Jayson pulls something out of his back pocket. A wrinkled piece of paper folded in thirds. “He wrote me letters.”
I don’t take it. Whatever Ryder wrote him is between him and Ryder.
Gently taking the letter from his grasp, I tuck it back into the pocket of his jeans. “I’m finding out that he wrote a lot of letters to a lot of people.”
We turn to face Ryder’s gravestone, and our hands automatically come together, fingers interlocking tightly, like they do whenever we stand in front of Elizabeth Ann’s grave. Jayson and I shouldn’t be reunited over and over by death, but it’s been a recurring occurrence for us over the last two decades.
“There’s so much I want to tell him that I’ll never get the chance to,” Jayson says.
It’s a horrible truth that I struggled with ever since the doctor said that awful word: cancer. How can you fit the past, present, a future you’ll never get to have with the man who was supposed to be your forever in the short amount of time it took for the cancer to take him?
“Tell him now,” I reply, turning to Jayson and touching his chest where his heart beats. “He’s right here. He never left. Whatever you need to say, tell him. Just like we talk to our daughter, talk to Ryder.”
Jayson’s nostrils flare with his audible inhalation, and he nods. “Okay.”
My lips fold under as I try not to cry at the desolate, lost look on his face. “I’ll be right back.”
“Liz, wait,” he says, sounding almost panicked. “Where do I even begin?”
I hope my smile comes off as reassuring. “How about starting with, ‘Hey, Ry.’ The rest will come on its own.”
Jayson nods again.
I take my time walking back to the house, and once inside, I head straight to Charlotte’s room. I find what I’m looking for on the middle shelf of her bookcase. Grabbing the worn copy ofWhere the Red Fern Grows, I go into the kitchen and pack the small picnic basket I keep in the walk-in pantry with some snacks and canned drinks.
When I get back to Jayson, he’s sitting on the grass, pulling at errant blades as he talks to Ryder.
I set the basket down and sit next to him. “What did I miss?”
“About three years so far,” Jayson says with a chuckle.
I pass him a soda and take one for myself, popping the tab and slurping the fizz that bubbles up.
“I’d like to hear about those years, too.”
He sees the book in my lap. “I remember when you read that to Elizabeth Ann.”
Putting down my drink, I riffle through the pages. “It was the book I gave to Ryder the first day we met. I never returned it to the library.”
I told Mrs. Heard I lost it. Of course, she didn’t believe me.
“You owe, like, thirteen hundred dollars in late fees.”
I grin. “I know you won’t rat me out.”
Jayson grins back, giving me a glimpse of the boy I once knew hidden beneath the man he’s become. His grin is the same one that used to get us both into trouble, the one that promised adventure and mischief. It’s the smile of my best friend, who used to know all my secrets and made me believe we could outrun the world together. In that moment, I’m rediscovering the Jayson I thought I had lost.
He bumps my shoulder. “Never. I’m still your partner in crime.”
Handing him the book, I tap his leg, indicating my intent, then flip over onto my back and rest my head on his thigh. “I’m ready.”
His silver gaze looks down at me, lingering for just a moment before he opens the book with one hand and begins stroking my hair with the other.
I watch the clouds drift by overhead as Jayson reads the story about a determined boy and his two brave coonhounds to the man we both love and wish were here with us.
Chapter Thirty-Four
ELIZABETH
