When I'm Gone: A Novel (4 page)

“We don’t have to do this today, Annie.” Luke adjusted the bag strap on his shoulder, already exhausted from the effort of acting normal. “My manager practically begged me to stay home and take more bereavement time.”

Annie’s forehead crinkled. “No. Please, no.” She tucked a damp yellow curl behind her ear and leaned in. “Are you worried about Brian? Because he really is going to sleep the whole time.”

“No, no.” He pressed at his temples. It was refreshing to have someone to talk to. “I don’t know if I’m ready to go back yet, that’s all.”

“Why are you pushing yourself?” She put a hand on his shoulder. He was getting used to people touching him all the time. It must be one of those unspoken social agreements, like patting a pregnant woman’s belly. There seems to be a rule when someone is mourning—you can touch him without permission. “You can wait another week. No one would blame you.”

“I know.” He reached into the outer pocket of his workbag and caressed the envelopes he hardly ever left home without. He could do it—he had to do it for Natalie. “I’ll only be gone four hours, back by lunch today. Taking this first week a little slow.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Annie pulled back, sounding unconvinced. She wrapped one arm around her torso and propped her other arm up on it, nibbling at her neatly trimmed nail. “We’re going to hang out here today, but I’ve already signed Clayton up for story time at the library once a week. We’ll think of other fun things to do out of the house. Once things defrost around here, I’m thinking the park, walks, scooter?”

“Those are all things little boys enjoy.” Fine, he had to admit it; this was a much better place for Clayton to be than in day care, where he’d be just another kid, or home in bed eating junk food all day. Luke handed over the bag, the collection of toys shifting inside. “You promise you’ll tell me if this is too much for you, right? Or at least you’ll let me pay you something.”

“Nope.” Annie shook her head. “There were only two things Natalie asked me to do before she died. The first was to keep an eye on the kids.” She hesitated, one shoulder crunching up to her ear. “She may have included you on that list.”

“Oh she did, did she?” How could he be surprised? On her deathbed, she’d arranged for letters to be delivered to him with requests from beyond the grave. Of course she had a human backup plan. “Wait, Annie? You don’t know anything about these letters, do you?” Luke tugged the bundle of envelopes out of his workbag and spread them out like a hand of cards.

She scanned them with her eyes and ran her finger along the fan, her nail making a soft ticking noise as she passed each one.

“I’ve never seen them before—well, except that day you showed me the one.” She pointed at Luke’s name looped across the front. “But that is Natalie’s handwriting.” She looked up, eyes wide. “You’re still getting these?”

“Yeah,” he nodded and restacked the blue rectangles into a neat pile and jammed them into his bag. Annie watched him intently.

“Who’s mailing them?” she asked so quietly it must’ve been a question for herself.

“I was hoping you’d know.” He shrugged, a wave of frustration churning inside him. “But I guess that’s too easy.”

It was definitely time to hide away from normal humans again. Pretending was so hard. He’d lived his whole childhood pretending, but twenty-two years later, he’d forgotten what faking it was like. Luke checked his watch, the marbled midnight blue face on a silver band. Natalie gave it to him for their fifth Christmas together. That was the problem with everything he owned: they all carried a memory of her. Unlike the letters, these memories made him feel sad and lonely. “It’s getting late; I should go.”

“Yeah, no problem.” They both glanced over at Clayton, stacking a tower of colored blocks up to his eyeballs. Wouldn’t Brian love the sound those made when they fell to the ground? “You want to say good-bye, or would there be tears?”

“I think he’ll be okay. He’s ready to get out of the house. Plus, he clearly loves you.” Clayton talked about missing Annie only slightly less than missing his mom. It really bothered Luke at first, but at three Clayton didn’t understand the difference between “gone for now” and “gone forever.”

“Well”—she blushed a little—“the feeling is mutual. Now, you’d better get to work. Don’t want you being late on your first day back.” She put her hands on her slender hips, scolding him playfully. It didn’t make him miss Natalie less, but it was still nice to know there was someone else out there who cared about his family. Luke retrieved his keys from his coat pocket.

“Clayton, Daddy is going to work. I love you!” Luke smiled and waved, keeping his farewell light and airy. Clayton glanced up for a fraction of a second and gave a half wave before placing another plastic block on the tower. “See, told you he’d be fine,” Luke said, putting his hand on the cold brass doorknob. Reluctantly, he thrust the door open a crack, the frozen January air penetrating the thin fabric of his dress pants. “Have a good day and call me if you have any questions or concerns, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Annie murmured, flinching against the blast of cold air. She took the door from him and leaned against it like a shield, only her head peeking out, shouting behind him, “Have a good day!”

By the time he got to the turn in the path leading to the driveway, Clayton was by her feet, his arms wrapped around her legs. Luke waved one more time.

The big kids were at school, and Clayton was definitely happy about spending the day with Annie. Maybe Natalie was right: it was time for Luke to get back to work. A wave of panic washed over him as he climbed inside his car, still mildly warm from the ride over. This was all happening so fast. Natalie wanted them to pretend life was normal, but life couldn’t be normal without her, could it?

