We'll Meet Again | ✓

Epilogue

On the warmest day of May, Valarie sat with her feet up on the dash and a two year old in her lap as she gripped a hand-held fan. After finishing her morning school route, Valarie had picked up her little sister, Sofia, from Mom and parked her yellow bus at the countryside transit stop. If it wasn't so hot, she would have brought Ithaca along for the ride, but he seemed to enjoy Mom and Bastien's AC too much.

The time on the dash read 9:49. In less than ten minutes, a westbound coach would come rumbling down the road and would let, Valarie suspected, only a single passenger out.

Sofia pressed a pink sticky note to Valarie's leg, using a red crayon to scribble on a fresh page. After watching Casper for the first time, ghosts became Sofia's new favourite subject to draw, but Valarie suspected she'd switch back to horses soon enough. Valarie's dash was filled with crafts and drawings that students and Sofia gave to her. She kept every single one.

She'd been a bus driver since she'd finally, painfully completed her GED. The idea came after a long conversation with Bastien where she attempted to write down strengths she had and possible jobs she could do. Her list had been pretty short, but Bastien kept adding things that she had never thought of as skills, like friendliness and communication. When he suggested driving, a light switched on in Valarie's head.

For now, she did her morning and afternoon routes daily, using the time between and weekends to waitress and improve her abysmal French. She was hoping to apply to work for the city.

When Mom invited her to visit for Sofia's birth, Valarie had every intention of returning to Valentine. It turned out that Valarie liked being a big sister too much, and the longer she stayed, the clearer it became that there was nothing left in Valentine for her.

So, she took Nonno's van on one more long expedition, and, for the first time since she was a little kid, Valarie found herself living with her mother. Their dynamic felt more like being roommates than anything else, but it worked well for the both of them. She accepted occasional acts of care from Mom without ever allowing herself to rely on or expect them.

A vehicle appeared on the horizon, and Valarie couldn't keep a grin from her face. She put down the plastic fan and hoisted Sofia into her arms. "Up we go."

Balancing her sister on her hip, she watched the bus approach, stopping in the designated spot. A shadowed figure stood up from the back of the coach and made its way to the front.

When the bus pulled away, Valarie drank in what she saw. Alice, almost three years sober now, about to begin law school in Montreal, and not wasting a single moment in crossing the street towards her, smiling as if she hadn't just spent eight hours in transit. She'd chopped her hair up to her shoulders, and Valarie couldn't wait to run her fingers through those dark curls.

Valarie pointed. "Look, here's Auntie Alice."

Alice stopped a few feet away, dimples out, and those hazel eyes taking in Valarie as if she were a miracle. She dropped her bags at their feet, and Valarie could have wept at the thought of Alice's things in her room, on her nightstand–of Alice in her bed, at her table, in her car, everywhere, anywhere.

She promised herself that this was the last time she'd ever have to reunite with Alice Bell.

"Hi, Alice," she said.

"Hi, Valarie."

~ THE END  ~