Lottie—
I’ve slowed down a lot since my diagnosis. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this thing or the other, about my life as a whole, about all the little pieces that make up that whole. So often we just skip through life and forget to look at what we’re passing. I drove once from Connecticut to California and stopped at not a single “biggest pile of hay in the world” or “biggest ball of yarn in the US” (they have a lot of “biggest” things out there between the coasts), and how silly is that? How silly that I wouldn’t have taken my time, made the time, FOUND the time. Whenever somebody tells you they don’t have time for you, just remember that we make time for the things we want to make time for, and then kick them to the curb. (Or politely ask them to leave, as seems more in line with your style.)
It is easy now, so near to the end of my run (hindsight is twenty/twenty, etc.) to wish I had done more. Seen more. Been more. So many hours spent inside at my desk writing (not complaining; that writing served me well) and not taking care to balance that time with things more fun. The real good stuff, you know, the stuff that you’ll remember forever.
Remember when you were a little girl, maybe ten, maybe eleven, we went to the botanical gardens in Brooklyn to see the bluebells bloom? Oh, your eyes were as wide as two moons in your face; you told me you felt exactly like Alice in the garden. I said—as long as the flowers are nice to you. Flowers can have such an attitude.
I remember that day a lot now, the look on your face, the absolute wonderment so clearly displayed there. It was one of those days when you forget about the peskiness of clocks and schedules. We were an hour late meeting your parents and Abe for dinner because neither one of us once looked at a clock.
I want you to chase that feeling, Lottie. Maybe not every day (that might get tiring), but at least every so often, every once in a while. Lose track of time. Turn off your phone. Don’t rush.
—H.
I tucked her note back into its envelope, slid it into my purse. After every letter I read from her, there was this quiet, this calm, that passed over me. And then I remembered that she was gone, and my heart sped up, my palms started to sweat. The old recognizable physical effects of anxiety. And the anger—that she was so young, that we had such little warning.
I rolled up the windows and got out of my car. There was a small public green here and a tiny boardwalk leading to the drawbridge. I found a bench and texted my father.
Coat acquired.
I tried playing the stupid game Abe always played (I’d downloaded it, determined to figure out why he liked it so much), but I kept dying on level one. Finally I put my phone away and tried to do what my aunt wanted me to do. The ocean, the sky, the people kayaking underneath the drawbridge: this seemed like a perfectly acceptable place to lose track of time.
Instead I kept glancing at the time on my phone, a steady buildup of nerves settling into my stomach. I wasn’t the best at meeting new people, but Sam had known my aunt, and I didn’t want to pass up the chance to talk to him about her.
So I waited, and I counted the seconds that passed (so basically the exact opposite of what Aunt Helen wanted me to do), and he showed up a minute or two later. He smiled and waved when he saw me. He had the faintest hint of a dimple in his left cheek, and his eyes got all crinkly when he smiled. I stood up from the bench and didn’t have time to worry about the proper way to greet someone you’ve only met once (Hug? Handshake? High five? Rain dance?) before Sam hugged me briefly and then pulled away.
“I’m glad you texted me,” he said.
“It was the least I could do to thank you for having an excellent memory for apparel.”
“It’s a gift,” he said, laughing. “Are you hungry? I’m starving. Have you ever been to Mystic Pizza?”
“Of course! And I would have to agree that it is a little slice of heaven.”
“Familiar with the slogan and everything—I’m glad you take your pizza as seriously as I do. Shall we?”
“Let’s do it.”
We made our way over the drawbridge and through the little downtown area to the pizza shop made famous by the movie with Julia Roberts. I’d watched it with Aunt Helen and Abe a long time ago, a massive bowl of popcorn between us. It was mostly fun just picking out the different landmarks we recognized.
“Do you live close?” I asked.
“Just down the road. On Mason’s Island.”
“Did you walk here?”
“I biked.”
“I don’t remember the last time I was on a bike.”
“Really? Wind in your hair? Sun on your face?” He flipped his hair to demonstrate.
“I flipped over on my bike when I was a kid and landed on my head. I think I kind of lost the taste for it after that.”
“We’ll get you a really strong helmet, and you’ll come around.”
We got to Mystic Pizza. Sam held the door open for me, and I stepped inside.
“Let’s get it to go,” he suggested. “We can take it down by the water.”
“Fine by me.”
We ordered a medium Mediterranean Delight and then crossed the street while we waited for it, to browse through a little bookstore I liked: Bank Square Books.
Aunt Helen always said if you really wanted to get to know someone, take them to a bookstore. You can tell a lot about a person based on how they behave around books. Sam beelined right for historical fiction and picked up a book about pirates. I trailed behind and tried to ignore the children’s section, where I could see a table set up for the Hatter books.
But I couldn’t ignore it for long—Sam abandoned the pirate book and wandered right over to the children’s section. He picked up one of the Hatter books and started looking through it.
“Do you like them?” I asked.
He looked up at me with a smile on his face—but it was a sad smile. I’d been seeing a lot of that particular smile lately. It tended to dwell on the faces of the mourning.
“Of course I like them. Does anyone not like them?”
“There’s actually a pretty big online presence that call themselves the Anti-Hatters. They burn the books on YouTube and everything. Very dramatic. They say the idea of immortality is a sin against God. I don’t think they quite understand the idea of fiction.”
“A sin against God, huh?” Sam said, closing the book and carefully setting it back in the pile with the others. That sad smile still lingered on his face, but I could tell he was trying to shake it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For your loss. Our collective loss. I know you knew my aunt too. She meant a lot to a lot of people.”