Page 76 of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter
I thought back to all Adam and I had experienced together, all that Adam had created. Despite what Death had done, I couldn’t give in. Adam wouldn’t want me to.
Hot tears dripped down my cheeks at the futility of it all. I wanted to hate Death, but I knew the truth of what he said. As long as there was life, there would always be death. They existed hand in hand.
I don’t know who reached out first, but Death drew his arm around me as I sobbed. His arms contained an otherworldly sense of strength, as if I could never fall again. I wanted to push him away, but he’d be taking Adam if he left, and I needed more time. His jacket smelled of salt and blood and sweat: the perfume of the dying. He sat quietly through my grief, as if, for once, he was reluctant to do this task. A tiny part of me was glad that he stayed, because he was there despite all the pain.
I sat there, staring at Adam as he struggled. A strange calm settled over me. “Is it good where he’s going?”
“The best.” He seemed sincere. He brushed his fingers along Adam’s head, and a golden glow flew from his skull like a falling star. His soul separated from his body, golden, glimmering, and translucent. Adam smiled sadly before his mouth slackened.
I nodded, understanding.
His time was up.
Adam stood beside Death, and they winked out like someone had snuffed a candle, leaving me alone in the dark.
I didn’t even have the energy left to cry.
I lay on the floor beside Adam’s bed, holding his hand, staying there until long after he had gone cold.
Present Day
Savannah, June
Twenty-Six
Iwipe my eyes, drained.
As the hours press on and I tell more and more of my story, I worry about Death growing closer, angered by my willful breaking of his rules. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now,” I say bitterly. “Besides Death, loneliness is my one constant in my life.” I sag into Sebastian, grateful he’s still by my side.
“When Adam died, it was almost like waking up from a dream. As long as we were together, supporting each other, going to ballrooms, and hanging with his friends, I could pretend it would never end.”
The tears well up again, and I snatch another tissue, the injustice feeling brand new. I rub my face, my skin feeling raw.
“I was so close, Sebastian—so close to living a life out loud, sharing that with someone who could see the real me. Adam didn’t know everything about my past, but when he looked at me, I knew he saw me. And once he died, I saw how vulnerable I’d left myself. What would I do when Willa got old? Nathan?Junior?Staying with them was just pain waiting to happen. They’d started to notice that I didn’t age, that I never got ill.”
Sebastian holds my hand.
There isn’t anything to say.
“What happened with Willa? Did she live?”
“I kept track of her for a while after I’d left the city. I slowly faded from their lives, existing only in letters.” I glance at the trunk, wheremany of Willa’s responses to my letters are wrapped in ribbon. “Willa and Nathan had two more sons, and Willa lived to be eighty-seven, dying six weeks after Nathan in 1982 from what I can only assume to be a broken heart.”
“What did you do after New York?”
“I did what I always do—get a new name and go as far away as possible.”
“Where specifically?”
“Back to Europe. London and later Paris.”
Sebastian flips through his notes. “And when was this?”
“In 1943.”
Sebastian pauses, dumbfounded. “But ... wasn’t Europeat warin 1943? You mean to tell me that you left New York and wenttowar-torn Europe?”
I sigh, rung out. “The soldiers were doing it.”
