Chapter Text
‘The Carolina Coffee Shop’ in Chapel Hill, NC was actually a full-service restaurant that had been serving University of North Carolina students, faculty, alumna, and town locals since 1922. It was incredibly popular and was a mainstay and destination spot on busy Franklin Street. When the eating establishment went up for sale in 2017, Heather O’Reilly and her husband Dave Werry bought it with the financial support of a few other college classmates they were still very close with from their UNC days. Ashlyn Harris Krieger and Whitney Engen Flanagan, along with thousands of other Tarheels young and old, were thrilled with the development. Heather and Dave ran the restaurant with care and conviction, even adding on a smaller actual coffee shop called ‘1922’ next door to help celebrate the restaurant’s centennial in 2022. They were always supportive of whatever group was being marginalized by the conservative state legislature of North Carolina. Heather and her family were always particularly sensitive to the issues of LGBTQ+ groups, and any other minority group that was being othered by the state government. She collaborated closely with the Black Women’s Player Collective, formed by Black NWSL players back in the dark days of 2020 when white Americans finally were forced to acknowledge the racism that was still thriving in the country. The Werrys were known for supporting any worthy cause, but they were discerning. They did their homework before they invested any time, money, or their good name. The Carolina Coffee Shop was a known safe haven for any and all. It was the gold standard for local businesses doing the right thing in all the right ways.
In mid-May of 2045 it was hosting a very special dinner in the private dining room at the back of the restaurant.
Ken Krieger, still in control of all his faculties at the age of 86, raised his glass at the end of his toast and the other 20 or so guests did the same.
“To Dodge, congratulations on an amazing 4 years, on and off the pitch!” Ken’s voice rang out as his face lit up in an enormous smile. “UNC was lucky to have you!”
“Tar-heels!!” Ashlyn and several other guests yelled as they all clinked glasses and executed the toast.
Dodge Krieger sat at the head of the table surrounded by his family, some of the 4-family members, and a couple other close friends from his soccer team. Seated right next to him was his girlfriend of almost 2 years – Isobel (Isa) Morales. Dodge graduated summa cum laude with a hard-earned double major. He had a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education. He wanted to be a high school math teacher once his professional soccer career was over. After a lot of soul-searching, Dodge realized that being a teacher was one of the most important things he could ever do with his life. Yes, he had always wanted to be a police officer, and if he was being honest, he still wanted to do that sometimes, but when he looked at his family he saw both of Ali’s parents as teachers. Dodge’s own parents had always prioritized education and teaching. And when he met his college Spanish tutor, well, that swayed him too. When all was said and done, his time at UNC had been productive and successful both in and out of the classroom.
He played, and started, Division 1 soccer all 4 years, as a powerful, fast striker from the very first game his freshman year. Dodge graduated high school as a 6’0”, 160 pound soccer star. And by the time his freshman year of college was over, he was 6’2” and 180 pounds of pure strength and power and speed. He was a superstar all 4 years, leading the conference in scoring his junior and senior years. The Tarheels won 3 ACC championships during Dodge’s 4 years, and his junior year they won the entire NCAA tournament. They would have repeated the feat his senior year, but the team had been decimated by multiple injuries right before the tournament started, and they simply could not overcome them. Dodge would tell you for the rest of his life that those playoffs and the end to that season were some of the most difficult times of his sporting career.
All of his hard work and dedication, not to mention his immense talent, paid off though. Dodge was on his way to Stratford, UK in another month or so to embark on his professional soccer career in the English Premiere League. He was going to play for West Ham United and he was more excited than he cared to admit. On top of that, he had been playing with the US men’s youth teams all through college too. He bounced back and forth between the U20 and U23 teams at first, before cementing his place on the U23s halfway through college. He helped the U20 team win Silver at the World Cup in Switzerland his sophomore year, starting up top and scoring a lot. He made the U23 Olympic roster last year in Mexico, and helped the team win the Bronze medal. He wasn’t a starter though, but he managed to score a couple of goals as the first sub off the bench for most of the games in the tournament. And he had been called up to the US men’s senior team just this January, but was sent back down to the U23 team for the rest of this year. It was hard to complain, so he didn’t. He knew if he kept working his butt off he would eventually make the senior team. He was determined as hell to get there.
What Ali and Ashlyn and closest family were perhaps happiest about that evening in The Carolina Coffee Shop was the light that was shining from within their beautiful boy again. It wasn’t as bright as it used to be, but they didn’t think that it ever could be. Part of that was his broken heart, even though it had already done so much healing and maturing. And part of that was simply growing up. That’s what college was for. You take everything that you’ve learned and heard and seen from your childhood, all the way up through high school where you think you know everything in the world. And then you go to college and you realize that you don’t really know much of anything at all. College is where you decide who you’re going to be. What you stand for. What you believe in. What you won’t tolerate. Who you want to be with. And Dodge had done all of that. He was the same kindhearted, sensitive, emotional young man he had always been, but he was more guarded now. He had closed most of himself off to all feeling and all emotion as he grieved the loss of his first love. But to people who didn’t know him before the black ice changed his life forever, he seemed like a bright, beautiful young man. The light was there. They never knew it had gone dark after Katie died.
