Page 68 of Everywhere You Look

“You heard her, corazón. Let’s go home to our girls.”

27

FIVE’S A CROWD

Luke

Afew weeks later…

“We really need to upgrade to a bigger car. A family of five definitely needs something with three rows,” I say as I peer over my shoulder at the back seat of my Rivian, where Ollie naps in her car seat while Lemmie and Mellie watch a movie from their booster seats. I don’t love giving them too much screen time, but it’s a long ride out of the city and I want to keep their stimulation-levels low for now.

“Yeah,” Dean chuckles. “Five really is a crowd, isn’t it?”

The rays of sun shining through tinted windows of the SUV feel like a warm renaissance. A sign of good things to come. It’s a bright and beautiful day,and I crack my window to get a breath of the fresh, late-summer air while Dean pulls into the cemetery.

Today is exactly the kind of day Gigi loved most. Perfect weather, perfect company, and all the time in the world to spend with her family. I couldn’t have picked a better time to visit.

Dean navigates the narrow paths of the cemetery, pulling up to the row in the middle where Gigi’s tombstone rests. I don’t like thinking about her bones being in the ground beneath our feet, so I don’t. She doesn’t reside in the graveyard. Her soul is with us all the time. She’s in Lemmie and Mellie’s eyes. She’s in Ollie’s laugh. She’s in me every time I make an inappropriate joke and in Dean when he lets the kids give him highlights in his hair with their washable markers.

Still, the tombstone gives us a physical place to visit, and I know Gigi is here with us today, too.

“Want me to give you a minute?” Dean asks as he puts the SUV in park. He glances back at our kids in the backseat, but I shake my head.

“No, it’s okay. They need to stretch their legs and say hi to their mom.”

“Are we at Mommy’s house?” Mellie asks, causing Lemmie to look up from the movie and look out the window. They have a better understanding of Gigi’s death after all this time, but for some reason,they like to call the cemetery ‘Mommy’s house’, and I don’t stop them. I think it makes them feel better, just like looking for signs from Gigi around makes me feel better.

“We are. Would you like to go say hi?”

We pile out of the car, and I hold the twins’ hands while Dean carries a half-asleep Ollie on his hip as we pad across the grass.

Gigi Cannon

Mother. Sister. Friend.

“Hey, Gigi,” I say quietly. Lem and Mel let go of my hands, and I run one over the top of her simple stone.

“Mommy, we brought you something!” They say together, then Lemmie pulls an envelope out of the pocket of her pink overalls. The front says “Mommy” in her messy handwriting. Mellie pulls out an identical envelope, but hers has a drawing of her and her sisters accompanying the word.

“We brought you letters, Mommy. Miss Kira wrote the words down for us. We miss you.”

“We miss you so much, Mommy. And we love you so so so much.”

Tears well in my eyes as I listen to the girls talk to their mother and gingerly place their envelopes on the ledge of the tombstone.

“Would you like to read the letters to her? I’msure she’d love to hear them,” Dean says, a hitch in his voice. I look at him and see that his tears are freely flowing, so I reach out and squeeze his hand three times in mine.

I love you.

“No thank you,” Lemmie says, shaking her head.

“They’re private. Mommy can read them when we’re gone,” says Mellie, and then the two of them step forward and place kisses on their mother’s stone.

I guess they feel Gigi’s spirit with us, too.

We spend an hour with Gigi, laying down flowers and telling stories. We share pictures from Ollie’s birthday party and the smash cake that ended up all over all five of us, and Lem and Mel show off the new ballet poses they learned this week.

I could stay all day here, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin and the love of my sister in my heart. But eventually, the kids get hungry. So we pile back into the car and head to the nearest greasy spoon, where we order chicken fingers and pancakes and chocolate milkshakes.

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