One, two, three …

“Jim, are you okay?”

… four, five, six …

“Jim?”

… seven, eight, nine …

“Okay, it’s official,” she said. “I’m totally freaking out.”

He held up his forefinger.

… ten, eleven …

“Jim…?”

… twelve.

After a moment of nothing but pure, beautiful silence, he popped his eyes back open and saw only her. “Oh, thank God.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

Drawing her out in the warm spring sunlight, he took her over to the steps and sat her down, exactly where they’d been before. God, he thought, what a long distance they’d traveled, just so they could be here side by side again.

“Jim?”

“You remember when we went by your house last night on my bike?”

She nodded, and brushed her hair back. Her eyes were a complicated mix of sadness and peace. “Yes. And thank you for that. Did I tell you thank you?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“It was good to see my family sleeping so soundly, you know? It gives me a little hope that maybe as time passes—”

“I want you to spend eternity with me.”

The smile he got in return was wide and instantaneous. “Are you asking me to marry you in the immortal sense? Because if you are, my answer is yes.” She leaned in and kissed him on the lips once. Twice. “Very much yes.”

“Even if it means … maybe you don’t see your family?”

“You mean, like, go out west with you?” Sissy took a deep breath. “Well, the truth is, I can’t really see them now, can I. It’s not like I can … be with them. In fact, it’s almost more painful to stick around Caldwell. So yes, even though I can’t believe I’m saying this … yes, I think I would like to get out of town.”

“You sure?”

She fell silent for a while. Then looked at him. “I can get through anything as long as I’m with you.”

For a long moment, he memorized her face, from the way the afternoon light fell across her forehead and her cheeks, to the beauty of her blue stare, to the curve of the mouth he had kissed for hours.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Close your eyes and hold my hand…”

A big spin, and a second later he said to her, “Now open them up.”

Her lids slowly rose and she recoiled as if the fact that the landscape had completely changed was a shocker. “Where are … is that a castle?”

“Yeah, it is. Come on.”

He pulled her to her feet and led her across the bright green grass of Heaven, steadying her as she craned her neck to look up at the brilliant blue sky.

“This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

Funny, he hadn’t really noticed that … until he’d come here with her.

They came to a stop at the moat that ran all around the ancient fortification, its water so clear that you could see the koi fish that lolled around, their butterfly fins waving back and forth in the invisible currents.

There was a resounding ker-chuck up above and then the rattling of great chain links going through a pulley system.

The bridge across the water came down slowly, as if it were giving them time to reconsider. And he figured he should let her know what they were about to do—except when he glanced over at her, she had tears rolling down her cheeks.

“This is Heaven, isn’t it,” she choked out.

“Yes. Once we cross over … there’s no going back. You’ll have to wait for your family to come to you.”

She brushed her hands over her cheeks. “But I thought I wasn’t allowed.”

“Nigel said you were welcome. You’re pure now—we got the evil out of you. Out of me, too.”

Sissy started to laugh through the crying. “Are you serious? Are you…”

“Yeah.” He smiled down at her. “So what do you say? You want to take the plunge with me?”

She looked up at him. “I love you.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” As the bridge landed with a thunk of heavy weight, he indicated the way over with a gallant hand. “Ladies first.”

Sissy hesitated for a moment. And then all but exploded in laughter and dance, her spirit soaring as she skipped across the ancient, well-worn planks with such joy, she lit him up from the inside, too.

Jim shook his head and had to smile as he took his first step. His second. A third.

This was so not how he had pictured any of it ending, but, man, he’d take this over whatever he could have dreamed up.

Walking steadily a couple of yards behind his woman, he discovered that the farther you went across the bridge, the farther the destination seemed to become, like a funhouse kind of distortion was at work. Except all of a sudden, he looked back and the green grass and the blue sky and the trees seemed a hundred miles away.

Turning around, he—

Stopped dead.

Sissy had slowed … and then halted, too, some kind of lighted fog threatening to eclipse her. With a sudden burst of sheer terror, Jim bolted over the planks to catch up …

Except she wasn’t in any danger.

And in fact, she’d stopped because there was a figure standing in the swirling, thick air in front of her.

A woman.

And Jim knew exactly … who … it … was.

Shutting his eyes, he sagged in his own skin, his bones all but caving in. When he opened his lids again and discovered that the presence was still there, he felt as though he couldn’t walk. And yet he did.

He had to slap his palm over his mouth to keep himself from weeping.

Finally, he, too, was in front of the figure.

Dropping his hand, he said in a choked breath, “Momma.”

His mother was not crying. She was smiling bright as the sun that he and Sissy had left behind … she was smiling, and she was whole and healthy, her body repaired, her hair gleaming, her eyes sparkling.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Jimmy.” With that, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, even though his was the bigger body. “Oh, son … it’s all right. You’re okay … everything is okay.”

He totally. Fucking. Lost. It.

But she held him up off the ground, and Sissy was there as well, stroking his back, supporting him.

And then the most miraculous thing happened.

All at once, all the suffering was gone, all the sadness and the pain was taken from him, and he became light and buoyant as the mist around them.

Easing back, he touched his mother’s face, her shoulders, her hands … just to make sure she was real. And she was.

Then he turned to Sissy and pulled her in against him. “Ah, Momma, this is my Sissy.”

“Hi,” Sissy said offering her hand. “I’m so—”

His mother was just the same as she always had been, pulling Sissy in close and hugging her. “I know you’re separated from your kin, but when you realize this is waiting for them? It makes the distance so much easier to bear.”

For the first time in about thirty years, Jim took a deep, easing breath.

“Come on, you two,” his mom said, falling in on his other side. “Let’s get you settled. You’re going to love it here.”

At his mom’s urging, he and Sissy walked forward into the mist. And as they went along, he glanced over at his woman, giving her a squeeze before kissing her on the mouth—and when she smiled back at him?

Well, now, as they said back home, that was just proof that God truly existed.

“It’s all about love,” his momma was saying. “No matter what side you’re on, it’s all about love.”

Amen, he thought as he entered Heaven with the two people who mattered most to him.

Amen to that.