Until Then

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Quinn

I used to wonder if I truly remembered her voice or if it was changing inside my head as I grew older, bending with the years like my memories and fading at the edges like old pictures. Her soft fingers run along my forehead as my eyes stay shut and I hear her softly saying my name like she has been keeping it inside and only now is she allowed to set it free.

"Quinn." Her fingers slide across my head again. "Quinn, love, it's me."

She used to cradle me in her lap when I was a child. She would rock me to sleep when I was small, or let me rest my head on her as I grew bigger and then I'd drift off to sleep and awake only once she'd already carried me to my room where she'd set me in my bed for the night.

"Quinn," she says again, this time a bit louder and I open my eyes.

"Mom," I answer, surprised to hear the word spring so easily from my tongue after years of it never finding use there. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too," she replies. "But for you it must have felt much longer. Time passes differently here in between."

She's exactly like I remember. Her hair is strawberry blonde and woven into a braid, and her eyes are the same shade of green as mine. There are no wrinkles around her eyes or laugh lines by her lips and it's as if I am speaking to her the day after she left my life when I was only a child. Time has not aged her in the space between.

"Are you with Dad?" I ask.

"I was," she answers with a bright smile. "He's gone ahead now, but I'm going to join him very soon. I wanted to see you again." She twirls the hair at the end of my braid. "You'll see him again too. Your paths cross in your next life and then you will have time in the space between for a while."

My heart feels too big for my chest. I want to go now. I want to see him and hear his voice. I want to be away from this pain and learn about the space where our souls go to find the peace that so often eludes us here on earth.

"And Grandma?" My voice shakes as I ask, my hand pressing against my heart. I've missed her every day. I've thought of her when I drank from her coffee cup, or wore her old house slippers. I've heard her voice in my head as I chose my groceries or tried on a new dress. She'd taken me in when I'd needed both a mother and a father and somewhere along the way she'd also become the voice of my inner dialog.

My mom smiles down at me. "She'll be here when you cross over. She couldn't come right now because you aren't strong enough."

"But I'm only going to get worse." I tell her pleadingly. "If she's waiting for me to be strong then I'll never get to see her."

"If you saw her while you're still alive, you'd want to touch her. You're too weak for that and she's afraid it will make you cross over too soon. You're needed for one last thing. Once that has been fulfilled, then it will be time to come home." My mom tells me.

"What am I needed for and who made that decision?" I ask her, feeling slightly angry the end of my life is out of my control.

"You did, sweetheart. You don't remember it right now, but it will feel right when it happens. You chose this life. You chose me and Dad, you chose Grandma," she laughs softly, "and you chose him—just like always."

I open my mouth to ask another question, but my mom shakes her head. "I love you, Quinn. I'll see you again in the space between."

And then she was gone.

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