I stayed with them until the sun began to set. My arms were wrapped around my kneecaps, and I stayed still, staring at the words on the stones. Missing people, missing the ones who knew you better than you knew yourself left emptiness inside of you. I tried to fill that emptiness, but maybe it was supposed to be left hollow inside my heart.

Each day, I felt the hurt, the memories. Each day, they both crossed my mind; I guessed that was the blessing behind the broken heart.

“If I could tell you a secret, Jamie, I would tell you that I still love her. I would tell you that Elizabeth is something good and right in the world. I would tell you she’s the reason I started to breathe again. So what am I supposed to do? How do I start to move on from her knowing that she can’t be mine? I just wish…” I cleared my throat, uncertain what I was wishing for. Answers to the unasked questions, I supposed. “I just wish I knew you would be okay with this. I wish I knew it was okay for me to fall in love again.” As I stood up to leave, I kissed my lips twice and placed my fingers against the gray tombstones.

Right before I turned to leave, a small white feather came floating down from above and landed against my arm. A wave of comfort washed over me as I nodded. “I’ll be okay. I’ll be good,” I muttered, knowing that it was a kiss from my loved ones. I knew I would be okay one day, because it was obvious that I wasn’t alone.

“What are you looking at?” Mom asked me one afternoon as I sat at the dining room table Dad had made her for Christmas a few years before.

I held on to the picture Emma had taken of Elizabeth and me with the white feathers many months before. I’d looked at it every day since I left. “Nothing.”

“Let me see,” she said, sitting beside me. I passed her the picture and heard a slight gasp fall from her lips. “That’s her.”

“That’s who?”

“Kevin!” she shouted, calling Dad into the room. “Kevin! Come here!”

He hurried into the room. “Yeah?”

She passed the picture to Dad, and he narrowed his eyes as Mom began to explain. “The day of the accident, that’s the girl. I was falling apart in the waiting room while Jamie and Charlie both went into surgery. I was sobbing uncontrollably, and this woman walked up to me and held me. She stayed with me the whole time, keeping me from falling apart, telling me it would be okay.”

“That’s her?” I asked, pointing to the picture. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I know without a doubt in my mind. That’s her. When Jamie and Charlie came out of surgery, I didn’t know what to do, who to check on first…so she sat with Jamie while I sat beside Charlie.” She looked at me with confusion in her stare. “Why do you have a picture with her?”

I took the picture back from Dad and stared at a smiling Elizabeth, trying to get a grip on what was happening. She stayed by Jamie’s side. “I don’t know.”

Chapter Forty

Elizabeth

Goodbye

“No,” I whispered, standing in the waiting room as a doctor stood in front of me.

“I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it out of surgery. We did everything we could to stop the bleeding, but we were unable to…” His lips kept moving, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. My world had just been stolen from me, and my legs gave out as I lowered myself to sit in the closest chair.

“No,” I murmured again, covering my face with the palms of my hands.

How could he be gone so fast? How could he leave me here alone?

Steven, no…

Before the surgery, I held his hand. I told him I loved him. I kissed him one last time.

How could you be gone?

The doctor walked away after telling me how sorry he was, but I didn’t care. Kathy and Lincoln showed up a few moments later, and their hearts shattered right along with mine. We stayed at the hospital for the longest time, until Lincoln said we had to leave, we had to start planning.

“I’ll meet you back at your house,” I said. “God. Emma’s at Faye’s house. Do you think you can pick her up?”

“Where are you going?” Kathy asked me.

“I’m just going to stay here for a little longer.”

She frowned. “Honey.”

“No, really, I’m fine. I’ll be over soon. Can you just…can you wait to tell her?”

Kathy and Lincoln agreed.

I stayed for hours in that waiting room, unsure what I was waiting for. It seemed that everyone in the waiting room was doing exactly that: waiting for an answer, waiting for a prayer, waiting for hope.

In the corner was an older woman crying her eyes out, completely alone, and I couldn’t help but feel drawn to her. Her body was bruised, battered, as if she had just walked away from an ungodly event. Yet the pain in her stormy blue eyes was what haunted me the most. I shouldn’t have stepped into her world of waiting, but I did. I held her, and she didn’t push me away. I held her, and we fell apart together.

After some time, a nurse informed the woman that her grandson and her daughter-in-law were both out of surgery, but in critical condition. “You can see them. You can sit in their rooms, but they won’t be responsive. Just so you know. But you can hold their hands.”

“How do I…” her voice shook and tears fell. “How do I choose who to see first? How do I…?”

“I’ll sit with one of them until you can,” I offered. “I’ll hold their hand.”

She sent me to sit with her daughter-in-law. When I entered the room, a chill raced through me. The poor woman was drained of all of her color. She was almost a living ghost. I pulled up a chair beside her and took her hand into mine.

“Hi,” I whispered. “This is weird and I’m not even sure what to say. But, well, I’m Elizabeth. I met your mother-in-law and she’s super worried about you. So I need you to fight. She said your husband is on his way back from a trip, worried sick. So I need you to just keep fighting. I know it has to be hard, but keep going.” Tears fell from my eyes as I stared at the stranger who seemed so familiar to my heart. I thought about how broken I would’ve been if I didn’t get to at least hold Steven’s hand before he passed away. “Your husband is going to need you to be strong.” I leaned close to her ear and whispered, hoping my words would find her soul. “We have to make sure your husband’s okay. We have to make sure he gets to hold you. We have to make sure he can say he loves you. You can’t let go yet. Keep. Fighting.”