As for coming up with a real name, that I’m stuck on. I doubt it’s going to come to me in a dream. Mom is anxiously gritting her teeth in impatience. There are so many engraved and embossed, personalized and monogrammed items she’s desperate to buy. It’s a good thing that I’m in charge of the gold card now.
Aunt Angelina is even less help when it comes to names and tells me that she likes every name I float by her, even the ridiculous ones. She likes to tell me the story about how she came up with a long list of names that she liked and that after the baby was born, she read the list to him. She felt that he responded most to being named Phineas and called Finny by family. Sometimes she says he wiggled, sometimes she says he cooed, sometimes it’s both, but she’s adamant that he chose his name.
I haven’t revealed that I know how she got that name for the list, but I will talk about it with her eventually. Right now, I’m relieved that she’s fine with the situation I’ve negotiated with John, the updates and occasional visits that I’ve planned. She and I have both agreed that we’ll be there in case he breaks her heart too.
For the time being, I called John to let him know that the baby is a girl, and I told him about her heart. He babbled a bit about being able to afford the best doctors, and I was surprised by my confidence when I told him that everything was probably going to be just fine.
“She already has so many people watching out for her,” I told him. “If she has a congenital heart defect, then she’s lucky to have good doctors and people who love her.”
Down the block, I see Jack’s car pulling into my driveway. Lately it’s been easier for me and Angelina and Mom to talk to each other about what we need when grieving for Finny, and we all agreed that facing the empty seat at the table was stopping us from discussing Thanksgiving. When Jack showed up to rake our leaves, we asked if he would have two Thanksgiving dinners, but he told us that his house would be overflowing with his brothers and their wives and kids, and he would be happy to spend as much of the day with our family as we wanted. He seemed excited to have an excuse to escape what sounded like a madhouse.
It’s hard to explain why seeing Jack’s face will help, but it will, and I’m looking forward to telling him that the baby is a girl. I’ll have to explain about the hole in her heart and how it’s probably going to be fine, probably, but I’m getting good at that, I think.
I spoke to Jack on the phone yesterday, but I want to tell him those things in person. Besides, the context of the call wasn’t right.
“So…uh,” he said. “I hope telling you this isn’t too weird, but I think you should know before I come to Thanksgiving tomorrow in case it’s a problem for you. Something is happening with Sylvie and me.”
“Something is happening?”
“Well, I had this umbrella of hers, and when I went to return it, something happened,” Jack said. “I think it’s going to keep happening too. I know it’s a really weird situation, but I wanted you to know…in case it was a problem?”
“It’s really not,” I said. “She said, like, one or two rude things to me in high school. So what? It was my fault Finny and I weren’t together, not hers. I’m happy for you, Jack, and I think Finny would be too.”
“Really?” he said. “Because I also wondered if it was wrong in some way?”
I didn’t see anything wrong. I thought it made a sort of sense. I told him that my only concern was that if they became serious, would it be awkward for him to continue to be in the baby’s life? He said that he would talk about it with Sylvie before they became serious. That the baby was important to him too. I felt myself smile. He was taking the possibility of them becoming serious, well, seriously.
I was sort of impressed by Sylvie’s and Jack’s maturity. So I’ve written back to Jamie and Sasha. I told them that they can stop writing and texting to ask for my forgiveness. They have it. I’ve learned that life and hearts are complicated. Even though they have my forgiveness, I explained that I need them to not contact me again. It’s time for me to focus on the future, and because of what happened between us, between them, I need our relationships to be a thing of the past, part of our childhoods, where we made mistakes and survived.
For now, for the beginning of my adult life, I’m surrounding myself with people who carry pieces of Finny with them, like I do. Like Jack does, and Mom and Angelina, and even John. And people who give me good advice and care for me, like Angie and Brittaney.
Jack has seen me approaching and is waiting at the top of the hill. He raises his hand in greeting, and so do I.
I know that there will be days when it feels like there won’t be a future.
But for today, I can feel how Finny is still with me.
Read how it all started for Autumn and Finn…
Don’t miss the #1 New York Times bestseller taking TikTok by storm!
one
I wasn’t with Finny on that August night, but my imagination has burned the scene in my mind so that it feels like a memory.
It was raining, of course, and with his girlfriend, Sylvie Whitehouse, he glided through the rain in the red car his father had given him on his sixteenth birthday. In a few weeks, Finny would be turning nineteen.
They were arguing. No one ever says what they were arguing about. It is, in other people’s opinions, not important to the story. What they do not know is that there is another story. The story lurking underneath and in between the facts of the one they can see. What they do not know, the cause of the argument, is crucial to the story of me.
I can see it—the rain-slicked road and the flashing lights of ambulances and police cars cutting through the darkness of night, warning those passing by: catastrophe has struck here, please drive slowly. I see Sylvie sitting sideways out of the back of the policeman’s car, her feet drumming on the wet pavement as she talks. I cannot hear her, but I see Sylvie tell them the cause of the argument, and I know, I know, I know, I know. If he had been with me, everything would have been different.
I can see them in the car before the accident—the heavy rain, the world and the pavement as wet and slick as if it had been oiled down for their arrival. They glide through the night, regrettably together, and they argue. Finny is frowning. He is distracted. He is not thinking of the rain or the car or the wet road beneath it. He is thinking of this argument with Sylvie. He is thinking of the cause of the argument, and the car swerves suddenly to the right, startling him out of his thoughts. I imagine that Sylvie screams, and then he overcompensates by turning the wheel too far.
Finny is wearing his seat belt. He is blameless. It is Sylvie who is not. When the impact occurs, she sails through the windshield and out into the night, improbably, miraculously, only suffering minor cuts on her arms and face. Though true, it is hard to imagine, so hard that even I cannot achieve the image. All I can see is the moment afterward, the moment of her weightless suspension in the air, her arms flailing in slow motion, her hair, a bit bloody and now wet with rain, streaming behind her like a mermaid’s, her mouth a round O in a scream of panic, the dark wet night surrounding her in perfect silhouette.
Sylvie is suddenly on Earth again. She hits the pavement with a loud smack and is knocked unconscious.
She lies on the pavement, crumpled. Finny is untouched. He breathes heavily, and in shock and wonder, he stares out into the night. This is his moment of weightless suspension. His mind is blank. He feels nothing, he thinks nothing; he exists, perfect and unscathed. He does not even hear the rain.
Stay. I whisper to him. Stay in the car. Stay in this moment.
But, of course, he never does.
Looking for more from #1 New York Times bestselling author Laura Nowlin?
Don’t miss…
acknowledgments
All hail Gina Rogers, narrator extraordinaire and the muse who brought Finny back to life.
Thank you to my agent, Ali McDonald, and everyone at 5 Otter Literary. You ladies are amazing.