Dodge was a strapping young man. Handsome, strikingly handsome. Tall, strong, with those beautiful blue eyes that reminded everybody of the sea on a clear, sunny day. He looked like he had the world on a platter, but his time in Chapel Hill had not started easily. Not by a long shot. He struggled mightily during his first semester as a freshman. It was a whole new world, and although that’s what he wanted, although he knew in his brain that it was good for him. It was very difficult. He had none of the crutches to fall back on as he struggled with the remainder of his grief. His schoolwork suffered that first semester, so much so that he required a Spanish tutor to save himself from academic discipline. If he didn’t get his grade up he couldn’t play soccer. He had smartened up and registered for a cautious number of classes freshman semester. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he had made his senior year of high school, although, to be fair, he had registered for those high school classes before knowing that grief would destroy that year of his life. His freshman year of college he focused as much as he could on his classes and he thought he was doing an ok job, aside from Spanish. He wasn’t flourishing academically in his other classes, but he wasn’t failing either. He focused on soccer. He poured himself into it, just as he had done in high school. It was his joy. It was what filled his soul with happiness. It was what he lived for. And that was all very good, for a long time.
Dodge met Isa in February of second semester freshman year when it was clear that he was going to flunk his Spanish course. He had barely scraped by Spanish in first semester, and now he needed to take one more semester of it to fulfill his language requirement, and he was smart enough to know he needed help. Feb 2, 2043 was the day Dodge’s life truly changed. The grief that had been so overwhelming for so long had dissipated towards the end of his senior year of high school, but his light had still been dimmed, almost extinguished. But there was a spark that February day with his tutor in the library, of all places. Dodge had been avoiding libraries and bookstores because they had been some of Katie’s favorite places, but Isa changed much of that. And eventually, all of that.
When Isa met Dodge, despite his indisputable physical strength and exterior beauty, she saw in him a broken bird. It wasn’t a pretty song bird. No, Isa saw a wounded bird of prey, maybe a falcon or a hawk. He was powerful and dynamic but was hobbled in some way, without the ability to soar or to hunt. The fact that Dodge was able to make her smile and laugh several times during their first meeting, despite the weight that she could see he was carrying somewhere for some reason, had told her that he was a very special young man indeed. To be able to bring other people joy while being broken yourself was no easy feat. It required willpower and a different kind of strength, and Isa was drawn to him before she could talk herself out of it.
And for Dodge’s part – he had been making a concerted effort to learn how to live again. He was still seeing a therapist every month at UNC and had been working hard even before college to try to figure out how to move past his depression and grief. It had been slow progress. But time, as they always say, really does heal all wounds. Over time and through first semester of freshman year, while he was feeding his soul with soccer, his grief stopped being so loud inside his heart. It was still there, it was constantly there, but it was harder to hear in any given moment. That’s not to say that Dodge didn’t still think about Katie quite often. But he was more in control of the grief now. It came in devastating waves on certain days and in certain situations – Katie’s birthday, her death day, a happy memory or bit of deja vu. But in general, on most days, the grief didn’t come unless he bid it.
After Dodge met Isa it was as if she put her hand on his and helped him close the door to the little room inside his heart where he put the grief away. Sometimes that door would open a crack. Sometimes it would burst wide open. But more and more, it stayed closed until he opened it himself.
And over the next 3-1/2 years as they finished their college life together, Dodge and Isa grew closer and closer. They started as friends first, up until summer after sophomore year when they finally began dating. He had partied and slept around his first year, as most freshman do. Freshmen enjoyed the freedom and the accessibility of college, that they’d never experienced before. Dodge was not immune to any of that. He was a human, 19-year old young man. He was relieved to learn that his sex drive was back in full force. But he wasn’t cut out to be a lothario. That just wasn’t his style or personality. But he was attracted to his Spanish tutor and wanted more. Isa was more guarded. Despite seeing the brokenness in him, he was so handsome and so talented and so gifted in so many ways that she honestly felt he couldn’t be real. He was too perfect, aside from that brokenness. But it was that brokenness that she had seen so early on, in their platonic relationship as tutor to student, that had opened her heart.
As their romantic relationship deepened, Dodge opened up about his painful past but kept it mostly vague. He knew that no girlfriend wanted to hear about your previous relationships. Everybody knew that. His moms had been telling all of them that their entire lives. Turns out they were right. Who knew? But Dodge didn’t lie or hide his feelings when that little door in his heart would open from time to time. Isa would ask him what he was feeling or why he was sad, and he would answer her honestly, without going into too much detail. She would always listen patiently. She never pushed or pulled or pressured. She sat with him in what was left of his grief. Just as Ali had always sat with Ashlyn through whatever she was struggling with. Isa didn’t offer solutions or fixes, she offered companionship. Friendship at first, and support always.
