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But that Jake hated me so desperately.
I flew into my old room blindly, closing the door behind me with a slam.
It had remained unchanged, and when I passed the threshold, I was teleported back in time. I was sixteen again and had gotten the news that I was going to live with Annette, my mother’s sister, in New York. The tears were the same. The rip in my chest was identical. And there was nothing to do but take a minute to wallow.
I’d been handed a bucket of lemons, and I wanted to squeeze them all into Jake’s eye.
I sank onto the bed, curling into myself, but along with the squeak of the old mattress came a crinkle of paper.
The letter in my back pocket beckoned, momentarily forgotten. Holding it in my hands was surreal, the weight of the words inside as tangible as the paper itself. These words were the last he’d ever speak to me, and that knowledge left me as reluctant to open it as I was desperate to devour the words inside.
Wasn’t that how it always went? The moments you needed your lost one the most was when they were gone.
And I needed Pop.
With shaky hands, I tore open the envelope, begging the slip of paper for guidance.
Livi,
Seems like a million years ago that you and me rumbled up to the house after losing everyone we ever loved. You were just a pocket-sized little thing, and I remember lifting you out of the truck, thinking of how precious you were to me. I remember realizing just how badly you needed me and the answering understanding that I needed you too. Because we were alone. But we could be alone together.
So I made myself—and you—a promise. I’d never leave you alone again.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about that promise. It comes to me on the wind sometimes, on cricket songs, in the sound of my rocking chair on the porch. It comes to me in moments when I feel every mile between us, and there you are, as alive in my mind as if you were standing in front of me. Someday, I’ll be gone, and what will become of you?
I can’t leave you alone. Not again. So I’m leaving you with Jake.
I hope you don’t hate me for splitting up what’s yours by right. But I suspect that the two of you will need each other, even if just for the farm’s sake. I also suspect that Jake will not take kindly to your interference any more than you can stop yourself from interfering. But promise me you’ll listen to him. Never have I known a man so devoted to the farm or to me. I know that between the two of you, you’ll make something of our farm that none of us could have imagined. Truth be told, that thought makes writing this letter that much easier.
I love you, Livi. I’d wish for you to be strong, but you already are—you don’t know any other way. You persist with joy in your heart, and you’ll keep going despite my absence. But I’ll wish for you to take care of yourself and the farm. Take care of Jake in the way I hope he takes care of you. And try not to miss me all that much. Because I’ll always be here, with you.
All my love,
Pop
It took me much longer to read the letter than it should have, for both the unceasing curtain of tears and the hungry wish to hear his voice.
I can’t leave you alone.
I remembered that day, the day I’d come to the farm in Pop’s truck, teddy bear in my arms and my little pink polka-dot suitcase stuffed with my belongings. I remembered the way he’d smelled, the song on the radio—“Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” by Willie Nelson. The squeak of the seat as we bumbled up the drive. I remembered Kit, who was unchanged in my eyes. I remembered the loneliness I’d felt up until the moment Pop picked me up from the airport and swept me into his arms.
I can’t leave you alone.
So he’d left me with Jake.
It was a comfort and a curse to have him as my partner—he knew what he was doing and how to run the farm, that much was true. But I had a pretty good feeling that companionship was out of the question.
He’d left me with Jake. But Jake didn’t want to be left with me.
I swiped at my tears, reading the letter again, then once more. The farm had been left in our charge, and his final wish was that we take care of it.
So I’d make sure we did. I owed him that.
I owed him more than that.
This was my chance to prove myself, to right my wrong in leaving. Jake had accused me of avoiding coming home, and in so many ways, I had. I thought I had time when I didn’t. I hadn’t been ready to come back, but that shouldn’t have mattered.
