Say You'll Remember Me(97)

I couldn’t tell you if it would work forever, but it was working for now. We were a team again.

We were a family again.

Jeneva looked at her watch. “Want me to take Mom?”

“No, I was taking her out to the yard. Xavier sent me an anniversary playlist he wants me to hear.”

She looked at me softly. “Oh, I forgot that’s today. I’m sorry you can’t see him.”

“Yeah.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it being separated all the time. I could never.”

I scoffed to myself. My life was full of nevers.

A mom who would never say my name again. Jewelry still lost that I’d never find. A boyfriend who I’d never get the chance to get sick of.

I led Mom to the yard and put her in the gazebo and put my earphones in.

I didn’t look at the songs first. I liked to just hear the playlist the way he meant for me to experience it, one after the other without knowing what was coming. Sort of like life.

I did what I always did. I walked around the yard, picked kumquats and peeled the skins and ate them. I stood on the edge of the pond and looked at the koi while “Harvest Moon” played in my ears. And I thought about him. About us and all our nevers.

About the life we’d never have together. The marriage that we agreed we wanted but would make no sense with our circumstances. The family we couldn’t start, the menagerie of animals we’d never adopt because I didn’t want them without him here. The nights alone, the sound of his voice through a Bluetooth speaker while dogs bark in the kennels behind him, the fading scent of his body on a hoodie I’d taken. His beard growing in and getting shaved with the ebb and flow of the seasons we’d spend apart. Finding something unimportant that he’s accidentally left behind. A ChapStick on my nightstand, a receipt for gas bought two thousand miles away. Kisses at the airport, those precious whispers in the dark when he’s finally here and I can feel the press of his lips or the tickle of his breath on my mouth. The luxury of seeing him brushing his teeth in my bathroom or the hard outline at the front of his pants while he’s watching me change into my pajamas. Sand under a towel, waves crashing in the moonlight, a nibble to my lip, contemplative gazes across a cheap fast-food table.

All of it worth it.

All of it memories I would never trade for anything, even though our future together is impossible. Because even though it isn’t possible, it doesn’t mean it isn’t perfect.

Sometimes never is enough.

Someone tapped my shoulder. I jumped and pulled out my earbud and turned to face a hovering bouquet of roses.

At first I thought maybe my flowers got delivered and Jeneva had run them out to the yard for me. But then they lowered. Xavier was standing there on the other side.

I almost broke in half right then and there.

I threw myself into his arms.

“You’re here…” I gasped.

He held me so tight I could barely breathe.

“Surprise,” he said into my hair.

I did a little laugh-cry.

“I thought we agreed not to do any more surprise visits after the last time,” I said.

“Did we?” he whispered.

All I could do was laugh and hold him harder.

This was the best anniversary gift I could ever ask for. Him. His smell, the feel of his body pressed into mine, the rumble of his chest when he speaks. A gift.

I pulled away and kissed him. He put the flowers down to kiss me back properly.

When he was done he pulled away and studied me. “I missed you so much,” he whispered, rubbing a thumb on my cheek.

I know we saw each other on video calls and we sent pictures, but he looked so much better in person. Rested, like a normal human being who didn’t work eighty hours a week. He’d shaved his beard for the spring. He looked the way he did when I met him.

Another slide, jumping ahead.

I would always experience him like this. Long waits and big changes. A reminder that every time I saw him, I was remembering the time before and how he’d become different in the distance between visits.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, wiping under my eyes. “It would have given me something to look forward to.”

“Because the look on your face gave me something to look forward to,” he said.

“Yeah, but—”

I stopped and stared at something happening in the gazebo. Mom was on her knees, laughing. Petting a dog? But it wasn’t Pugsly…

I squinted. “Is that… Jake?” I said, blinking over his shoulder. I looked up at him. “You flew your dog in?” I asked. “Maggie couldn’t watch him?”

“She could, but it wouldn’t make any sense for a one-way trip.”

It took me a moment. The words had to swirl around my brain for a second before I heard them in the right order.

“What do you mean one-way trip?” I said carefully.

He smiled. Then he stepped aside.

His SUV was parked in the driveway behind him.

I stared at it, my heart pounding. “No… Xavier, please don’t play with me.”

“I’m not,” he said.

“You didn’t…”

“Yes. I did.”

I looked up at him. “But… your practice!”