They had only ever had one real fight about Katie, and it had come in Winter of their junior year, January 2044. It was time for Dodge to get the 2 tattoos that he had wanted for years. As all 5 of Ashlyn’s kids, and her wife, had done, Dodge got a dragon tattoo to honor his Mama’s battle with and victory over breast cancer. Drew had gotten the 5” blue dragon on his upper right arm. Meg had gotten the 8” close-up of the green dragon on the back of her left shoulder blade. Josie had gotten the delicate, Japanese-inspired outline of a dragon artistically worked vertically 12” up and down her right side. Lily even got in on the action, despite her trepidation about painful needles and the daunting permanence of the whole endeavor. She wanted to honor her Mama and had just gotten hers done 6 months earlier. The young blonde had stayed true to herself though. She got her favorite dragon – a 2”, full color, Toothless, from ‘How to Tame Your Dragon’ fame flying and wrapped around her left ankle. Everybody told her to use a fleshier part of her body but she could not be moved on the subject. Truth be told, hers was probably the most painful of everybody’s. She wore it proudly though. Ali’s dragon tattoo was simpler but just as beloved. An elegant 4” overhead view of a dragon in flight on the side of her left hip.
Ashlyn herself had finally gotten her own dragon tattoo after waiting long enough for the skin around her mastectomy scar to accept needles and ink. To be safe, she kept it as simple as possible. The scar itself became the spine of the dragon, flying from Ashlyn’s left armpit at a slight downward angle towards the other side of her chest with the dragon’s head outlined near the middle of her chest. The rest of the dragon in flight was done in outline, in blue ink. It looked more like a pencil drawing or sketch and it was perfect for what and where it was.
Dodge got his own dragon from a talented tattoo artist in Chapel Hill. It was a large, 12” black dragon that covered his entire upper left arm. The dragon was in a primarily upright stance with its gaping maw and tongue and teeth shown in exquisite detail. The enormous wings were up vertically on either side of the beast, creating a red-tinged backdrop of sorts to the main creature in front. It looked like the dragon was doing battle with some unseen foe. It was powerful and there was beauty in the dramatic representation.
As Dodge went back to put the finishing touches on the dragon tattoo, he worked with the artist to design the tattoo that he’d been planning since before cancer ever struck his mother. He’d been designing this in his mind’s eye since he was a little boy. As outgoing as Dodge was, he never wanted a big, tacky, ostentatious tattoo. He put a lot of thought into the ink that he got, as did everybody else in his family. He knew what he liked and didn’t like. And he thought that some of the dudes that got the big, ornate family crests and letters looked like they were trying too hard. That’s not to say he was against family letters and crests, but they needed to be the right scale, he believed. So that’s what he did. He got an ornate 8” letter K on his upper right arm. But the K wasn’t just a letter, it was comprised of vines and chains and all sorts of other images wound into and through it. Everybody and everything in his life that was important to him had a bit of space in there, no matter how small. There was a ship in it that looked an awful lot like Ashlyn’s Mary Sarah. And Ali’s Frankfurt tree in miniature was there. A big D and a little d entwined to show how integral Drew had been to Dodge’s own success in every facet of life. If Dodge hadn’t been trying so hard to keep up with his big brother his whole life, he probably wouldn’t be the stud athlete he was now. There was a nod to the dogs Dodge had loved – a water bowl and collar tucked into the trunk of one of the K’s legs. Music notes and a mini Hollywood star with Josie’s tiny name. He had Taurus the bull for Lily because she loved astrology and the birth signs so much, but he used a pair of them to honor their twinship. There was even a tiny rendering of the big old house, and Captain Leighton. If you looked carefully you could see miniscule super heroes and childhood favorites, from video games to comic books, to sports teams. It was a work of art, from top to bottom, designed by a thoughtful young man with a very large heart.
The second part of the tattoo was going to be a shield around and behind the letter, as a backdrop. He needed to talk to his mom about the Krieger family history and find out if there was a family crest. If there was one, what was it and if there wasn’t one, what should it be. And in January last year he got his K tattoo and was eager to show it to his girlfriend of just over 6 months, at the time.
“Did you get that for her?” Isa finally asked after admiring Dodge’s new tattoo for as long as she could without giving in to her overpowering and mounting urge to know.
She kept her voice even and calm, trying to keep her temper in check. Isa could be passionate about the things that were important to her and Dodge had heard and seen her lose her temper before, but he had never born the brunt of it. She was always ready to defend her opinion on something or shoot down somebody else’s uneducated one. But she did it with as little bloodshed as possible. She could be fierce but she was never ruthless.
Both Dodge and Isa were busy with their studies and other activities at UNC. They spent as much time together as possible, but neither was intimately involved with every single part of the other’s life at that point. They were 6 months into their dating relationship and very comfortable with each other, but Isa didn’t know the ins and outs of the tattoo her boyfriend had planned. He might have mentioned it a couple of times but not in great detail.
“What?” Dodge asked, cocking his head in confusion and wondering why his girl was getting upset. “For who?”
“Katie” Isa challenged with a cross of her arms and a lift of one eyebrow.
“What? No. Why would you think that? K is for Krieger...” he started to explain something so obvious that he honestly wondered if his brilliant girlfriend might not be as smart as he thought she was. Isa wasn’t usually one to get jealous. Is that what this was?
