Reunion

"Daddy, what happens when we die? Do we go to heaven like Pastor Davis said?" 

I looked into my rearview mirror and caught the gaze of my six year old daughter, Ellie. Her light brown hair was tied up in a ponytail and she sat erect in her carseat, brimming with curiosity as her green eyes peered into mine. Taking a moment to consider the wording of my answer, I thought of Ellie's mother, Gina, and how irate she would be if I offered any answer other than what I was about to say.

"Yes honey, of course we go to heaven. That's when we get to see all of the people that we love the most together again." 

She sank back into her seat a little, her brow furrowed in thought. "So that means when I die I get to see mommy again?" 

The slight crack in my daughter's voice at the end of the question had me glancing at her quickly. Her lower lip was protruding and her eyes were crinkled. I'll give her credit, she was trying real hard to hold herself together right now. 

But her mother... If there was a heaven, that is not where Gina Avery Brown would be at the moment. Nobody, not even the good father himself could ever possibly forgive that woman for what she had done. But I couldn't tell Ellie that.

"Ellie, you know your mother loved you very much, and you love her. I can't imagine that God would ever possibly want to separate the two of you. Not in life and definitely not in death."

It wasn't a lie, I thought as Ellie smiled and turned to look out the window. It was then, as I was gazing rearward at her, that it happened.

The screaming of an air horn had me slamming on my brakes. LED headlights bore down on my suburban right before steel tore into steel. The last things I heard as I slipped from consciousness were the earsplitting screams of my young daughter as the light aluminum of my car was torn at its seams.

I awoke to a strange, hollow silence. No sirens. No car horns. No screams.

"Ellie?" My voice emerged as a rasp, my throat dry and tight. I blinked, trying to orient myself. I wasn't in my car anymore. I wasn't anywhere I recognized.

The space around me was white. Not hospital white with beeping machines and antiseptic smells, but a pristine, infinite white that seemed to stretch beyond comprehension. I rose to my feet, surprised to find no pain, no injuries from the crash that had surely... that had...

"Ellie!" I called again, my voice stronger now, echoing in the emptiness.

A memory flashed—metal crushing inward, the windshield shattering, Ellie's scream cutting through the chaos. My heart raced as panic set in. Where was my daughter?

"She's not here yet."

I spun around at the voice. A voice I hadn't heard in two years. A voice that still haunted my dreams.

Gina stood before me, looking exactly as she had before everything went wrong. Her chestnut hair fell in waves past her shoulders, and those familiar green eyes—Ellie's eyes—regarded me with a softness I'd almost forgotten.

"You're not real," I whispered, taking a step back. "This isn't possible."

"That's what I thought too, at first." She gestured to the white expanse around us. "But here we are."

"Where is Ellie?" I demanded, my voice breaking. "What happened to our daughter?"

Gina's expression shifted, pain flickering across her features. "She's still there, James. She's fighting."

"Fighting?" The word fell from my lips as understanding dawned. The crash. The screams. The nothingness that followed. "Am I... are we..."

"Dead?" Gina finished my thought. "I am. Have been for a while now. You're... in between."

My legs gave out beneath me, and I sank to what should have been a floor but felt like nothing at all. "The truck hit us. We were talking about heaven and then—" I looked up at her, realization spreading through me like ice water. "Ellie asked if she'd see you in heaven."

Gina knelt beside me, close enough that I could almost feel the warmth that should have radiated from her body. But there was nothing. She wasn't really there. Or perhaps I wasn't.

"James, listen to me. You need to go back."

I stared at her, incredulous. "Go back? How? Why would I—"

"For Ellie," she interrupted. "She needs you. She's lying in a hospital bed right now, and the doctors are working to save her. But she needs something to fight for."

The mention of Ellie sent a fresh wave of panic through me. "Is she going to be okay? Will she—"

"I don't know," Gina said softly. "That's not how this works. But what I do know is that she has a chance. And you do too."

I looked around at the white emptiness, then back at the woman I had once loved more than anything. The woman who had destroyed everything.

"Why did you do it, Gina?" The question that had tortured me for two years finally escaped. "Why did you leave us like that?"

Her eyes welled with tears that never fell. "I was sick, James. Sicker than I knew. Than anyone knew. The depression, it wasn't just sad thoughts or bad days. It was a monster that convinced me Ellie would be better off without me. That you both would."

"That was never true," I whispered.

"I know that now." She reached out as if to touch my face but stopped just short. "And if you could see what I see now, you'd understand how precious every moment is. How even the darkest days are worth fighting through."

A distant sound penetrated the silence—a steady beeping, growing louder. Voices, muffled but urgent.

"They're calling you back," Gina said, standing. "You need to go to her."

"What about you?" I asked, rising to my feet.

A smile ghosted across her lips. "I'll be here. When it's time—the real time—I'll be waiting. For both of you."

The beeping grew louder, insistent. Bright lights began to pierce the whiteness.

"Tell her I love her," Gina's voice grew fainter as the whiteness dissolved around me. "Tell her I'm sorry I couldn't be stronger. Tell her—"

The white gave way to blinding fluorescents. Pain crashed over me in waves. Voices shouted medical jargon I couldn't comprehend. I tried to speak, to ask about Ellie, but a tube in my throat prevented any words.

"He's back!" someone called out. "BP stabilizing. Heart rate normalizing."

I blinked against the harsh light, trying to communicate with my eyes what my voice couldn't.

A nurse leaned into my field of vision. "Mr. Brown, you're in the hospital. You were in a serious accident. Your daughter is in surgery, but she's fighting. Do you understand?"

Fighting. Just like Gina said.

I managed a small nod, ignoring the pain that ripped through my body with the movement.

"Rest now," the nurse said. "She's going to need you when she wakes up."

As darkness crept in around the edges of my vision, I held onto one thought: I would be there. For Ellie. And somehow, I'd find the words to tell her that her mother had been waiting, just like she'd hoped. That heaven was real, and love transcended even the greatest mistakes. That sometimes, redemption comes in the most unexpected ways.

And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.