Jade is nonplussed. “Definitely start with your mom’s long-lost lover.”
I tell her the full story of the summer. By the end, we’re laughing so hard my ribs feel sore. I look over at my bedside clock and see it’s already ten. Discussing it all with Jade, everything feels more manageable. She’s always had a way of putting the world into perspective. After an hour, I realize I’ve probably kept her from her dinner plans with Mark.
“I love you, Jade,” I say.
“Love you, always,” she says. “And don’t worry. Your mom will forgive you. You guys are so close. Nothing can break that.”
After we hang up, I look around the room, taking stock. The portraits, now dried, are leaning against the right wall. To their right, on a small wooden stool, are the envelopes from Lottie that Thomas found.
Normally, a message from Lottie would have been the first thing on my mind, but with everything else going on, the urgency has been lost. Maybe that’s a sign that we’re healing, finally moving on.
I walk over and pick them up. The first one is lighter than the second. There must be at least a hundred pages inside.
I sit back down on my bed, open the envelopes, and begin to read.
Chapter Thirty-FourLottie
According to the pamphlet I was given at the doctor’s office yesterday morning, this is the recipe for what a dying woman should do with her rare, remaining days:
Live every day to the fullest.
Tell people that you love them.
Get your will in order.
Let go.
It’s not exactly bad advice, but it’s generic. I’ve lived too much of my life by the status quo. Time is thinning, and the last thing I want to do right now is be another cliché.
Besides, it’s not easy to “live every day to the fullest” when chemo has made your spine as brittle as crackers, and walking from the kitchen to the reading nook is enough to leave you breathless.
Numbers two and three are good ideas, but four is tricky.
I know I’m close to dying, because most nights, Charlie visits me. It’s not as creepy as it sounds. He is not a ghost in the night, floating above our bed. Instead, he appears in my dreams. More often than not, he is waiting for me when I close my eyes. We talk. I ask him about death. He tells me it’s strange but okay. He says he’s excited to see me, and when he does, I realize that I am, too.
I suppose I have “let go” in that sense. I’m not afraid, but I am leaving too much behind, unfinished.
The other day, I snuck into Lily’s room when she was out and used her computer to search “What to do when dying?” Someone suggested making a bucket list. It was silly, but I tried. I wrote out a few ways to enjoy the island anew, but by the time I was finished, I realized it was a doomed venture. These days, I’m not fit to do much besides sit in the garden and think. Besides, a bucket list isn’t what I need. I need something grander, more difficult to grasp.
What I need now is to be honest.
There’s a lot you already know about me, but there is much you still don’t. When I was nineteen, I wanted to be a career woman, a magazine girl. It was going to be glamorous: fast-paced, unpredictable, maybe even a little seedy. I lived a cloistered upbringing and the wordseedysounded exciting in and of itself. The plan was to move to New York after I graduated from Sarah Lawrence and work as an editor at a women’s publication. I was supposed to intern my sophomore summer, but then that April, something else happened. I met your uncle.
You have to understand what Charlie was like back then. He was all big ideas, and curly hair, and he had this dimple in his chin, and when he spoke, the whole room quieted to listen. He was never a loud man, never domineering or obnoxious, but still, people listened to him just the same.
Charlie was visiting his sister at college when he first spotted me. I was on the quad, and it was one of those rare spring days that are warm and ripe with hope. I was reading a book, and he stopped in front of me, his tall frame blocking out the sun.
He said, “Excuse me, ma’am, I’m lost. Could you help me out with some directions to the science building?”
I pointed at a large brick building across the way and returned to my pages.
That wasn’t enough for Charlie, because he followed up with, “Would you mind walking with me? I don’t want to get lost.”
I really looked at him then, the bright sun on his face like a promise. His smile was mischievous and full of courage. I thought him brave.
But I didn’t say that. “It’s a straight shot,” I said. “I think you’ll manage just fine.”
He shielded his eyes from the sun, and they were as green as the April grass. “I don’t know,” he said, smiling. “Looks awfully far.”
