Page 10 of When I'm Gone
Once Annie reached the front of his car, she jogged inside like she was sprinting to the finish line in a long race. And when she disappeared through the front door, Luke slammed the pedal to the floor and turned the wheel right, hard, toward work.
FEBRUARY
CHAPTER 4
It took two weeks for Luke to get up the courage to actually let the college girl, Jessie, come to his house.
He had been happy enough letting Clayton snuggle in bed with him after a half day of work and letting the older kids live off frozen pizzas and fruit snacks. It wasn’t what Natalie wanted, but why shouldn’t he be allowed to mourn in his own way, even if that meant eating processed food and fake fruit?
Then, the printed letter came. It was printed on a stiff piece of copy paper, which felt so unfamiliar in his hands. Instead of comfort, it brought panic. Is this when they would end? Would his entryway be empty tomorrow morning? He ran his fingers over the printed words where they’d been smudged by a drop of water. Maybe a tear.
DAY 34
Dear Luke,
This letter is out of order. I don’t have energy to write by hand anymore. I know the truth now. I won’t be around much longer. You don’t want to believe it, which I find a little funny since you don’t believe in miracles.
I can feel it. So now it’s time for me to do some things that will make your life easier after I’m gone. I can’t talk about them all today—too much work. But there is someone I need to tell you more about—Jessie Fraga. By now I hope you’re at least familiar with her name and my wishes where she is concerned. You can’t know what it’s like to feel like you are unwillingly abandoning your children. The only comfort I’ve found is knowing that there are people willing to fill in the gaps you leave behind. Jessie is one of those people.
I met her almost a year ago when I went back to school. She’s an undergrad elementary education student. We used to study on the same cluster of couches. I never saw her without headphones and some kind of Broadway T-shirt. I thought she was a theater major until one day I noticed her Math Methods textbook and asked if she was studying education too. That’s all it took. We became friends right away.
Jessie is a “normal” twenty-one-year-old in a lot of ways, but she’s been through a lot in her life. She’s a fighter. It’s not cancer, thank God, but she knows what it’s like for your body to sabotage itself. For Jessie it’s her kidneys. She’s been living her life with chronic kidney disease ever since she was a very small child. I think she’d be a wonderful example to our children of perseverance despite all odds.
I have more to tell you about Jessie, but for now know she’s very important to me. She’ll help with homework and dinner. Please, if you listen to only one thing I ask you, hire Jessie. She’s special.
I love you. I’m so sorry we had to end like this. It’s not fair.
Love,
Natalie
Today the infamous Jessie was coming over, any minute actually. If the “interview” went well, then Clayton would stay with Annie until three in the afternoon, and Jessie would take up the evening hours before he got home from work.
The doorbell rang. Three o’clock already. It was a positive sign that the girl was on time, but Luke wouldn’t have minded another ten minutes to make the house presentable. Never mind that he’d had two hours to do it before she arrived, but Natalie’s letters had gobbled up all his time, making the hours feel like an instant. He allowed himself to fall into this trap frequently.
Leaping out of bed, Luke carefully added Natalie’s printed letter to the growing pile on his nightstand and straightened his crumpled dress shirt. He tiptoed past Clayton’s room, hoping the doorbell didn’t wake him from a rare afternoon nap. When he stepped off the bottom stair, his foot landed on Clayton’s Spiderman pj’s, still lying in a sloppy pile on the floor. Luke cursed under his breath, grabbed the pajamas, threw them down the basement stairs, and slammed the door, putting laundry on his list of things to get done.
Going back to work and dealing with the kids was not as easy as Natalie’s letters had led him to believe. Maybe Nat was better at it, or maybe she’d tricked herself into believing it wasn’t going to be this hard living without her.
Don’t ring the bell again,Luke begged silently. Turning the doorknob, he whisked the door open, slightly out of breath. A petite young woman stood on the front porch. Petite was the wrong word. Small. Under five foot, and no way she weighed much more than May. Her long dark hair swept up into a high ponytail looked so grown up on her small frame. Bright-blue eyes sparkled out from under a heavy swath of bangs.
“Hi. Are you Mr. Richardson? We spoke on the phone.” Her words ran together as she held out one of Natalie’s envelopes in her hand, robin’s egg blue. “I knew your wife.” Her smile was almost as oversize as her ponytail, but once Luke caught sight of the envelope, he stopped taking account of his new sitter and watched the envelope like a cat with a canary. She tapped it against her palm.
“Uh, come in. Please.” He swung the door wide and stepped back, making sure to keep enough space between them so she couldn’t see the wrinkles pressed into his shirt from his nap.
“Should I take off my shoes?” Jessie eyed the shoe baskets. Within days of the funeral, Luke had returned the overflowing receptacles to the front hall. They cluttered up the entranceway beautifully.
“We have the kids take off their shoes, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Jessie slipped out of her ballet flats, revealing a pair of thin black socks barely covering her feet. Standing there, sock-footed, in her backpack and coat didn’t help make her look more mature. In ten years May would be standing there, full-grown, in the exact spot, but still a child in his mind. Natalie would never see it. He wondered how she could bear to think about all the things she would miss.
Jessie shifted from foot to foot, and Luke realized he was standing silently, staring. If he wasn’t careful, she was going to run away from the creepy man who didn’t know how to talk to humans anymore.
“Uh,” he cleared his throat and turned away, “let’s sit and talk for a few minutes.” Luke was about to point to the kitchen but remembered the dishes overflowing in the sink. They could easily talk in the formal front room two steps from where they were standing. It had nice furniture and the kids were never allowed to play on the tight shag carpet, but Natalie died there. So, it was kitchen and dishes. “Come this way.”
He gestured for Jessie to follow him. She’d see their mess sooner or later, and this way she could make an informed decision.
As they passed through the hall leading to the kitchen, Jessie stopped and scanned the pictures hanging in a pyramid, Luke and Natalie’s wedding picture at the top, the three kids lined up underneath.
“Oh my gosh, Natalie was so pretty!” She pushed her bangs out of her eyes and tipped her head back. “You guys look so young.”
