Let Me Die in Your Arms

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Falling Embers by Roma Ryan

The two men stood at her gravesite, light drizzle watering the grass and leaving teardrops of rain on their overcoats. They stood, hand-in-hand, silently. It had been a lovely service. Easy had done well by her.

It had been hard for them to speak again, both of them harbored such anger toward the other. Jean blamed René for everything, for turning Liv against her will, for dying and disconnecting from her, for not nurturing her when he was brought back, for not being there at the end to help him find a way to save her. René was still angry with Jean for lying to him and for helping Liv carry out her own suicide. He had insisted, in their numerous arguments, that that's what it was, even though in his heart he knew it wasn't and he knew how much it had hurt Jean to do what he had done. Still, stubborn brothers that they were, they continued the animosity about it until Baby had forced them both to go to Mobile and clean out her beach house together in hopes that they could work through some of this, even if they had to beat each other senseless to do it..

As they had gone through Olivia's things in her house, cleaning it out, taking keepsakes for themselves, sorting through belongings that others might like to have as a remembrance of her, Jean had found a chest in her closet. It was about the size of a hope chest and was somewhat ornately carved with flowers and vines. Taped to the top of it was an envelope that simply said "Jean Claude DuValliere."

"What you find?" René had come with him. It somehow seemed only right that the two of them personally go through her things, the last remnants of her life on earth.

"A letter." Jean's voice broke just a little. "From her." His fingertips traced the words on the front. He knew her handwriting. He turned the envelope over and over in his hands, then stood and went into the kitchen and poured himself a drink. René joined him.

"What she say, frère?"

Jean simply shrugged. He couldn't bring himself to read it just yet. The wounds were still too fresh and deep. He wasn't sure he could handle this right now.

René slipped the envelope away from his brother and cocked his head to one side. Jean nodded. He couldn't read it, but he would allow René to … just in the event there was something important that needed his attention.

René read silently, then poured himself a drink as well, draining it quickly. "She write it when she was sick." He took his brother's hand and led him back into the bedroom to the closet and to the chest.

"René … I don't know that I'm ready for this …" Sadness trimmed his voice. He was going to feel her loss for a very long time and he suddenly wasn't sure at all if he was ready to be going through her things and reading last words left for him.

René nodded but knelt down next to the chest anyway, gently flicking open the latch and opening it. The spectacular fragrance of dried roses filled the room and invited Jean to come and see for himself what was there. The chest was filled with rose petals. Nothing else appeared to be inside. Jean looked at his brother with confusion, his eyes beginning to well with tears.

"They are from you, m'frère. They are from all the roses you gave her. What was it you used to say? 'One rose for every orgasm?'" He tried not to smile, but he could still hear his brother's words saying just that to Olivia and to pretty much every other woman he'd ever been with. "There must be thousands of petals in there, Jean. That's a lot of … roses." René's smile broadened with the memory of how much she enjoyed intimacy with the two of them.

Jean was stunned. Kneeling closer to the chest, he filled his hands with petals and pulled them to his face, inhaling their heady fragrance and somehow feeling Liv herself again. After a few moments he turned back to René and gestured to the letter; there was a hint of a smile on his face. "What does she say?"

René handed him the letter. He didn't think he could read it aloud and wasn't sure Jean or Liv would want him to. He felt a little awkward having read it at all. It was for Jean and Jean alone.

With a slightly trembling hand, Jean unfolded it and began to read, crossing his legs and leaning against the almost full chest.

My dearest Jean,

I know it is difficult for you to understand right now why I made the choice I did, but please try to understand that it is what I wanted. I wanted my place in Heaven. I did not want to leave a soulless body here on earth that could only be a shadowy reflection of me. You have been the love of my life, the one love I waited for and lived for. But now, my life is over and I want nothing of me left behind to complicate that. No matter how much a demon looks like me or could be controlled, no matter how good it might be, it could never truly be me, not my heart and soul, it would only be an echo of who I was.

Though I am gone from you now, my love for you stays with me where I am, happily watching and waiting for you to join me. I'll greet the soul you were and tell him of the wonderful, redeemed soul you have become after death. I'll show him who you are and tell him of the life I had with you because of the choice he made. And I will thank him for it.

M'coeur, inside this chest are the petals from every rose you've given me over our many years together. Please take these petals and bury me with them. Cover my body with them just as you covered me so many, many times. Let me rest in that love and the fragrant remembrance of our life together.

Live long and happily, my love, until we are together again.

Yours eternally,
Olivia

Jean dropped the letter in his lap and stared at his brother, tears running down his face. He understood what she wanted, but he also knew that she was wrong. The soulless body left behind was so much more than a shadow or an echo. She had courage and dignity even beyond what Liv herself had. She had been willing to sacrifice herself so that no one else would be in danger from her, and she had left love and forgiveness behind. In her short existence, she had been extraordinary, just as the living Olivia had been.

Jean folded the note and shoved it into his pocket. He would read it again later, but for now he wanted to see to her other wishes. It was the least he could do for the woman who had meant so much to him for so many years … as well as for the woman who came after her in death.

He and René purchased the casket and placed her ashes inside it, then covered them with the petals. They smiled later that the funeral home might never get the smell of roses out of the room. She was buried in one of the newer cemeteries, near a grove of trees. The headstone was modest but elegant. She'd have liked it. It said:

As they stood there together in silence, Jean reached into his pocket and brought out a small box. It was wrapped only in a deep brown ribbon, about the color of her eyes. He handed it wordlessly to René, who looked at him questioningly as he untied the delicate bow and opened the box. It was empty.

Jean spoke without looking at his brother, staring down instead at the fresh grave covered in fresh roses. "She forgave you, you know. Not just your daughter, but also the woman she was before."

René nodded, then murmured quietly, "I know." He paused for a moment, then continued. "She told me … when … when I was there."

"What?" Jean looked at him, confused. "When you were where?" His hands began to shake slightly and he shoved them deeply into his pockets.

"When … when I was in Heaven. She there, with me. Touched my hand, kissed my cheek, said she forgive me because she knew I did it in love for you." He blinked back tears and felt the rush of love from the memory. "Then she tell me to come back here to you. So, I did."

Jean looked at him in disbelief. "You … you never told me."

René nodded. "I couldn't. Too hard. It still hard to say." He thought for a few moments. "Heaven sure is a pretty place."

Jean took his hands out of his pockets and took René's free hand in them. "You know what is in the box, then."

René smiled and nodded.

"If she can forgive you, then who am I not to? She's right. You did it for love … for me and for her. She's in a happier, safer place now. Both of her." He leaned in toward his brother and kissed him softly. "Let's go home."

They turned and joined hands once again, glancing at the headstone next to hers and exchanging a knowing smile.

"I don't suppose she's very lonely up there, is she?"

"No, cher, she not lonely at all, she all kinds of happy."

As they walked away the rain fell harder, washing the trees, the grass, the mausoleums, even the air. Dirt and dust from the headstones soaked into the grass, leaving the names and epitaphs clear for everyone to see. And on the headstone next to hers, washed clean by the rain, were the words: