But this...this was the breaking point I feared would ruin us.

.............................

NOVEMBER

Grief had an awful way of lingering.

It tainted, not just our crying hearts and every thought, but I tasted it in the sky. I ate it for dinner. I slept with it at night.

After our self-inflicted solitude, we found our way back to each other.

For two months, we existed in a daze, constantly expecting Conner to charge up the beach with an arm full of freshly caught fish or proudly carry Coco to go swimming.

Pippa jumped with hope if the wind whistled in the trees, morbidly mimicking Conner’s laugh.

Galloway threw everything he had into protecting Coconut. He became mistrustful of everything, and the light that’d shone so bright in his gaze, the same light that mirrored in mine, had been snuffed out.

For so many months, we’d beaten adversity together...now, I felt more alone than ever.

Night-time turned into nightmares. I couldn’t escape them. I couldn’t stop the heartache of missing him.

One star-spangled night, Galloway kissed my cheek and spooned me.

I tensed, expecting sex. Sex I wasn’t emotionally ready for.

Instead, he whispered, “We loved him, Estelle. We loved him a son, friend, and brother. But we can’t keep killing ourselves this way. He’s gone. We’re still here. We have to keep going.

“He would want us to move on. He trusts us to care for Pippa.” He embraced me hard. “We owe it to him not to give up.”

My tears came afresh, but this time, they weren’t full of weeping acid but pure with parting.

This man wasn’t my other half.

He was my heart.

And no matter what happened, that would never change.

.............................

Days vanished without us bothering to count them.

The rainy season pelted us, but we ignored it.

The sunshine burned us, but we paid no attention.

The constant sameness of our humid, tropical island was a mockery to our pain.

We lost sight of how to be happy, how to laugh in fear’s face and survive in death’s glare.

We bowed under the pressure and finally came to terms with the fact if we didn’t leave, we would die.

We would die, and we wouldn’t really care.

We weren’t playing house on the beach.

We weren’t living a fantastical dream where society couldn’t touch us, everyday flu couldn’t find us, and stress of work couldn’t harm us.

This was real.

Conner was dead.

Dead.

We were the gateway and final destination to life and death.

We were the morgue, the supermarket, the hospital, the house, the bank, the pharmacy, the restaurant. We were every mortal thing and the pressure to fight had finally vanished.

.............................

DECEMBER

Only a few dates smudged and sullied into perspicuous recollection.

A few dates that would forever be known as life-changing.

The date Madi uploaded my song and changed my career was one.

The night we crash landed on our island was two.

The morning Coco was born was three.

The afternoon Conner died in our arms was four.

And the upcoming nightmare in our future was five.

Five dates that defined me.

Five dates that would carry such heavy, heavy weight.

Even now, three months since Conner abandoned us, we hurt just as badly.

Three months since we’d genuinely laughed and smiled.

Three months since our will to survive had dried up.

However, with death came life, and Coconut blossomed overnight. She morphed from human larvae into a chatty little girl, magically stealing our sadness and reminding us how to smile again. Her tiny cheeks and intelligent eyes acted as a balm for our smarting memories.

The tears were never far away, and Pippa was irrevocably changed. She’d become a stranger who we shared our island with. The last surviving member of her bloodline.

But life dragged us onward, patching up our wounds with hours and days, slowly healing us despite our wishes.

The turtles visited (as they did every year) but this time, no one stayed up to witness their night long laying.

We were too tired.

Too weak.

Growing weaker by the day.

One night, the urge to connect with Galloway overwhelmed me and I stole his hand to lead him to bed.

Pippa remained by the fire, staring into the flames the same way she did every night. The only time she remembered she was alive was when I put Coco in her arms. Then she would blink and converse, shedding her cape of listlessness until the squirmy toddler decided she’d had enough being the emotional medicine for a severely sad sister.

For some time, I wondered if it’d been fairer for fate to take Pippa’s life instead of Conner’s. She carried her family’s death too hard. It might’ve been kinder for her to pass, to find her mother and father in the great wide ether and trade this existence for a celestial one.

But fate didn’t work that way. It didn’t give invitations to its upcoming events. It just orchestrated what would happen with no apology or suggestion.

We didn’t speak as I pulled Galloway inside our bedroom and hurriedly undid the bows of my bikini.

Galloway’s eyes burned with an intensity I’d never seen before as he shed his board-shorts and gathered me in his arms.

Our kiss was wild and furious.

Our coupling messy and violent.

And after whatever compulsion had driven us was sated, we lay in the dark and agreed.

It was time.