeks. But then the whole country was in complete lockdown, and I couldn't even leave my door, much less the city.

So early in the pandemic, the illness had spread so quickly. My sister-in-law, Kate, who was a dentist, had caught the disease first from her workplace. Tony took care of her when she was sick, and soon, he too fell ill. They died a week apart in the hospital.

I attended the funeral through a phone screen, while lying in bed with grief. My parents were the only ones physically allowed at the funeral. Afterwards, nobody was even allowed to visit the cemetery until well after the virus was somewhat contained. I've been wrecked with guilt every day since.

I get up and blow a kiss to both of their gravestones, placed next to each other. It had been such a blessing to have them properly buried together here, instead of at an unmarked mass grave. Something I'll at least always be thankful for.

Tightening my coat, I walk back toward my car that's parked by the sidewalk. I'll have to take a detour, stopping by at the preschool first since it's almost lunch time.

I arrive almost at the time the morning session is dismissed. I don't even have to wait five minutes before my favorite person on earth comes through the gate, bouncing in her steps.

Like she always does every time she sees me, the first thing she does is hug me. I crouch down so she can throw her arms around my neck instead of my legs, but she protests as I'm about to pick her up.

"No, no pick-up! I'm big now," she says proudly. "I go to school. I'm big!"

"Okay, okay," I let her let go, her little hand grabbing mine to drag me toward my car. "Slow down, pumpkin. The car's not going anywhere."