Isa Morales was 5’7” with a healthy but average build. She wasn’t an athlete but she was active and enjoyed hiking and dancing and other non-sports activities. She was the type to hike just long enough to find a good spot to plop down and read her book. Her dark, silky hair, expressive brown eyes, slightly olive skin, and large breasts had captured Dodge’s heart right away. But her easy laugh, bright smile, big brain, kind heart and forgiving nature had been what he had really fallen in love with. She was a brilliant linguist. Her mother, Tilda, was a German professor at UNC, whose parents had come to America from Germany for Isa’s grandfather’s work as a scientist. Isa’s dad, Enrique Morales, was a social worker for the city of Chapel Hill and that’s where her Spanish ancestry and looks came from. She grew up as an only child of 2 very dedicated, hard-working parents who never had much money. Isa got a free ride to UNC because her mom taught there. But she was gifted enough that she would have qualified for financial assistance even without that, probably a full-ride. The gifted young woman was well on her way to being fluent in 7 different languages when she met Dodge their freshman year. After she finished mastering those by the end of sophomore year, she spent the last two years of her college career trying to learn Russian and Arabic. They are still a work in progress. Isa was gifted and hard-working which meant there was no end to what she could and did learn. Part of the reason that Dodge’s grades were so good after freshman year of college was that Isa didn’t screw around when it came to schoolwork. If the young man wanted to spend time with her, it was often in the library and included a lot of studying.
She had been a wonderful friend and an incredible girlfriend by the time of the tattoo fight. Isa was open and honest and easy to be with in almost every situation. Which was why Dodge was so stunned by the K tattoo argument.
Yes, as he said, K is for Krieger, but Isa didn’t believe him at first because she could see in his face that it did have something to do with Katie. And the fact that he was lying to her about it was what bothered her more than anything. But, the thing is, he wasn’t lying. He hadn’t planned that K tattoo for Katie. It had always been a Krieger tattoo, ever since he was a little boy. But now that Isa pointed it out to him, and he made the connection, he didn’t hate it. He liked that there was some Katie in that K. That’s what Isa had seen on his face.
And as a result of that argument, they separated angrily that night. They both had regrets and Isa wasn’t sure if or when she would see her boyfriend the next day. But she needn’t have worried. Dodge was still as loyal as any dog ever could be. The very next morning he was there at her doorstep with her coffee order, bagels for breakfast, and a dozen roses from the surprisingly well-stocked 24-hour convenience store on campus. It was clear that he hadn’t slept at all since he last left the apartment she shared with 3 other roommates. He was wearing the same clothes along with some pretty deep bags under his eyes.
“Where’ve you been?” Isa asked softly after hugging him tightly just inside the door. She shivered in the chilly 35 degree weather. North Carolina was cold in January, especially at 6am.
“Walking. I’ve just been walking all night, trying to figure this out” he replied with a heavy sigh.
“Shh..” she shushed him gently, with a sympathetic smile. It was so early and her roommates were all sleeping, like normal college students. “Come here” she led him into the small kitchen that was the farthest room from the bedrooms. “You haven’t slept at all?” she helped him out of his jacket as he sat at the kitchen table and started to unpack the bagels he had brought for the woman he loved.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? They’d only been dating for 6 months. It was way too soon for I love yous. Wasn’t it? He had pondered the question all night long.
“Nah” he shook his head, concentrating on cream cheese and plastic knives and napkins. “This is too important. I had to figure it out.”
He was so earnest that she couldn’t even take offense at his reply. She had gone to bed and gotten some sleep after he left the night before. Not as much as normal, but she had gotten a few hours sleep. She knew he wasn’t accusing her of not caring enough about their fight. She just let it slide right by.
What she didn’t know was that Dodge had been getting ready to tell her how he felt about her, before the tattoo dispute. But a toned-down version. He wouldn’t say I love you yet. He didn’t want to scare her off, even though he knew now that he was desperately in love with her.
“So listen, I’m just gonna be honest Ise” he used the one-syllable nickname he preferred when they were alone together. “I came here last night, excited to show you my new ink and... and to tell you something else” he was talking faster than usual but didn’t sound panicked or out of control.
He was sitting there with one hand turning his coffee cup in a circle on the table, and the other grabbing the back of his neck as he carefully explained. He shifted his eyes from hers to the table top in front of him and back up to hers. He loved getting lost in those beautiful brown eyes, but he didn’t want to get distracted. This was important. Really important if they were going to have any kind of future together.
“But when you asked me if the K was for Katie...it hit me for the first time that it COULD be for Katie, and I had to really understand if I had done that for her or not” he swallowed hard and nodded at the young woman across the table from him – looking impossibly beautiful with her grey UNC hoodie on over her Carolina blue flannel pajamas. He took a deep breath, focused, and spoke confidently. “And Ise, I’m telling you – I didn’t do it for her. I didn’t.”
“Ok” she started to respond, acknowledging the utter sincerity in his words, body language, everything. But Dodge kept going.
