Chapter 22
Blake left the hotel and drove to Stella’s grave.
He looked at the photo on the tombstone-a young girl with a bright smile, so full of life.
Blake sat in front of the grave, his finger tracing her cold face in the photo.
“Stella, I almost married someone else on the anniversary of your death.”
“I know that makes me a complete asshole. I tried to forget you and start over, if that’s what you wanted.”
“But right at the altar, I couldn’t shake your image from my mind. I realized I can’t forget you.”
His eyes were red.
“Stella, what am I supposed to do? Get the therapy again, lose my memory one more time, then remember you again someday? By then I might be someone’s
husband or father.”
“That’s not fair to anyone.”
He touched her tombstone and said: “Stella, I promise you, next year I won’t come see you.”
When Sergeant Martinez went to apologize to Vanessa, she was gracious about it: “It was just a blind date arrangement. I didn’t lose anything.”
Vanessa looked through the window at the falling snow.
he smiled and said: “Better to cut losses early.”
When Sergeant Martinez went to confront Blake, he couldn’t get him to answer the door no matter how hard he knocked.
But he could hear a phone ringing inside.
Martinez immediately called in colleagues from the station. When they opened the door, they found Blake lying peacefully on the couch.
Holding Stella’s photo in his arms.
here was a note on the table-
ll assets donated to the Leukemia Research Center.
his time, Martinez didn’t call 911, because there were five completely empty bottles of sleeping pills on the table.
his time, Blake hadn’t left himself any chance of survival.
lake had no parents or family, so his funeral was arranged by his colleagues from the station.
ergeant Martinez placed Blake’s ashes in the cemetery on the south side, closest to the sunflower fields.
Martinez stood in front of Stella’s grave.
His eyes burned. In his career, he’d seen officers die in the line of duty, but never one trapped by love like this, unable to move forward.
He couldn’t decide if Blake was too pure-hearted or if he’d just been through too much.
Looking at the young girl in the tombstone photo, he said:
“Stella, I guess you’ve seen Blake by now.”
His voice cracked: “If you have, please tell him from me that he was a pretty lousy cop.”
He spoke like he was tattling on Blake, then turned to leave.
But after just a couple steps, he stopped suddenly and rushed back to the tombstone.
Sergeant Martinez never told anyone.
After Stella died, Blake would visit St. Mary’s Cathedral every single week.
People said the old cathedral had a special chapel for lost souls. There were 999 steps up the hill to reach it, and tradition claimed that if you knelt and prayed or each step, you could ensure peace in the afterlife for someone you lost.
Blake was terrified.
Scared that God had too many prayers to answer and might forget about Stella.
So he went religiously every week. Every Monday, Blake would drag himself into the station limping.
Martinez had seen his knees-raw and bleeding, never getting a chance to heal before being destroyed again, eventually worn down to the bone.
He turned back and placed a bouquet of white lilies at Stella’s grave.
A breeze picked up, carrying some petals all the way to St. Mary’s Cathedral.
In the chapel, the prayer wall was covered with handwritten notes-
[Stella Parker, may you find happiness in your next life.]
