Fall With Me

that means things will work out.
     

Epilogue - Griffin
     
    The day of Jill’s graduation is warm and sunny. We drive over from our apartment in Hayes Valley to her mom’s house to help her get ready for the ceremony.  When Annabel is ready, I wheel her outside and help her get into the car.
    “I just wish her father could be here to see this,” she says. “But I’m really so proud of her.”
    The ceremony is long, and during a particularly verbose speech, I find myself daydreaming, thinking about the past year. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I occasionally miss the old days, but it’s a fleeting type of longing, and not something I’d ever go back to if I could. My days now have a steadiness to them that I think of as a kind of rhythm, a balance that I never had before. I like nothing more than waking up in the bedroom of our third-floor apartment, the sun gently filtering in through the curtains Jill and I picked out. I get up, make coffee, we have breakfast together. We get ready; she goes to the Sutter St. Women’s Center, where she’s doing an internship when she doesn’t have class, and I head up to Marin, where I’m working as an intake counselor at the Morning Glory Rehabilitation Center. I get a paycheck every two weeks, directly deposited into my bank account. We pay our bills, we go out sometimes, still have great sex. Life is good.
    I talk to Mom occasionally; I’m trying to get her to come out and visit, though she’s resisting, for whatever reason. She is still recovering from everything that happened, and though she isn’t living a life of poverty, Dad’s legal fees depleted a significant portion of his wealth. Cam has disappeared. No one has heard from him, I’ve looked for his face on the cover of those supermarket tabloids, but nothing. The phone he gave me never rings, though I still keep it on my dresser and check it once in a while.
    I don’t know if I’ll ever go visit my father in prison. Unlikely, but I occasionally think of writing him a letter. The only problem is I don’t know what I’d write. Does he deserve a second chance as well? I’m not sure.
    Annabel and I both yell our heads off when Jill’s name is called, and she walks across the stage and gets her diploma. She’s the hottest girl up there, by far, and I stick my fingers in my mouth and give her the loudest whistle I can.
    When the ceremony is over, it takes us a little while to find her in the crowd. She comes over, diploma in hand, and I give her a bouquet of flowers (not orchids!) and a hug.
    “Congratulations, sweetheart,” I say. “You’re a graduate.”
    “I am!” she says gleefully. She gives me a kiss. “Thank you for everything.”
    “Me? I hardly did a thing.” I lean toward her, my mouth against her ear. “But I’ll tell you one thing: I can’t wait to take you home and properly celebrate.”
    She looks at me and grins. “I like the sound of that,” she says.
     
    Much later that night, after Jill and I have celebrated her new status as college graduate in our own way, I get up to get a glass of water. The moonlight filters in through the curtains and throws narrow rectangular strips of lights across the hardwood floor. Seeing it reminds me for a second of the thin shaft of lights I first saw when I came to in that walk-in closet on the yacht, and I wonder: Maybe everything really does happen for a reason? I always believed you made your own destiny, the path you were supposed to follow was whatever one you chose to go down. But for everything that’s happened since I landed in Koh Phangan and made my way to the Full Moon party makes me think otherwise.
    I set the glass down in the sink and head back into the bedroom. Jill is lying there, the sheet draped halfway across that long, gorgeous body of hers. For a moment, I lean against the doorframe and watch her sleep. I could do this for the rest of my life , I think. I could wake up next to this woman for the rest of my life and be totally and completely content.
    I walk toward the bed when my dresser suddenly starts glowing. It’s the phone, Cam’s phone, and it rattles lightly against the wood as it vibrates, once, then twice. Text message. I go over and pick it up. It is from a number I don’t recognize, but the message is clear enough:
    This is not over yet.
    I think about texting something funny back, but then don’t. I wait to see if any more messages follow, but after a minute the screen darkens and then shuts