“I can’t change the fact that her name starts with the same letter as my last name. I can’t change that. I did not get this for Katie,” he repeated carefully, very clearly, motioning his right upper arm in her direction. When he saw that Isa was relieved and that she believed him, he added “But I have to tell you I like that there’s some Katie in this K. And I hope that you can understand that. And I hope that you can accept that. There’s a lot in this K. I put all these little details in here that make me who I am. And that’s where Katie belongs. She has helped make me who I am. Both being with her and losing her have made me who I am. And if that bothers you, I’m sorry. And if that makes you doubt what I think we have, then I’m really sorry.” He paused, fighting one last bit of anxiety before pushing forward. “I wasn’t planning to tell you this, like this, under these circumstances. This is not how I had this planned out” he chuckled bashfully. “But Ise, I really like being with you, a lot. Honestly, more than I ever thought I could again. I love our time together. And besides soccer, you make me happier than anything else in the world and I think about the future...with you...a lot...”
He didn’t get to finish. Isa got up and kissed him in mid-sentence because she felt the same way. They didn’t confess their love for each other that morning. But they admitted that they were on that same course, and happy to be so. If either one of them had been a tiny bit more courageous, they would have realized they were both trying not to say I love you and spook the other one.
But Isa wouldn’t have let that happen. She wasn’t jumping ahead. She took her time with Dodge for selfish reasons too. Because he was broken. She wanted to find out why he was broken. What he was doing to fix himself. She wasn’t going to do some codependent thing. She didn’t want to mother him through his healing. She had big plans for her life. She was a doer. She was an achiever. And although she loved Dodge, she was hoping that he was going to be a complete man. A complete partner, in whatever relationship they embarked on. And the answer that he gave her to the K tattoo told her everything she needed to know about the young man she was falling hard for. He was emotionally intelligent and kind and loving. He was willing to work on himself and make an effort to be better for himself and the people in his life... and for her.
They might not have said I love you that morning, but they both knew their relationship had deepened and solidified into something stronger, something better. And at Dodge’s graduation dinner that May night everyone could see how in love the young couple was. The Kriegers absolutely adored Isa. Not only for all of the reasons that had drawn Dodge to her in the first place, but also because she had healed their broken son – even though she had not intended to. It was more accurate to say that she had encouraged his healing and maybe facilitated it to some extent. But Dodge had done the hard work to get to the happy place he was now. Ali and Ashlyn weren’t going to split hairs about it. They were just thrilled to see their boy come back to life for good.
//
There had been more grief, other grief, over the past 5 years, of course. Grief is a constant when you take the risk of loving somebody. As Ali looked around the table that May evening and saw all the friends and family celebrating Dodge’s graduation, her heart ached for those not there.
The family was down 2 grandmas by May of 2045. Both Tammye and Deb had passed away and the family still felt wobbly without them. Tammye died in September of 2042 after a steady 4-year decline from her stroke. She was 79 and her life had been very hard those last couple of years. Carol’s too, and that bothered Tammye more than anything. Ashlyn and Chris were now without either of their parents and it left them both feeling strange for a while. Time had readjusted for them though and now, 2-1/2 years later, life felt more or less normal again. Of course they missed their mother. But they both knew that Tammye had been suffering towards the end. It was easier to accept the death in that situation, although the siblings never discussed it in those terms with each other. But they both understood it.
And sweet little Frankie had died a week after Tammye did. The death of a dog doesn’t measure up to the loss of a human, but it still fucking hurts. The big old house turned, at least temporarily, into a one-dog home.
Two years after Tammye’s death, Cousin Jeremiah died up at the Veteran’s home in Manchester, NH. His cause of death was heart failure and liver disease and Ashlyn remained angry with him for his hard living lifestyle, even after it was over. He was only 75 years old when he passed and she wanted more time with the enigmatic old man. She had so many questions about that side of her family, especially her grandfather’s sister who had moved her family away from Gloucester and up North. Ashlyn and Jeremiah had grown closer towards the end of his life. He finally agreed to live full time at the VA facility which was a major concession on his part. It meant he was easier to find so Ashlyn could visit him more often. And she did. His death was still fresh for the keeper, only 7 months before Dodge’s graduation dinner.
The death that had been the most difficult to handle, for everybody, was Deb’s back at the end of August 2041. It felt the cruelest too. Maybe that’s why it bothered everybody so damned much. Deb’s ovarian cancer had nearly killed her, as had the grueling treatments to fight it. She had willed herself through all of it and attended Meg and Charlie’s wedding in January of 2040. Deb got stronger and better after that and when her cancer was officially deemed to be in remission after one full year in January of 2041, the whole family celebrated. She was living her best life in the Summer House, next door to the big old house, seeing two of her grandkids every single day. In anticipation of the remission declaration, for Christmas that year, Kyle and Ali had given their mom a trip back to Italy with them and as many family members as could make the trip during April 2041.
2 weeks before the trip, Deb went in for a routine scan and found out the cancer was back. She had gone 15 months since her final chemo treatment and been in official remission for 3 measly months and then the fucking cancer had come back. It was devastating. Even usually good-natured, upbeat Deb was absolutely furious about it. She was fucking pissed.
“I’m not letting it ruin this trip. I’m not!” Deb’s voice rose angrily as she paced back and forth across the kitchen in the Summer House the day after the diagnosis. It was early April and they were scheduled to leave for Italy the following week. “We’re going and that’s final.”
