“Okay, so listen. I have to say something to you because I was going to ask you about it when we were at that Airbnb, but you and Maggie went off and…well, it seemed like you had fun, so that’s good. Anyway…”
She hesitated and tried to think of how to start.
“I don’t know what to do about Eli.”
Mom’s ventilator gave a noisy sigh as if to say, “This again?”
“I love him, Mom,” she insisted. “I love him so much it scares the heck out of me. I love him the way you loved Dad, I think, and that’s the part that scares me, because I watched what loving Dad like that did to you when he died. I do not have it in me to love a man that much and lose him.”
She felt her throat thicken and swallowed the lump. If Mom could hear her talk, she could hear her cry and shehatedwhen Kate cried.
“And he’s asking me for something I don’t know how to give him. He wants me to come…all the way to where he is. I know you probably don’t understand, but stay with me. I’ve beendoing the work. I have read the books, dug through something called ‘apologetics’ which is more truth claims than apologies. And I got…as far as I can get. And I think it might cost me everything. But I cannot do what he wants me to do. I can’t fake it or ignore it or…”
She grunted, deeply sick of the topic by now.
“So, I was going to ask you about it,” she continued. “I wanted to get your opinion. I know you like him, but want the best for me, so…I need your opinion.”
She stared at her mother’s impassive face, unchanging, unmoving. She wasn’t going to get that opinion.
But if she could hear?
“Okay. New rule. If you think I should let go of all my reasons and marry him—if you think the right answer is yes? Then squeeze my hand. One squeeze. That’s it. One squeeze.”
She waited but the hand in hers did not move.
“Mom.”
Nothing.
“Come on. Easy one. One itty bitty squeeze.”
Her mother’s fingers remained still.
“Okay, maybe you don’t know the answer to that. How about one squeeze if you love me.”
She waited, looking at her mother’s face, then her hand, her vision blurring with tears she so did not want to shed.
“Well, I know you do,” Kate managed to say against a tight throat. “And I love you with my whole heart and soul and do not want to live one day without you. So, please, get better, Mom. Please.”
Kate lowered her mother’s hand back to the blanket, very gently, and pressed her own hand flat over the top of it, holding it there.
“Worth a shot, Mom.”
She dropped her head back as if that could force the tears to return to their ducts. She stared up at the drop ceiling, a tiny water stain in one corner, a vent.
But that’s not what she saw. Instead, she looked beyond to…whatever beyond might be, if anything was. And if it was? Maybe Artie Wylie was there, looking right back down at her.
“Dad,” she said quietly. “Listen, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of this room, I need you now. I know she wants to be with you. I know she’s missed you every day for a year because we all have, but especially Mom. But, Daddy…” Her voice cracked. “We need her down here a little while longer. Could you help, somehow? Send her back if she shows up. Tell her it’s too soon.”
Okay. That was silly. Who talks to the ceiling?
“Eli,” she whispered, almost smiling. Yes, the man talked to the ceiling, the sky, his fists pressed together, his heart all in. Eli prayed. She had no doubt he was doing that right now.
Could she?
She swallowed, looked up, found the stain.
“No, I can’t,” she breathed. “I did, remember? I asked you for proof of your existence just…oh. Yesterday morning, I think. The last morning I remember. Anyway, that was all I asked for. A little proof.”
