As the days passed after the funeral, the family realized that they had to keep moving forward. Grief ebbed and flowed, but it was ever-present. And it would always be so for the Chikamori children with their father and mother taken away from them so tragically.
Braden was now the head of the entire family, since he was the one chosen as heir, despite the fact that usually it was the oldest male in a Japanese family that ended up being the family patriarch. But even though he felt like he should defer to Allan as Allan was the oldest, his older brother told him that he was relieved that Braden was the one shouldering the burdens. Allan had his hands full in his medical career and he and his wife had to worry about that as well as his own children, so he wasn't able to devote the time and the energy that Braden was able to. Braden now had time on his hands since he was now an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency and only had to worry about one mission a week (in fact he only had to go into work one day a week) and was pulling in a good solid income at the top of his career ladder. From here on in it would be General rank after this was over.
Cape Garner had settled into full-on winter and it was snowing nearly every single day, oftentimes non-stop. There was a thick carpet of snow on the island as a nasty polar vortex had made temperatures plummet nearly overnight.
But there were tasks to deal with and the fact that they were together helped make things less of a burden.
Braden decided to work on his logic skill by creating potions at the potion table. It was something to take his mind away from the grief and he worked at it single-mindedly. Besides, it was something to fill up the days when he wasn't working.
...and others found other ways to take away the grief...by holding each other tighter. Marisa decided to form a relationship with Martin O'Reilly, one of the boys who had come over from Ireland in an international high-school exchange program.
While Alfredo Morales decided to take the plunge and ask Kyla to marry him which she enthusiastically accepted. After all the entire family (both hired help and family members) had encircled the wagons around their family and the fact that Alfredo and Kyla decided to make sure that they would always have a family around them, just in case something happened to Braden and Greta. Det. Const. Langerak had told them that to keep their eyes open, since the suspects that had gone after Braden's mother and father were still in the area. The whole island was locked down.
Kyla and Alfredo felt as though they were part of the family and they wanted to make sure that nothing would ever separate the family children if the worst happened. At least then the Chikamori name would continue on in perpetuity.
Despite all that, grief was never far behind...and sometimes it was just best to let it flow rather than pen up the feelings.
For Karina, sometimes solace took the form of playing the piano, much like her grandfather and great-grandfather had done.
...and life went on...