“Ok mom, whatever you want” Ali tried to calm her mother’s frayed nerves but was having a hard time with her own. She had been chewing her lip the whole time she had been talking with her mother and she could taste blood now. “It’s all planned. There’s no reason we can’t still go...”
“We’re going Alex” Deb pointed at her daughter and gave her a challenging look, “don’t you dare try to talk me out of it!”
“Who’s trying to talk you out of it?” Ali shot back, surprised by the venom coming from her mother. It only took her a second to realize it wasn’t actually intended for her. Her patience returned immediately. “It’s ok Mom” she crossed to her mother and gave her a big hug. “We’re going. If you wanna go, we’re going. You don’t have to convince anyone. I promise.”
“I’ve been looking forward to this trip, more than I can possibly say” Deb’s voice shook a little as she hugged her daughter tightly.
“Me too mom, me too” Ali squeezed back just as hard. “It’ll be great. We’ve got it all planned out...” she pulled back to look into her mother’s anxious face, “but we can change it around if you want...maybe see something you haven’t seen before, or...”
“No, no” Deb sighed heavily. “I like what we have planned. I want to show you guys what I know over there. It’s not much” she smiled sadly, “but I want to share it with you all.”
“Then that’s what we’re gonna do” Ali mustered up a quick grin for her mother. “I can’t wait.”
The 2-week trip to Italy had been a huge success. Ali and Kyle and Deb spent the first week together, just the 3 of them. Then Ashlyn and Nate and the kids joined them for the 2nd week. It was a big undertaking and Deb started to feel some of the effects of the cancer. She was tired and stiff and just unwell some days. But other days she looked like her old self again. Everybody knew that the chemo treatments that were scheduled to start after the trip were going to be the real bad news. Sadly, the family knew what to expect.
But the chemo didn’t seem to be working this time. The cancer spread fast and when they went in to surgically remove a large tumor near her liver, the surgeons found so many affected areas that they just sewed her back up again. If they had removed all the cancer they found, Deb would have been without her liver, spleen, bladder, a good deal of her intestines, and most of her lymph nodes. She was given 6 months to live and Deb kept getting chemo treatments, albeit more manageable ones that didn’t practically kill her, every week. This was chemo to prolong her life, rather than kill all the cancer.
Deb was worried about what another death would do to poor Dodge who was still trying to find his way through his grief over losing Katie. But the family would rally around their matriarch, and anybody else who needed extra support. There was never any doubt about that. Deb made it to Drew’s college graduation in May, and the twins’ high school graduation in June. She made it to everybody’s birthday, including Ali’s at the end of July and her own 81st birthday on July 9th. She was there to celebrate the August wedding anniversaries of Kyle and Nathan, as well as Ali and Ashlyn, and to see Dodge off to his very first college soccer preseason in mid-August. She saw Josie and Lily head off to college the week before Labor Day weekend, and then on Friday August 30th Deb drew her last breath. She waited until everybody got to where they were going, and then she left too.
Her health declined rapidly those last 2 months. She allowed Ali to move her back into Lily’s room in the big old house again. And that’s when Ali knew it was really going to be the end this time.
“I never noticed her wrinkles so much before” Lily commented softly as she and Ali sat side by side next to a sleeping Deb’s bed in early August.
Lily was preparing for her first semester of college and sticking close to home in a clingy way. Not every college freshman was confident right off the bat. The youngest Krieger was going to Tufts University in Medford, MA – the same school where Koty Wild met his wife Brianna after washing out of Boston College and falling into addiction. Lily had chosen Tufts because it had one of the best veterinary medicine programs in the country and the young blonde had finally figured out what she wanted to do with her life. It didn’t hurt that campus was only 5 miles North of the Knight-Harris building in Cambridge, or 35 miles from the big old house. Lily was home a lot her freshman year, catching a ride back and forth to Gloucester with Ali. She was the only kid who stayed close to home for college – aside from Meg who had spent her 4 college years in Boston.
That dreadful August, Ali was thankful that Lily had been so easygoing about giving up her bedroom again. The brunette was touched by the ever-present innocence of her youngest daughter too. Only Lily would say the sweet, contemplative thought about her Grandma’s wrinkles out loud.
“She looks more wrinkly now because she’s asleep and not smiling” Ali’s own face grinned as she explained. “She’s always got a big ol’ smile on her face, doesn’t she?” the brunette’s grin grew too.
“Yeah, she does. You’re right” Lily was smiling now as well.
They were both quiet for a moment, listening to Deb’s deep breathing. It was almost time to wake her up for her medicine but they hated to disturb her.
“The people who have laughed the most and smiled the most always have the most wrinkles” Ali brushed some of her mom’s hair away from her face, knowing it bothered her. “You should always be proud of them. Every single one. They’re proof that you’ve lived the best kind of life.” The brunette fought back tears when she felt Lily’s arm wrap around her waist and squeeze.
