Chapter 48

Chapter 48 of 48 · 6-minute read

Transiting Chiron Trine Lauren and Jan’s Composite Medium Coeli in Synastry

We stop in front of a pair of graves that share a matching headstone with the surname DULEY carved into grayish-pink granite with beveled edges. The grave on the left is empty, marked by a birthdate, a dash, and a space that will one day be etched into the stone. Below in clean font is Beloved Husband. Above is Stephen. Leaves from a nearby oak cover a Bible verse I know is framed halfway down the granite. The mulch hides the whole of the companion gravestone.

I place the vase of yellow roses between the graves and then empty the large paper cup of water, filling it to the brim. I stand back and admire them.

Jan approves. “Very pretty. They always are.”

“Your favorite.”

I move to the grave on the right and kneel beside it to brush back the layer of leaves from Jan’s name.

“I declare, doodlebug: that tree hates me. Every week, you rake off the leaves with your bare hands, and an hour later, it drops leaves worse than before.”

I bow my head. In spite of the warm sunshine, I shiver.

“Promise me something, kiddo.”

“Anything.”

“Stop visiting my grave. I’m not here. If you must buy flowers every week, take them to a park where you can watch the water and remember me. Leave them on an old woman’s doorstep to cheer her up. Take that trip to Scotland like we always said we would and stand on some grassy hill and shout my name. But don’t come here.”

My throat tightens. “You’re leaving me, aren’t you? Before I can do a ho’oponopono ritual for you.”

“Sweet pea, you don’t need to do your pony ritual for me. It’s time for me to leave, and you know it. Look closely, and you can see.”

I lift my head. Jan in her bright clothes bends over me, but I don’t see energetic bonds of cords or chains or human intestines. Instead, the attachments I see are her arms wrapped around me in a maternal embrace and mine wrapped around her and holding on for dear life. She loosens her embrace, and her arms fall to her sides, but I hang on.

“You stayed with me for five years. Why leave now?” I squeeze my eyes shut and hug her harder.

She chuckles. “Sugarplum, I didn’t stay because I couldn’t let go of you or I needed to hold on. I stayed because you couldn’t let go of me.”

“I-I always thought we’d have time to fix things.”

“And we have. Just not the way you’d thought. I was a mess that last year. My fifth surgery and then that last one. That was hell enough, but I couldn’t always tell what was a real vision and what were my darkest fears. That’s a bad place for a psychic to be. I must have driven you crazy. I didn’t know where you ended and I began, and I stomped all over your boundaries. I said horrible things about Jesse because I saw the end and not all the wonderful years between. It wasn’t my business, but I made it my business out of love for you. And then when I didn’t survive that last surgery, we couldn’t fix it. But I think we’ve fixed it now.”

We have. She’s been there with me and for me through every joy and problem, especially these last few months when I’ve needed a friend the most and felt I couldn’t burden anyone left with what I was going through.

“I’m sorry, Lauren, that I messed things up between us. I lost my best friend because I couldn’t do the one thing you asked me: honor your boundaries. Then I couldn’t move on until I knew the kids and you were safe, and then I couldn’t move on because you were holding on so tight.”

I stare back at her. Have I hurt her, even beyond the grave?

“No, no, stop, Lauren. Don’t think that way. You never let go because you never processed your grief. You never got closure because you married Jesse and had this happy new marriage and then lost a pregnancy, and you just shut down grieving because you couldn’t face it. Anything you had left over, you poured back into Jesse because he was more fragile than you. Like you swept your own grief under the rug. But grief builds on grief. When you lost your Jesse, it brought back all your unprocessed grief with me and with your miscarriage, too. That’s why I’ve seemed so close since Winter Solstice.”

“I-I miss you. I couldn’t imagine a time in my life ever when we wouldn’t be friends. I always thought we’d be friends again, after that last surgery. I-I couldn’t fathom that you were gone.”

“Sweetie, losing people you love, especially your friends who’ve always been by your side, is a rite of passage that begins in middle age and doesn’t stop until the last loved one is gone or you’re gone. All your relationships have a shorter shelf life now. All your relationships, even the very best, will end either with your death or theirs, regardless of how you define them. So you enjoy every minute with them that you can. When you realize you’re not going to have another fifty years with someone, the time you do have is more precious because what used to seem like an infinite resource becomes very finite.”

“I miss you. And I miss Jesse. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Do what you didn’t do five years ago when I didn’t wake up from my last surgery. Think of grief like it’s a puzzle that you have no idea what it’s a picture of, and that picture is how life in this new phase will look. Start by finding the edges so you see the structure. Then find the scenes close to the edges. Maybe a few scenes away from the edges that you can piece together. And then every day, add a few more pieces to the structure you can see until you finally can see the whole picture. You can do that now with both your grief over Jesse and over me. You’ll be okay. I know—I’ve seen it. You have some beautiful surprises ahead. And that baby you lost will come back to you in an unexpected way.”

She grins at me, her face growing brighter until it’s pure white light. I can’t see her lips move, but I can hear her voice.

“You’re not done yet, kiddo. It’s time for new people and new projects in your life. That means forgiving and releasing yourself. Don’t be harder on yourself than you would be if you were releasing your own self in your ritual. Big things are waiting for you.”

“Jan? I’m glad we shared the same timeline. Out of all the times our souls could have walked this planet, I’m glad we got that part right.”

The light from Jan’s face and all around her form grows too bright to look at. I avert my eyes and find myself staring at an oversized acorn in the dirt beside her grave.

“Lauren, my dearest friend, go home and spend time with friends and family tonight. Tomorrow, you start expanding your circle and then your community. Good things await you. And peace. And love. Most of all, love.”

I make a fist around the acorn and hold it to my chest. The blinding light is gone, but the sun pierces the canopy of oaks above me. A breeze shakes the nearest tree, but other than that, it’s eerily quiet.

Only her voice remains, and with the rustle of oak leaves, it whispers, “Good things await you.”

THE END

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The Rites of Passage series wraps up three years later with Rite of Reckoning. As Lauren steps into her full power and everything in her life is harmonious, there’s just one shadow in her past that haunts her. When she visits her hometown, she discovers that the only things her elderly mother can remember are Lauren’s childhood secrets. This time, Lauren must face a very human threat. Will she go to jail for a decades-old murder or will an unlikely ally bring her the peace she’s sought for so long?

The Rite of Reckoning is the gripping conclusion to the Rites of Passage trilogy, blending Gothic suspense, emotional depth, and the triumph of facing one’s shadows.

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