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I nod, although it so dark he can’t see me. “Played it all four years. Got first chair and everything.”
“Look at you, Miss Fancy Pants.”
I grab Jackson’s hand and interlace my fingers with his. “Tell me more about her.”
He squeezes my hand. “Amy made me feel welcome immediately. She played the flute. Band was surprisingly fun. We went on these band trips together, and I would sit next to her every time. The more time I spent with her, the more I wanted to be around her. I kissed her at the Homecoming game, and that was it. We went to the dance together, and she wore this pink dress. I will never forget the way I felt when I saw her. I felt soalive. I think I fell in love with her then.”
This breaks my heart since I know the ending of the story.
Jackson inhales. “We had been dating for three months when she was diagnosed with leukemia.”
“Oh, Jackson.”
He takes another ragged breath, and I forget about the cold or the wind. All that matters is this man I care about deeply telling me about the most pivotal person of his life.
“She tried to break up with me. Said she didn’t want me to see her like this. I was already in love with her so there was no way I was letting her go through it alone. I refused, and she nodded once. She grabbed my hand, and I saw a tear in her eye.
“When we were killing time at chemotherapy, we made a New Life List. She loved New Year’s resolutions, so we made one for when she went into remission. There were so many. See a Broadway musical in New York. Take one perfect picture. Amy was really into photography. Try sushi. See the town in Ireland her grandparents were from. Go to college. One day, she asked me to pull out the list, and she said she wanted “marry Jackson Finch” on it. I started planning the proposal immediately. The day she rang the bell that the cancer was gone and she was officially in remission, I took her to this spot and dropped down to one knee and proposed. She said yes. We were twenty.
“We got married in a small ceremony in her parents’ church and had brunch after. We went to Ireland that next week for our honeymoon. We started knocking out the list, bit by bit. I had been taking classes while she was in treatment, but Amy got to experience college for the first time. She wanted to be an oncology nurse. The night she graduated she spiked a high fever, and we took her to the ER. We found out the night we marked off the last item on the New Life List that the cancer was back.
“I kept insisting we make a new list for when she beat cancer again, but she was hesitant. She knew it was different that time. Treatment didn’t work. She just got sicker. We tried everything. We did a stem cell transplant, and that didn’t work, and it became clear we were going to lose her. She was put on hospice around Thanksgiving.”
He’s quiet, but I hear his breath quake, silently crying out years of unexpressed emotion.
“Is that why Thanksgiving is hard?”
He nods. Jackson grabs my hand, encased in a huge mitten, and pulls me close.
“Her dad’s insurance couldn’t afford an at-home nurse, so my dad stepped in, no questions asked, and arranged it. We moved into my parents’ house, and Amy had a full set-up and a full-time nurse. I can never repay my parents for what they did.”
Jackson wipes his face, but a tear drops on my cheek. I’m glad he’s getting this out. My gut tells me he hasn’t told this story in full to anyone, and I’m the first person he’s telling it to.
“I’m honored you’re telling me about her.”
The tears flow freely from my face; I don’t bother to wipe them away. My heart breaks for Amy, a woman I’ve never met, and how much Jackson loved her.
My tears must’ve given silent permission to Jackson because I hear his tiny sobs with his tears, and we hold each other.
When the tears stop, we sit there in silence. I check my phone and we’re inching closer to midnight.
“I wanted to drink today. I wanted to, so bad. I usually get so hammered, pass out, and don’t make it to midnight. I picked a hell of a year to be sober for this. That’s how I ended up out here, crying my eyes out, to you.”
“You shouldn’t feel ashamed for crying. You loved her.”
“I did. Very much.”
“She sounds amazing. Like I would’ve been friends with her.”
“I think you would’ve been good friends. You remind me of her a lot. She was always helpful. Always giving. Thought about others more than herself. She was a much better person than me. I still can’t believe that she chose me. Me.”
My bones ache with his words. She would’ve liked me. The woman who Jackson has held a candle for, all this time, had some of my qualities. It’s flattering and breaks my heart.
“I know why she chose you” comes out as a whisper and he turns his head.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing! Do you have a picture of her?” I ask, changing the subject. “I didn’t see any in your house.”