Ali took care of her dying mother to the best of her ability. She hired a night nurse to come in just in case she didn’t hear her mother call out in the night. It was an incredibly busy time for everybody in the big old house – graduations and the twins going to college for the very first time. There was a lot going on, every single day. But Ali started every morning with her mom and ended every single night with her too. That was their special time, even though neither one of them had planned it that way. They would talk and laugh and sometimes the brunette would read to Deb. And after Ali spent time with her mom each night, she would go into the master bedroom and cry her eyes out in Ashlyn’s arms.
“Both my parents are alone” the brunette wept one night to her sweet supportive keeper, “they’re both going to die alone and that makes me so sad...”
“But sweetheart, your mom’s not alone” Ashlyn cooed into her distraught wife’s ear as she held her close. “You’ve been with her every step of the way. Every single one. She’s never been alone in this, not ever.”
Ali had to admit that her wife was right. And that made her feel a little bit better about it.
“But don’t you think she’d rather have Mike or some husband taking care of her now?” the brunette asked in a small voice as she got control of her tears and sat more upright.
“Honestly, no I don’t” Ashlyn shook her head and smiled softly at her love. “I’ve seen your mom with and without a husband. I’ve seen your mom with lots of different people she loves. I honestly don’t think she’d rather be with anybody else right now, or anywhere else. That’s the dirty truth honey. I swear it.”
After Deb’s death the whole family mourned. Deb had been the family matriarch and the light and laughter in almost every situation. She was universally beloved and her funeral was packed to the rafters with all the people whose lives she had touched over the years. Nobody could think of a single person who didn’t adore Debbie Krieger or Debbie Christopher. Despite her own words delivered at her funeral by one of her best friends instructing everybody who loved her to get on with their lives and be happy, many in the family struggled.
Nobody struggled more than Ali did though. She was devastated. She had always loved her mom, even as a younger woman just out of college, Ali loved her mom dearly and wasn’t afraid to show her or tell her. But as the brunette had gone through life and become a mother that feeling for Deb only deepened. Once she became a mom she had a whole other appreciation for everything Deb had done for her growing up. There was no better perspective than having your own kids to learn exactly how much your own parents sacrificed for your bratty ass. Deb had become Ali’s North Star, truly. They had grown closer and closer over the years and had bonded over love and fear and laughter and tears. All of it. Ali had shared all of it with her mother. She genuinely enjoyed Deb’s company and always welcomed it. It had grown into a very special relationship that they both held dear.
Just as the brunette had taken to walking to deal with her anxiety over cancer battles with Ashlyn and then Deb, she kept right on walking to try to cope with her deep grief. She was depressed. She would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation sometimes. Not only was she grieving her mother’s death, but she was also going through empty nest syndrome after sending the twins to college. It was a real mindfuck of a time for a while.
Technically it wasn’t an empty nest because Drew had moved home after college in May. He lived at the big old house and commuted into Boston to work for a video game company. A big portion of the gaming community that had for so long been based on the West coast had finally moved East and centered around Cambridge and the technology schools in the area. Drew was a game designer and his specialty was graphic design, but he was good at the code part of it too. Working for those big video game companies was a lot like working at a big architecture firm – that was something Ali could understand from her previous construction sales career. The young architects, and game designers, worked long hours, for not great pay, doing hard, tedious, thankless jobs and tasks that they never got any credit or recognition for. It was the nature of the beast. And if you could grind it out for so many years, you started to get promotions and better pay and more meaningful work assignments.
So even though Drew was living at home, he was never there. It felt like an empty nest to both Ali and Ashlyn, but so much more so for the woman grieving her dead mother. Ashlyn hadn’t lost her mom yet, Tammye lived for another 13 months after Deb’s death, so she couldn’t understand the special ache that comes with that loss. But Sydney Leroux Dwyer could.
“Jesus... Christ..., woman...” Sydney panted out and bent over with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. “I’ve been...looking...for you...for an hour...”
“Oh, sorry” Ali replied vacantly as she approached her doubled-over best friend along the side of Atlantic Road near the intersection with Moorland Road. The brunette was on the return leg of her trek.
“I...thought you were doing...the Bass Ave loop... tonight...” Sydney practically wheezed.
“Yeah, I changed my mind” Ali shrugged as she gazed out at the ocean to the East. “Felt like I needed the sea tonight.”
Sydney swallowed her annoyance at the change of plans her bestie had neglected to share with her. The coach had just race-walked the entire Bass Ave loop walk that Ali had said she was going to do, in an effort to catch up to the brunette. It was a beautiful late September evening and Sydney was doing everything she could to be there to support her suffering friend. Normal Ali would never be so cavalier with Sydney’s time or attention – especially not during soccer season. The high school coach was never busier than in the early Fall.
They walked together back to the big old house, taking their time and enjoying the ocean next to them. It wasn’t a beach walk, by any means. The rocky coast was anything but sandy beach. But it was still beautiful. Ali’s mind flickered to the very first time she had traveled to the big old house way back in February of 2015. She had driven up this very road with the ocean to her right just as it was now. The unexpected memory sparked something in her and she began to cry.
“Aw boo boo, I’m not that mad about it, I promise” Sydney tried to joke her way out of whatever was going on. She hipchecked Ali for good measure and they both giggled.
