Last chapter!
Hope you really liked it.

...
It's over! cries.
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Epilogue:

Grace

Grace was standing at the gates of heaven, staring at the gold wrought iron entrance. You got into Heaven and Hell the same way, through a big shining gate that said abandon all hope. The only difference was Heaven gave you a different hope, while Hell took it all away completely. She stared at the large group of people around here; it reminded her of St. Petersburg, Russia, from the documentary she watched on PBS with her mom when she had the flu; the swarms of people in rags, giving everything away before they started a new life.

“Excuse me?” a woman peered down at Grace, with cloudy eyes, her irises were barely visible. “Can I have your name?”

“Grace Natalie Hault,” Grace said quietly.

“You’re a bit young,” the woman stared as she spoke, as if looking right through her.

“Oh. You don’t have a lot of kids here?” Grace felt crestfallen. She would be all alone.

“No, we have a fair amount of kids, the ones that don’t make it.”

“Oh,” Grace looked up at the woman. “Can I see my mom?”

“Can I get back to you on that?” The woman ushered Grace through the gates and pushed her forward when Grace’s feet refused to move.

“But…” Grace stared at what was in front of her. Clusters of people were all huddled in lines entering door after door. Above her was just white, cloud shaped and fluffy, but no blue sky. She walked forward and found everything as solid as the sidewalk. Even though it looked like cotton candy. No one was dressed in white, no one had wings, but everyone was fading, as if they weren’t all there, as though they had something missing.

“Hi.” Grace looked around to see a girl a bit older then her, with brown hair and a fraying jumper.

“Uh…Hi…”Grace extended her hand and the girl clasped it, it went right through.

“My name’s Emily.”

“I’m Grace Hault.”

“What…did you do, to end up here?” Emily asked, jumping to the heart of things. The reason why they were all there.

“I died?” Grace said. Grace felt very stupid, not to mention a bit afraid of this girl, who just walked up and asked how she ended up here in the after-life.

“Well, I know that.” Emily laughed.

“Oh, I had Hemophilia.” Grace stumbled over the disease as if it were a mouse trap.

“That beats mine,” her voice was so nonchalant, it annoyed Grace. “I drowned.”

“How…old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Grace said softly and began to walk away; she did not want to talk to Emily anymore.

“Hey, wait up.” Emily called as she chased after Grace.

“What?” Grace asked, not turning around.

“I kind of hoped you would stay, it’d be nice to have a friend. Gets kind of lonely up here.”

“Don’t you get to see your parents?” Grace asked, both hopeful and afraid.

“Only once or twice.” Emily shuffled her feet.

“Well I’m waiting for my once, so if you don’t mind,” Grace said trying to walk away once again.

“I know you don’t want to be here,” Emily called after her. Grace kept walking, ignoring the people staring at her; the pure white that shown down on her, and the heavy footsteps from Emily.

“At least, let me show you where the games are.” Emily caught Grace’s arm and turned her around. Grace thought about this for a moment. She wondered if they had televisions up here, if they got cable, or if it was just certain channels. She wondered if they had movies.

“Alright.” Grace conceded. Emily took Grace’s hand in her own and they began to walk towards one of the graying doors. Grace spotted a little boy, sitting with his legs crossed and his face staring up at Grace. He was holding on to a deck of cards and she noticed a scar that lined his neck.

“Who is that?” Grace asked, pointing to the boy.

“That’s Jack Mittle.” Emily said, tossing Jack a glance before pulling Grace into the room.

Emily rolled the dice and looked at her numbers. A two and a seven. They had eight sided dice here in Heaven, and weird shaped board games. Emily moved her pieces and picked up a card.

“Move back six spaces, and take a piece of candy,” Emily read.

“Does it really say that?” Grace asked.

“It does say move back six spaces, but I’m hungry.” Emily ate the chocolate and handed Grace the dice, but before she got to roll it a woman came up to them.

“Grace Hault?” She asked, Grace looked up and saw that the woman was holding a piece of paper.

“Yes?”

“Here, you have one hour.”

“To do…what?” She looked at the piece of paper the woman thrust into her hands. It said in scribbled writing that Grace had one hour to see her mother.

“But how do I get there? Where are you putting me?” Grace asked the woman but she felt the ground around her disappear, Emily, the table, and the board game were no longer sitting next to her. She felt the solid hard wood floors of her mother’s bedroom against her feet, and she looked up to see the room covered in darkness. She blinked. She was still there. She shuffled her feet. The floor didn’t give way.

“Mama?” Grace called softly. Ellen sat up in bed so fast Grace thought she was going to fall out.