Even though things had been hell for the past year, she’d always been there. Even when she was wasting away on a hospital bed in their living room, she’d always open her eyes and smile when he walked by. Until the one morning she didn’t. How could everyone else find it so simple to slip back into life, the world revolving, businesses opening and closing, buying and selling, when the pillow on the right side of his bed was empty every night?

Luke put his forehead against the smooth leather of the steering wheel. Maybe he’d go home and take a nap. No one would ever know. The people at work definitely wouldn’t care. In fact, they might be relieved they didn’t have to tiptoe around the man whose wife had recently died.

A tap on the window made him jump.

Annie, shivering in her gray yoga pants and long-sleeved cotton tee, stood outside his window holding what looked a lot like one of Natalie’s letters. His hand reflexively flew to his pocket to count them. Squinting through the tinted glass, he made out Annie’s name on the front of the envelope. Luke fumbled with the button, and his window rolled down with a whir.

“She gave me one too,” Annie blurted, wrapping one arm around her waist again while she leaned against the SUV with her other arm. “It was a week before she, well, you know, died. She told me not to tell you, but I guess I’m a rebel.”

Luke cringed. So Annie could somehow ignore the ghost of Natalie-past, but he couldn’t.

“Did you open it?” He couldn’t tell. He could never wait to open his, so he’d used his fingers to tear them open, leaving a jagged edge. Annie’s envelope looked brand-new.

“Yeah. She told me I could open it on the day she died.” She shook the envelope; it looked puffy, filled with a lot more sheets of paper than his ever had. Luke was curious. What did Natalie have to say to Annie that took so many pages? And why did she give them to her all at once?

“Can I read it?” He put out his hand, expecting Annie would hand the letter over right away, but she shook her head and held on to the envelope.

“Sorry, Luke. She made me promise I’d never let you read it. Like you said before, it’s private.” Annie repeated his words from the pancake morning.

Luke folded his fingers back and turned his car on with an angry roar. “I don’t know why you even bothered to show it to me,” he sputtered. He didn’t normally let anger get the better of him; he’d made sure to keep that part of him carefully locked away, afraid at how little it would take to turn him into a younger version of his father. That lock had held for over twenty years, and he wasn’t going to let it break now. He mashed his lips together, trying to regain control of his emotions. He’d definitely need a few rounds with the punching bag in the basement today.

“I wanted to show you because . . . I don’t want you to think I’m the one delivering those letters.” She folded both of her arms this time, her breath forming a cloud around her head. She had to be freezing. “There’s something funny about those letters, Luke, like someone’s playing a game with you. I don’t know who it is, but it’s not me. If I were you”—she bit her lip, her breath clouding out the corners—“I’d want to know where those letters were coming from before I opened any more.”

He nodded but couldn’t agree. Of course he’d considered where the letters came from—that was the first question on his long list of questions. But he wasn’t going to stop reading them. They weren’t fakes; for now that’s all he needed to know. He’d take those letters as long as the mysterious someone kept mailing them.

“You’d better go inside; you are going to freeze to death, and Clayton might be turning your living room upside down,” he said, placing his hand on the gearshift so she knew he was ready to leave. Her sea-green eyes didn’t leave his face.

“Think about it, okay?” She tapped her letter on the side of his door with a heavy clack.

“Okay.” He flashed a fake smile and put the car in reverse. Annie stood and folded the hand with the letter back under her arms.

“Well, we’ll see you in a few hours.” She backed away for two or three steps, maybe waiting for him to say something. There was nothing he could say without losing his cool.

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.”

She was right: they did look young. Well, they
were
young. Nat’s dark hair was up in a twist, her shoulders left uncovered by the white satin of her dress. The picture didn’t show it, but the bodice had been covered in thousands of tiny pearl beads that kept falling off throughout the day. They laughed through their whole first dance. Every time they shifted, a small shower of beads sloughed off, making tiny pings as they hit the parquet dance floor.

In the picture, Luke stood several inches taller than Natalie, his hair bleached blond at the ends by the summer sun. Lines crinkled happily around his eyes. His smile said he had no idea he’d be burying the woman by his side before they had even celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary.

“How old were you there?” Jessie asked, still scanning the portrait.

“Um, twenty-one.” He sniffed. “We met in junior high, but I moved away before freshman year. Didn’t meet again till college. I transferred to the University of Michigan for my senior year.” He chuckled, almost talking to himself. “First week of class and I saw her; she was sitting on the quad studying and I knew. Right away, I knew.”

“That’s the sweetest story.” Jessie gasped, one hand over her heart. “I can’t believe you found each other when you were so young. I’m twenty-one, and I don’t even have a boyfriend! Ha.” After staring for a moment longer, she shoved her hands in her coat pockets, the envelope peeking out from one side. She turned to face him. He could feel her eyes on his face as he stared at his stocking feet. “I’m sorry, Mr. Richardson. I’m the worst. My dad always says I don’t slow down to think. That was so insensitive talking on and on about Natalie. I’m sure it’s not easy . . .”