“God, I don’t even know what I’m crying about now” Ali wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and took a deep breath and blew it out. Then another. “I fucking hate this.”
“I know you do boo. I know” Sydney gave her a side hug as they continued to walk. “I remember exactly how you’re feeling. Sort of...adrift almost. Like you have no way to steer anymore.”
Ali stopped dead in her tracks with a look of complete recognition on her tired face.
“That’s exactly how it feels” her red puffy eyes were wide and she shook her head in wonder at her wise best friend who had stopped walking and come back to face the stunned brunette. “It feels like...like I’m floating away almost...”
“I remember” Sydney nodded and sniffled, getting a little emotional about losing her own mom 19 months earlier, and the loss she felt of Deb as well. Deb had been an enormous figure in Sydney’s life too. “But listen, I’ll be here to hold onto you, just like you’ve been holding onto me since my mom died. You’ve been keeping me from floating away and I’ll do the same for you now. Ok?” she put her arms on top of Ali’s shoulders and locked eyes with her. “Ok?”
“I love you so much” Ali whispered as she pulled her best friend into a tight hug.
“Me too you, boo” Sydney squeezed back.
They let the hug go on for another minute.
“Knowing they’re up there together makes me happy” the brunette said with a small grin.
“Me too” Sydney pulled back with her own smile. She looked up to the sky and said “We’re alright down here, or we’re gonna be” she winked at Ali and then looked back up. “I promise.”
They started walking again, heading home, and were both quiet for a few minutes.
“I don’t feel alright” Ali admitted quietly.
“I know.”
“How long did it take you?” she asked carefully.
“Not sure yet” Sydney gave her best friend a sad smile and then linked their arms at the elbow. “But if we’re gonna float off into nothingness, then we’re gonna do it together.”
//
The graduation dinner was a lot of fun. Ashlyn was in her glory and was living in both the past and the future. She and Whitney and Heather O’Reilly and some other former UNC teammates were reminiscing and catching up while at the same time the keeper could see her son’s adult life shaping up right before her eyes. She could see his professional soccer career about to take off. His future with the USMNT looked bright too. But, perhaps most importantly, she could see the way Dodge and Isa looked at each other. Ashlyn knew that look. It was the way she and Ali had looked at each other when they embarked on their own romantic relationship 30 years earlier. Hell, it was the way they still looked at each other now, after 27-1/2 years of marriage. The keeper hoped each of her children would find a love like she and Ali had, but she knew it was rare. Tonight, she thought she could see the beginnings of it in Dodge and Isa. She hoped like hell she was right.
Ali was enjoying her evening as well. A comfortable room full of her favorite people, celebrating one of her kids? That’s a slice of heaven right there for the brunette. Any mother prayed for their children to be healthy and happy. Those two things above all else. Nothing else mattered, really, except for those two things. And for a long time, Dodge hadn’t been happy. But now it was obvious to those closest to him that he was living a full life again, finally. He had done most of the heavy lifting himself, but Ali knew that the love of a good woman, as hokey as it sounded, could heal even the toughest wounds. Watching Dodge dote on someone again, the way he had with his first love, was such a wonderful relief for the brunette. He had healed himself enough to be able to love somebody else again. And also to make himself lovable enough for somebody to want to love him back. Ali was incredibly fulfilled in that moment, as any parent would be.
“What the fuck is this?” Sydney’s striking voice cut through the laughter and other boisterous noises that filled the room. It was hard to tell if she was angry or excited or maybe...both.
Ali and Ashlyn both stopped what they were doing from their different locations on either side of the private dining room and focused on Sydney Leroux Dwyer. The 61-year old high school girls soccer coach was standing behind the chairs of Josie and her girlfriend Endea who were both sitting and laughing with Lily and Maddox Dwyer. What made the scene even more strange was that Sydney was holding Josie’s left hand up and staring at something shiny there.
“What the fuck...” the coach repeated slower this time as a gigantic smile started to spread across her face, “is this, Miss Thing?!” she used one of her favorite nicknames for her goddaughter, and everyone in the room understood it was a happy outburst and not an angry one.
But nobody knew what she was talking about. Neither Ali nor Ashlyn had a clue. They hadn’t noticed that their red-headed daughter, who had just come back yesterday from a 14-month tour through Europe with a jazz quintet to attend her kid brother’s graduation celebration, had been discreetly hiding her left hand from view all night.
“Is this what I think it is?!” Sydney beamed down at the happy couple who both blushed deeply and giggled as they bowed their heads together conspiratorially.
“Well, this isn’t how we planned this...” Josie finally cleared her throat and spoke to the entire room of friends and family who were now hanging on her every word. She took Endea’s hand in hers and lifted it up between them, kissing the back of the chocolate skin and sharing a blissful look with the love of her life before continuing, proudly. “Dee and I got married in Germany before coming home. Sorry we didn’t tell anybody.” Josie’s pretty face morphed into an eek look that was quickly eclipsed by an enormous, nose-crinkling smile that engulfed her entire face, her whole body. She leaned in and shared a quick, chaste kiss with her wife. “But...yay us!”