I pulled her even closer, and she didn’t resist.
“So you do the roses for her?”
I heard her sniffle, and an ache inside me wanted to take away her pain. And then I realized another truth – for the first time since the night Rachel died, the crushing guilt I’d felt was gone.
“I love making them; it keeps me sane. The money I raise from the rose stand all goes to her. Insurance pays for hospice care, but I pay for the extra things she needs. There’s an experimental drug that they won’t pay for. My goal is to maybe be able to get a trial for her.”
“I see. And the bartending?”
“It pays the other bills, along with the benefits I get from the Air Force.”
“But you said Levi told you to let her go?”
“It was out loud, just like we heard her tonight. He said, ‘Hannah, let Mom go, let me go. The rest of your life is about to start.’”
I shuddered against her. I didn’t believe in much, and I certainly didn’t believe in ghosts. But yet…
“But yet this is powerful between us, Jonah. I’m terrified of it, but at the same time I feel like I’ve waited for you for so very long.”
“I never thought I’d feel anything again.”
“But we just met, and we’re so very broken.”
“We were meant to be, Hannah. I’ve wanted to get to know you from the moment you handed me Rachel’s rose. She sent me to you. And Levi spoke to you for a reason.”
Her body tensed as she twisted her face up toward mine. “We’ll never stop loving them!”
I took her face into my hands. She was so angelic, so pure. Another angel sent to me from my angel – I knew that. I still do.
“Hannah, loving each other doesn’t mean not honoring them.”
“L-love? This is all crazy - we just met!” Her body betrayed her words of resistance. The more she wanted to pull away, the more our bodies melded into each other’s.
“I knew I loved Rachel the second she handed me my sandwich one scorching day in a deli in rural Mississippi. She knew, too.”
Hannah took a deep breath and pressed her forehead into mine. “Levi and I knew, too. Instantly. And it was perfect. But we only had less tha
n a year! There wasn’t time for reality to set in.”
My lips grazed hers. This was right, this was real. I wasn’t about to let fear stop me. “Well, we went way past reality. It got downright ugly between us. So ugly that one rainy night she stormed off into the night. I can still hear the squeal of her tires.”
“Everyone fights…” Her upper lip quivered, so close to me that I could feel it.
“Oh, we fought. She wanted kids, I didn’t. My career was always first, that was the biggest thing. I stupidly thought I could put flying first, my wife second. It took us to the brink at times, but yet we still never let go. There wasn’t one day that I didn’t send her a rose, in one capacity or another. We never stopped loving, Hannah. We never will.”
Her lips met mine again, before she pulled away as if she’d been burned.
“It’s too much – I never want to feel that intensity again. It’s too hard!”
“This is real. I’m not letting it go because we might get hurt.”
Our arms wrapped around each other. I was never letting her go.
“Jonah, how did she…?”
“Die. You can say die.”
She nodded, her eyes wide in anticipation.