Life Among the Pastures

Epilogue

After that last letter, I never heard back from Greg ever again. It was a few months later, when a mysterious woman came knocking at my apartment. Rain drizzled onto the earth as the cascade of droplets nearly blurred everything outside. Except for a woman who made herself clear in the rain as she battled through it all. She was dressed in a flowery blouse that was transparent enough to see her brasserie and her hazel brown hair curled to her shoulders. Clutched in her hands were a pile of dampish letters that were soaked.

"May I come in?" she said, cutting a smiling across her face.

"You are...."

"You're Mrs. Valeria Flores correct?" she inquired and held up the letters in which the ink bled the name of my name and Greg's name and address. So, I let her in while my husband gave us two cups of coffee as we settled on the Italian mattress in the living room.

"I would expect an actress to live lavishly and not have some mediocre apartment." the woman complimented after darting her eyes around the room.

"I'm quite comfortable in a normal apartment instead of some villa on a mountain."
She nodded as the scent of the Columbian coffee ushered her for another sip.

"I came all the way here after reading your letters between you and my ex-boyfriend."

"Then you are..."

"Yes," she said and drew the strand of hair back around her ear. "I am Lily."

Her name stunned me for a few seconds.

"Is there a particular reason why you are here, then?"

"I just came back from his funeral."

My eyes bulged, dumbfounded.

"He's...d" I tried to speak, faltering as the word that I feared most savored in my tongue and couldn't spit it out.

"Dead." She helped me finish.

"What happened?"

"Suicide. He jumped out the window in the hospital. I was so confused as to why he did that..but, after reading these letters, I understood why."

I looked her in the eyes as her eyes began to drown in tears and she finally broke, weeping as she buried her face in her hands.

"It was my fault.." she said. She kept crying until the rain ceased and the first broken shards of light brushed past the window, leaving drops of rain that puddled to the ground. When she finished her coffee, she thanked us and left. The same woman that walked through the rain wasn't the same woman that walked back in the sun.

Now Greg joined Midori. In some ways, I always thought both of them were similar--after Midori took her own life, I had a feeling that Greg would do the same but always brushed off the idea. She left behind the letters and made me reread all of them again. After reading through them a couple of times, I came to a decision to quit from the film production of Monster since it was the right thing to do. If I continued the film, I felt as if I was trotting under their grave and minding my own business, which was selfish.
After that, I decided to look for the pasture again. I rode my car across the states within weeks and still couldn't find it. It was when I was going to give up, I opened my eyes to the world again. I had just woken up from the steering wheel, after long nights of searching, and found myself stranded in the same place decades ago. The evergreen pastures that lingered the grassy taste of dew as it rode under my nose. The mountains that gave a ridged texture at the end of the earth, pointed to the blue sky with clouds that swirled like cotton candy--just like when I first moved to Philadelphia.

When I arrived at the barn, it was the same as the last time we left it: no old man and the cows that stopped talking. I went over to visit Kawasaki and Liam and petted them as a greeting. Like before, I was only greeted with pensive stares. After, I stood before the piano that Greg played and opened the piano cover. After we left the pasture that day, I decided to learn "Wild World" on piano since it was the most plausible thing to do. When I began playing, I could feel the piano weep with me for the death of Midori and Greg while the cows gathered around and listened. I expected the old man to pop out of nowhere to intervene, but he didn't. So, after, I turned on my ignition and began heading home.

In my head danced the cobweb of memories of both Midori and Greg. I guess Midori and Greg will unite in death and maybe get to know each other. At the thought of this, I found myself smiling while staring into the sky plastered in orange as it shot daggers of light into my eyes. Through the broken shards of orange glory, I could make out a small mountain that rose among the pasture. Standing on that mountain was a gray wolf that peppered with strands of black and stood eagerly that shot an aura of bravado through the day. Its eyes stalked down the passing car on the road while I found myself looking into the eyes of the wolf. After I passed the mountain, realization dawned on me while I stared down the ever winding road.

See you, Greg.