“Grace?” Ellen choked out. Grace nodded and Ellen reached her arms out for her daughter. Grace climbed into the bed and hugged her mother. She could almost touch her.

“Mommy!” Grace cried. She could almost taste her own tears. Grace kissed her mother on the cheek, wrapping her arms around her neck. No matter how hard she squeezed she could only just barely feel her mother’s pale skin.

“Grace, shh…” Ellen rocked Grace back and forth, holding her in her lap the best she could. “Shh, baby…” Ellen grasped harder at her daughter, and Grace stared at her father who was sleeping like a rock beside them.

“Daddy,” Grace said. “Daddy…” Grace watched as Aidan turned over and opened his eyes. Grace stared at him, noticing that he looked terrible. Grace leaned farther over her mother’s shoulder and touched Aidan’s hands.

“Hi Daddy,” Grace whispered.

“Grace,” Aidan sat up, confused. He rubbed his eyes and blinked over and over. Grace reached her hands out and Aidan took them, holding them against his cheek but Grace couldn’t quite feel the bones or the stubble. She saw him start to cry, a few tears running down his cheeks.

“Can…I…see my room?” Grace whispered after almost forty minutes of sitting there in bed, holding onto her parents, staring at the moon outside. They had talked, quietly, they had cried, quietly, and they had listened. To the silence. Quietly.

“Yes,” Ellen said and picked her daughter up. Grace could feel her mother start to cry again, because she knew that she didn’t weigh anything in her arms. She was a ghost. Ellen carried Grace across the hall and opened the door. The room still looked the same. They hadn’t even touched it. The bed was still un-made, the stuffed animals still on the floor. The music box, still on the dresser.

The music box. Grace struggled out of her mother’s arms and ran to the dresser, opening it she dug through her sock drawer and pulled from the depths of it, a pair of dark purple earrings. She ran back to Ellen and pushed the earrings into her hands.

“I took them….” Grace said quietly. “And now I want to give them back.” Grace tucked the earrings into her mother’s hands for safety and went to pick the music box up. She twisted it and could hear the faint sound coming from the box. She went back over to her mother for the second time and reached up into her arms, Ellen picked her up, and they made their way out of the room. Grace hobbled down the stairs and noticed all the debris of the wake.

“Did you have a party?” She asked, staring at the paper napkins and plastic cups. She watched her mother hesitate with the answer.

“Yes,” she said finally. “For you. Everybody came.” Ellen held her daughter closer for the last time, kissing the crown of her head.

“I love you Mommy.” Grace whispered.

“I love you too, Grace. I love you so much.” She whispered, and Grace felt the last few minutes of her hour waning.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I don’t want to go. I love you Mommy.” She said loudly, clutching at her mother’s nightgown.

“Grace,” Ellen stared as Grace felt her own body disappearing, becoming transparent.

“Bye Mommy.” Grace waved and tried to smile. She tried to be brave, like her mother was whenever Grace went off to the first day of school. She tried to be strong like her father, when he came home after a long day of work to find her coloring out of the lines on the carpet. She tried to be happy, but all the same, Grace could feel the darkness pulling at her.

She pulled at her hair, she pulled at her dress, and she pulled at everything, trying to stay there, in her living room. But she felt the here and now being ripped from under her and it was time to leave.

“Tell Daddy,” Grace said loudly. “Tell Daddy that I love him, and that he doesn’t have to build the tree house, and he doesn’t have to go to work, and…you don’t have to go to school anymore. And you don’t have to buy the cereal I like. And you don’t have to go to the pool when it’s too cold…” Grace said trying to get all her thoughts out. But she was gone. Back to heaven, all its bright lights, the clouds and whispers of people trying to guess who she was.

What she didn’t know, was that Ellen would still buy the Lucky Charms cereal, and she would send in the box-tops for Grace’s school. What Grace didn’t know was that her father would spend the next summer building a tree house that he would sit in everyday and eat lunch. What Grace didn’t get to see was that Ellen quit teaching at MECA and started volunteering her time at Mercy Hospital, where she got to know all of the nurses, even the ones that hadn’t taken care of Grace over the years; she even sent donations in, from Grace’s college fund, for research in medicine. Something that Grace never got to see was how every year when it was her birthday Ellen would make a small cake and light a candle, and wait until all the wax would burn down and the light would die out. Then she would cut the cake into little pieces and stick them in the refrigerator. She would eat them one piece at a time, and only sparingly, but eventually she would open the fridge and the cake would be gone. During every Christmas, Ellen bought Grace one small gift and she hung up her stocking.

So that every year, she wouldn’t forget, and she could still remember how everything had been before. That way it would never be a prologue or an epilogue, it would always be now.