Page 6 of When I'm Gone
May shifted back and forth on her bare feet, wrapping a damp strand of hair around her finger. She leaned in and whispered, “She’s back.”
Luke glanced up at Annie, whose face was a flat stone, unreadable. “Who’s back, baby?”
“Mommy.”
Luke clamped a hand over his mouth, his stubble scratching his palm, tears collecting in his lower lids. “Mommy is dead, baby. She’s not coming back.” He tucked the wild wet hair behind her ear, tracing the soft curve of her cheek.
“Where did my smiley-face pancake come from?” She took a step back, bumping into Annie’s long legs. “Only Mommy makes them like that. I know it was her. I know it.”
“It was me, honey. Mommy told me you like them that way. I thought it would make you happy. I’m so sorry.” Luke reached out to pull May into his arms, to cuddle her, nuzzle her cheek, and make everything okay like he did when she was learning to walk and bumped her head or when she fell off her bike and skinned her knee. But May wasn’t two anymore, and this wasn’t a flesh wound. She pushed him away, shaking her head.
“No, no. It has to be her. She wouldn’t leave me. She loves me. She said she’d see me again.”
“She meant in heaven, May,” Will’s jaded voice called from the kitchen. “She meant she’d see you in heaven.” He walked into the front hall carrying a sticky Clayton, syrup in his curly blond mop. “And Dad doesn’t believe in heaven, so you’re wasting your time.”
“You think she’s gone forever?” May glared at her father. “Oh, Daddy, no. How could you?” She looked at her father like she’d found out he was a murderer. Her face crumpled, and she ran up the stairs, leaving Luke stunned, still kneeling on the floor.
“I’ll go talk to her.” Annie wiped at her face and followed May up the stairs. Maybe she’d know the right thing to say. Luke put his hand in his robe pocket and rubbed the smooth envelopes between his fingers.
“Don’t worry.” Will stomped past. “I’ll get Clayton out of these sticky clothes.”
As Will ascended the stairs, Luke thought he should stand and take Clayton himself, give Will a fatherly lecture about family and bucking up and how losing your mother is hard enough without pushing your family away too. Or at least saysomething, but he didn’t.
Instead, he shifted on the bottom step, dropping his head into his hands. How did he think he could do this alone? Couldn’t they go back one year, start over, find a way to save Natalie, because this wasn’t how things were supposed to turn out?
Annie came silently down the stairs and flopped down next to him.
“She’s going to take a bath. I told her I’d ask if it was okay.”
Luke didn’t look up, hoping she’d take his silence as permission and return to give May the news. But she didn’t leave. Without saying a word, her hand found its way on the broad space between his shoulder blades, where she rubbed large circles on his back and let the companionable silence cover them like a blanket.
Luke’s muscles unclenched, and the relief brought the tears he’d been avoiding all day. A deep sob forced its way out and through his fingers, coming out so fast and hard it almost hurt. When he tried to take a breath, it hitched in his throat, making a series of staccato gasps. Why did it have to hurt so badly? He’d had months—months of anticipation. He should’ve been ready. He should’ve been bulletproof.
Then he remembered—the letters. If he had those little blue rectangles filled with her words, her voice, he might be able to breathe again. To survive.
The tears stopped, receding to whatever corner of his heart they’d been hiding in. He dropped his hands and used the midnight blue shoulder of the robe to dry his face. Annie, sensing the shift in his mood, dragged her hand across his back, giving one last pat before returning it to her lap.
“Why don’t you go shower and change?” she whispered. “I’ll take care of May and the kitchen.”
He still couldn’t look at her, sure his face was swollen and ugly from crying. Staring at an off-color dent in the wood floor, he thought about refusing her offer, showing how strong he was by going into the kitchen and doing all the cleaning on his own. But he wasn’t strong. He couldn’t even get through one breakfast without his family falling apart, and if he was going to let someone help, it might as well be Annie.
“Sure. Thanks,” he muttered. She used her hands to push herself to standing, her footsteps disappearing as she ascended the stairs. Once the door to May’s room opened and shut, he forced himself to stand. A shower would help, new clothes, but all he really wanted to do was to sit down and reread the letters and live for a little longer in a world where Natalie was still alive.
CHAPTER 3
It had been ten days since Natalie slipped away in her sleep while Luke dozed on the couch beside her, seven days since the funeral, and three more letters since the first two, all robin’s egg blue, with spiral notebook pages neatly folded inside. Luke couldn’t seem to make out a pattern to their arrival. Every time the flash of blue was missing from his mail delivery, Luke was sure he’d never get another letter. Then in a day ... or maybe two ... an envelope would show up with the same postmark and no return address. He’d given up trying to figure out Natalie’s plan. Honestly, he’d never completely figured Natalie out in real life; no way was he going to break that code now that she was reduced to nothing but memories and a few random letters.
At least the next few letters were less dramatic than the first two. Mostly talking about her day, her lingering nausea, the way her hair was falling out slowly enough she couldn’t bring herself to shave it like most patients did.
Then there was the letter filled with panic when a clump of hair fell out into her cereal one day and she’d ended up with a mouthful of chemo hair instead of shredded wheat. She said it didn’t taste much different, only it got mushy a lot slower. After that, she got a wig.
Luke remembered that—the hair falling out, the wig buying, but it was different reading it again in her own words. It made it seem like they’d had fun using clippers and a razor to shave her head smooth. Like they’d had a blast trying on different wigs and pretending they were secret agents instead of sad people who knew what was growing inside her was more likely to kill her than to be cured.
Yesterday’s letter was a little different. It was the first time since the pancake fiasco that Natalie made an actual request in her letter, instead of narration with wishes of kisses and cuddles to the kids at the end.
DAY 6
Luke,
