Afterlife: Caitlyn: Visiting Family

[k_a_webb]

This entry is part 25 of 33 in the Afterlife collection

Slowly Caitlyn walked through her eldest daughter’s home, unable to stop herself from checking on the people she cared about. They should have all been asleep, as it was well past midnight, and it wasn’t until she entered twelve-year-old Avery’s room that she realised that anyone wasn’t. A smile lit up Avery’s face and Caitlyn couldn’t stop herself from smiling back. She should have known that her psychic granddaughter would be awake on the day she chose to visit.

This entry is part 25 of 33 in the Afterlife collection

“How are you?” Caitlyn asked, sitting down on the end of Avery’s bed.

“Better than I was. Your death seemed so permanent when it happened, but now…” Avery shrugged. “I knew you’d visit, but I didn’t know when, and the wait seemed like it was never going to end.”

“Avery…” Caitlyn shook her head, not wanting to say the wrong thing when it was the first time she’d seen Avery since the day she’d died, when they’d spoken about what being dead might be like. “You shouldn’t have waited for me, darling. Coming back to talk to you was important to me, but not everyone is permitted to return. It depends on how well they’ve managed to accept what has happened to them and there was always a chance that being dead might not have been as easy as we both thought it would be.”

“You knew it was coming.”

Caitlyn nodded. “I did, but that didn’t make dying easy.” She bit her lip. “When I first stepped into the field, which is where most people find themselves when they die and they aren’t afraid of it happening, I couldn’t remember who I was. There was still this urge to wait for someone, but I’ve never been good at waiting, so I found myself wandering instead, which was when I realised what had happened.” She laughed. “Either that or I’d stepped into one of those fantasy novels you convinced me to read, but then Nate found me.”

“What happened?” Avery sounded unsure, but then she understood what it meant for Caitlyn to see Nathan again. “I guess I knew that was going to happen, because Nathan was your husband, but I couldn’t help hoping that it didn’t. For his sake mostly.”

“Thankfully he has moved on, although I did get this feeling, when he first saw me, that he wished he hadn’t. At least until our eyes met and he saw how wary I was.” Caitlyn found herself wondering what it would have been like if he’d been different, even though that wasn’t something she’d thought about before, because it was the first time she’d really had a chance to understand how important it had been for her that he’d stopped clinging to the past. “I think he still loves me, but he’s not in love with me. Not know. Having a spirit guide like Aras helped a lot and I’m glad that he had someone there to help him through all that, especially as a lot of the spirits don’t.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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