Stephen sat in his rented sedan and stared at the old house up the street. Freshly cut lawn, neatly trimmed hedges, flowers blooming along the clean-swept walkway. Someone strolling by would never guess that the only person who lived there was on her death bed. The house looked so loved. Cared for. Not a speck of peeling paint in sight.
Stephen didn’t want to get out of the car. He didn’t want to be here at all. Not in Maine. Not in the tiny town of Jay. Certainly not on this street. There were way too many people here. People he hadn’t seen in years. People he hadn’t missed.
No one had warned him that these people would be here, though now that he thought about it, of course they would be. He wasn’t the only one running out of time to say goodbye.
Knuckles rapped on his window, making him jump, and he looked out to see his least favorite cousin smiling down on him like they were old pals.
Stephen rolled his window down. “Hey, Patrick.”
“Hey, Stevieboy!”
Stephen tried not to grimace.
“You just gonna sit here or what? And what’s with the Massachusetts plates? I thought you lived in Texas!”
And the hits just keep coming.
Patrick leaned on the door and stuck his head into the car like he was going to give Stephen a big smooch.
Stephen veered right. “Hang on a sec.” He started to roll the window up, and Patrick pulled his head back like a spooked dog. Then he jumped back when Stephen opened the door.
“It’s Tennessee, and this is a rental.” He slammed his door shut and started toward the house.
Patrick fell into step behind him. “Did you just get here?”
“Yes,” Stephen said.
“Nana said you were staying for a few days?”
“Maybe.” Nana had asked him to spend the night, but he was going to try to get out of it. At fourteen, he’d vowed to never again spend the night here. He didn’t plan to break that vow at the age of twenty-eight.
“Carrie and Jeremiah are staying here, but I’ve got to work, so I’m bouncing back and forth.” He uttered a guttural chuckle. “It’s been kind of nice, having my house to myself.”
How nice for him. His grandmother was dying, his wife was tending to her, and he was enjoying his break from his family.
“Nana wants a little kid running around while she’s in hospice?” Stephen didn’t try to disguise his snark.
“Oh, Jeremiah is so quiet that people don’t even know he’s there.” He laughed. “Cripes, he’s so quiet he’s a little creepy … Hey, that’s what we used to say about you.” He punched him in the shoulder, and Stephen glared at him. “But for real, Nana adores him. She likes having him around no matter how bad she feels.”
Thankful to have reached the house, Stephen trotted up the steps to get ahead of and away from Patrick, but then when he got to the door, he froze. His fourteen-year-old self was still inside him, begging him not to go any further.
It’s okay, he told himself, you’re not going to sleep here.
He reached for the door and, feeling Patrick’s judgment from behind, pushed it open and stepped inside.
Nothing weird happened, and he knew he’d been foolish to think that it might. It was just a house, and he was wide awake.
His mother caught his eye and strode across the living room toward him. “Stephen!” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight. “When did you get in, honey?”
“About two o’clock.”
She stepped back and rubbed his arm. “I told you I would pick you up at the airport.”
“No, no. It’s easier to just rent a car.” He didn’t want to be on anyone else’s timetable. He wanted to say goodbye and then get out of there. Nana knew how much he loved her, and she had a giant family to buzz around her. She didn’t need him there. “Where is she?”
“Do you want to relax for a minute?” She gestured toward an empty chair absolutely surrounded by relatives that he hadn’t seen in years and hadn’t liked much ever. “I could get you something to eat?”
“No,” he said, trying to sound gentle. “Thank you. I just really want to see Nana.” And then get out of here, he silently added. He loved his parents, but he could see them another time, when they weren’t surrounded by a mob.
His mom nodded. “Sure. She’s so excited to see you.”
He doubted she’d have the energy to be excited about anything, but he didn’t argue. He followed his mother through the dining room and kitchen and into the back hallway. Years and years ago, these had been servants’ quarters. During his childhood, the big back room had been the storage room. His Nana had shoved a lifetime’s worth of things “too good to throw away” into this room. As a kid, he hadn’t been able to walk through it. Now he barely recognized it. Someone had cleaned it out and turned it into a spacious bedroom, complete with medical bed, tray table, and chairs.
It was a room designed for dying, and it was full of his relatives.
When Nana saw him, her face lit up, and his heart cracked. “Stephen! Come here, sweetheart!”
He did want to go to her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and breathe in her scent one last time, tell her how much he loved her, and try not to cry more than a grown man should, but he stood frozen in place.
“Shoo, shoo!” She waved to the door. “Everyone out! Stephen’s here!”
If she weren’t dying, he would have laughed.
No one was offended, and they all got up and filed out. Even his mother left after giving his hand one last squeeze. Someone softly closed the door behind him.
He went to her then and bent to hug her. He was careful, but even beneath his gentle embrace, her fragile form broke his heart. There was so little of her left. She was almost gone.
He kissed her on the cheek and straightened up, not bothering to hide his tears.
“Sit, sit.” She pointed to a nearby chair, which he pulled over. She reached for his hand, and he took hers into both of his. He hadn’t wanted to see her like this. Selfishly, he hadn’t wanted to feel her suffering, feel her fear, have this memory.
And he could feel her suffering, but fear? He didn’t feel any.
She wasn’t afraid.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. Her voice was weak, but she still sounded very much like herself. And there was still that mischievous sparkle in her eye. She patted his hand. “I know, I know, it’s hard to know what to say. You can’t say, ‘Hey, how ya doin’?’ to someone who’s dying!” She laughed, which led to a cough.
“I can tell you that I love you, and I can thank you for doing such a good job of loving me.” She had taken such good care of him when he was little. She’d been a refuge.
“I do love you. So much.” She held her finger up to her pale lips. “Don’t tell the others, but you were always my favorite.”
He smiled. He’d known this, but her favoritism wasn’t really to his credit. It was more like the way someone loves a puppy who’s been kicked more than the unkicked puppy.
“You’ve always been so special, Stephen, and I know we haven’t talked much about how and why you’re different because I know you don’t like talking about it.”
He swallowed hard. It was true. He’d talked to her on the phone weekly since he’d first left Maine, and they never talked about anything hard.
“I think this might be my last chance.” She winked. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
He exhaled slowly. He didn’t see why this needed to be discussed at all. He was different from other people in his family, but he didn’t think it was worth dissecting. Lots of people didn’t fit in with their families.
“You’re such a gifted artist, Stephen.”
This was kind of her to say, but she didn’t know this. She didn’t know the first thing about art, and she’d hardly seen any of his. “Don’t think your mom’s not proud of you. She shows me pictures and articles on the Internet. But that’s not even the specialness I want to talk about. Stephen, there are some things about myself that I’ve never told you. I have told very few people. I told your grandfather, of course. And over the years, I confided in a few pastors, but no one believed me, so I stopped talking about it. And even though I saw the same thing in you, I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to call attention to it because I wanted to protect you.” She took a long, shaky breath. “Sorry, give me a second. Let me catch my breath.”
In and out, in and out, she breathed slowly and purposefully. Then she continued, “But in these past few months, I’ve been spending an awful lot of time with God. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. That’s quite true, I’ve discovered. And I feel like God has been telling me that I’ve been wrong. Wrong to push my gift down, wrong to ignore it in you. And just when I realized all of this, I realized that Jeremiah is just like us.”