He shook his head. “I’m fine.” He couldn’t deal with this girl feeling bad for him. What did she know about losing someone? “Let’s go into the kitchen and chat.”

“Mkay.” Jessie shrugged. She took one last look at the picture of Luke and Natalie before turning away.

Luke rushed ahead, collecting a pile of random mail and May’s school papers to clear a spot on the island. Jessie dropped her bag and climbed up on one of the stools. If she noticed the mess, she was good at hiding it. She put Natalie’s letter on the counter in front of her, “Jessie” scrawled in Natalie’s characteristic script across the front.

“So, tell me about yourself.” Luke wasn’t sure what he was supposed to ask. Natalie had arranged everything. If Jessie was willing to be their sitter, he was supposed to let her. This was more of a “meet and greet” than an interview.

Jessie ran her fingers through her bangs nervously, a silver medical alert bracelet peeking out from under her sleeve. “Well, not much to tell. I’m an elementary ed student at Eastern. I started my student teaching at Wellbrooke Elementary. First grade. I love it.” She shrugged, her small shoulders shifting up and down in her poofy electric-green winter coat.

“Natalie said you guys were close.” Luke rested his elbows on the granite, the coolness of the stone leaking through his thin dress shirt. It would probably be rude to bring up the whole medical issue thing. Better to play dumb.

“Yeah, I don’t know why, but we really clicked, even with the age difference.” Jessie ripped off her coat, hanging it on the back of the stool. She looked even younger without the oversize jacket. She wore a black shirt, which hung off her small frame, with a simple outline of a woman on the front. Underneath, the name “Bette” in white lettering.

“Is that Bette Midler on your shirt?” Luke asked, proud of himself for placing the reference. Foster mom number three had been obsessed with
Beaches
. He had to change the channel any time “Wind Beneath My Wings” came on.

“Yes!” Jessie’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward. “Are you a fan?”

His interest in musical theater was almost as great as his interest in abstract art in the twentieth century. “No, sorry. But I’m thinking you are.”

“God, yes.” She flapped her hand at Luke with so much expression he had to hide his amusement. “I’m, quite literally, her biggest fan. I go to any concert within five hundred miles. That’s honestly the radius my dad set for me. Once I get a job, I’m upping it to a thousand.”

“Aren’t you a little young to be a Bette Midler fan?”

“Bette is ageless. Honestly, have you looked at her lately?” Jessie raised her eyebrows and looked at Luke like he didn’t own eyeballs. “But really, it’s not just Bette. I love the theater, musicals to be precise. My mom was a beautiful singer. She used to sing all the great show tunes to me when I was sick.” She said “sick” like it was a cold. Luke knew better. “Got me hooked, I guess.”

“Used to”—Luke knew what that meant. He’d been struggling switching all of his memories of Natalie into that particular verb tense. He didn’t want to push her, not knowing how recent her mother’s death might have been.

“Are you an actress yourself?” With her overabundance of expression, she’d definitely do well on stage.

“No.” Jessie shook her head, some of the brightness from her eyes draining for a moment and then reigniting almost immediately. “Believe me, if I had even a third of the talent Ms. Midler has in her little finger, I’d be on stage day and night. You know, I tried to convert Natalie. She was going to go with me to
Into the Woods
in April. We were going to wait at the stage door for autographs.” She shrugged and spun the letter around in a circle on the counter. “I guess I’ll just take my dad.”

Sounded like Natalie. She made friends so easily. Luke had a hard time making those connections—always had. “Anyway, sorry, back to Nat. It was her passion for teaching that kept me going through finals last year. She loved kids, even the naughty ones. Anytime there was a case study for psych class in which kids were mistreated or had terrible experiences, I swear she’d nearly cry.”

“Yeah.” Luke bounced his head up and down, knowing exactly what Jessie was referring to. “Nat was almost too empathetic at times. She did this research paper once about a missing girl—uh, what was her name? That Witling girl? By the time she turned it in, she was a bit of a mess. She wouldn’t let May go anywhere alone for six months, even out in our backyard.”

“I don’t know that one,” Jessie replied, “but my mom must have. She was kinda paranoid when I was a kid, and she’d trot out news stories of missing children whenever I wanted to do something even halfway daring.”

“Ha, that’s funny.” Luke chuckled. Talking to Jessie was actually easier than he’d imagined, like talking to a long-lost friend he’d never met before. “Are you an only child? I mean, the more kids you have, the harder it is to be neurotic.” Luke stopped himself. Sending letters to your husband after you’re dead is still pretty neurotic.

“I was a sickly kid, so she was a bit overprotective. I guess I can’t really blame her . . .” Jessie trailed off, absentmindedly fiddling with her alert bracelet. Luke knew she was right. There were a lot of things worse than being an overprotective parent.

“Well”—he squinted at the envelope on the counter, sure a detailed dossier for each child was inside—“did Natalie tell you about the kids?”

Before Jessie could answer, Clayton’s squeal cut through the ceiling. Naptime was apparently over.

“Now it gets real.” Luke put his palms flat on the counter, wiggling his eyebrows. “You want to meet Clayton?”

“Of course. Should I come with?” she asked, tightening her ponytail.