Chapter 38

Chapter 0038

“Why, Jane? Why would you scale back Stephanie’s memorial and take her pictures down? Please tell

me why!!” Margie pleads as tears start to fall down her cheeks.

“Dr. Miller told us that James needs to avoid stress as much as possible, and

“And you and Randall thought that erasing the memory of my daughter -his Goddess-chosen mate and

the female that he has loved his whole life- would somehow ease his stress?”

“No, Margie. We do not want to erase Stephanie’s memory. Please, just hear me out. You know that we

all love and miss Stephanie, but we have been grieving her almost obsessively for years. At some point,

we all have to move on with our lives.”

“It is easy for you to talk about moving on with your life when you have never had to deal with the death

of a child!” Margie screams.

Margie’s comment strikes me to my core, but I know I need to finish this conversation. Randall and I

talked about this at length.

“Margie, I thought you were okay with the pack starting to move on. It was you and Robert’s idea to make

James take a chosen luna…

“Because we knew he would never do it! And then we would get to pick someone that Stephanie would

have approved of, and someone who would be willing to continue to honor her memory! We were afraid that if we waited any longer, James might find a second chance mate who would want all signs of Stephanie removed!”

“Oh, Margie. That is not what we thought you were doing this for…”

“Who cares what you thought?” she snapped. “We were trying to be the bigger people. We were trying to do right by the pack. That does not mean that we wanted to forget our daughter or pretend like she was

never born!!!!” 1

I look at Margie sympathetically. My heart is breaking for her. [7

“Margie, I do not want to diminish your suffering. I know how hard this has been for you. You are right

that I have never experienced the loss of a child. It’s just that. I have to think of my son’s welfare too. We do not know how healthy it is for James and all of us, really- to continue to have so many reminders of her everywhere

“So, what? You think if we take down her pictures and scale back her memorial events it will make the pain of her death go away? Let me tell you something, Jane: the pain will not go away for me! IT WILL

the fact that she lived and that her life was important!!”

“Exactly, Margie. That is my point. We do not need all of the reminders and the big, showy events! Our

memories of her will always be in our hearts. Whether we have pictures everywhere or whether we have

large memorials does not change the fact that she lived and she had a great life that impacted a lot of

people.”

Margie wipes more tears from her face. “By taking down the pictures and scaling back her memorial

events, you are saying that Stephanie is no longer as important to this pack as she used to be.”

“No, Margie,” I plead. “That is not what I am saying at all.”

Margie wiped the last of her tears away, and then looked at me with a steely look on her face.

want the memorial events to go back to how they were, and how they have always been. And I want all

of the pictures to go back up as well,” Margie announced, in a tone of voice suggesting that she was

ordering me not asking me.

“Margie, I am afraid we cannot do that. Randall and I have already talked, and we think it is time-t

“YOU OWE ME, JANE. Do not forget that, because I have not. I do not like playing that card, but I will if I

have to. You know as well as I do that James would not be here but for me. You know what I sacrificed

for him. You owe me, and you will fix this.”

Mil covered my face with my hands as the familiar and overwhelming guilt took root in my gut. She is right.

She knows it, and I know it.

I sit down and try to come up with some other alternative. I come up empty.

Taking a deep breath, I looked at her again. “Ok, Margie. I will fix it. We will not scale back the memorial.

events and all of the pictures will go back up.”

“Thank you,” she said coldly as she stomped out of the room.

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