Page 33 of Road Trip With the Ghost Hunter

Then I jerked slightly as the feel of her withered yet soft hand cupped my cheek. Staring back at her, moisture filled my eyes. She gently patted my cheek in a nurturing way, just like lao lao used to do, then pulled away and sat back down.

The door chimed, pulling me back. I composed myself, looking at the ceramic cat in my hand. “How much?” I asked.

“A gift,” she said.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t—“ but she gave me a look I was very familiar with. You did not argue with your elders. You accepted what they said.

I smiled and whispered, “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Lucas said, wrapping his arm around me. “Ready to go?” He waved politely at the woman, then pointed to the cat. “That’s cute. Almost reminds me of…” he didn’t finish.

“Yeah,” I smiled.

We walked off after he paid for gas, and I felt that lovely woman’s eyes on us. I wrapped the cat in one of my shirts to protect it and packed it away. As we drove off, I studied Lucas’s profile. He was right. Lao lao and his uncle definitely orchestrated this. I never felt so at peace with any life decision.

Thank you, lao lao.

And don’t worry, Uncle Filip. I’ll take good care of him.

I leaned over and kissed his bearded cheek. Lucas turned to press a kiss on my head, then rested his hand on my thigh. I leaned my head back, smiling.

Love wasn’t so scary after all. Not when you felt it for the right person who also felt it and loved you back.

We cruised down Route 14, letting go of our ghosts and free-falling into radical living.

Epilogue

Lucas

There was something about Heartstone, Missouri, that sealed my fate. It only felt appropriate to lay things to rest here. Li and I arrived two nights ago. We had every intention of just passing by and leaving later that evening for Virginia, but Dawn and Kathy weren’t having any of that.

Poor Jeremy just stood against the wall, signature ball cap pulled low, hiding his grin. When Li brought those puppy eyes my way, I rolled mine, knowing we weren’t going anywhere. Somehow, our old room was available. We got to live out some fantasies we both had from that extremely hard morning.

Yeah. I made a dick joke. But I remembered waking up with her body wrapped around me. The tips of my fingers grazed her breast. Her smooth skin on her thigh as I pulled that leg closer.

We really had to learn to be quieter. The red on Li’s cheeks every time we came down for breakfast only made it worse. It was like walking in with neon signs on our heads flashing, we had fan-fucking-tastic sex last night. And this morning.

I didn’t remember ever being this sex obsessed before. It wasn’t just the mere action of having sex. It was her. Everything Li said, did, didn’t do, drove me wild. And thankfully, with the way she pounced on me last night when we got back from dinner at Kathy’s, she felt the same way.

Bjorn updated me that things were going well back home. He encouraged me to take all the time I needed. He knew what I meant to do with the ashes. I promised that when I got back, I’dbe present and help him figure out the future direction of the company.

Li and I held hands in front of a pristine lake by Lover’s Stroll Park. The sun bounced off, glinting against the ripples. The trees swayed with the summer wind. It was the most peace I’d ever felt other than lying in Li’s arms. She held my sweatshirt with the pottery shards in the other arm, and I had Uncle Filip’s ashes in a container in mine.

“Are you thinking in the river or into the dirt?” she asked reverently.

“Maybe, both?”

Nodding, she let go of my hand and bent down, opening the folded-up sweatshirt. All the white and blue painted designs created a mosaic on the ground.

“How about you release some into the river, I’ll place some of her shards at the shoreline, then the rest, we bury by this tree?”

The tree rested at the shore of the river. It was tall and full. Heavier branches sagged with leaves shading the entire area where we stood.

“Yeah,” my voice sounded thick. “This is perfect.”

Li smiled up at me with tears in her eyes.

Together, we set pieces of the vase in the water, the running river, gently passing over them. Then, together, we opened the container and emptied half of it into the water. Neither of us said anything out loud. We kept our eulogies to ourselves. We felt what the other felt. The pain, the loss, the release, the love. It was freeing.

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