“Um, Dr. Hanley?”
Rose looked up, blinking rapidly. There he was, framed in her doorway, young and vibrant and alive in a way he’d never been when she’d known him.
“Yes?” She realized too late that she still had tears on her cheeks.
“I forgot my backpack,” he said, edging into the room. Sure enough, there it was, slouched on the floor by his chair.
“Of course.”
He shrugged the bag onto one shoulder but didn’t leave right away. “Dr. Hanley?”
“Yes, Justin?” Even though she knew he never would, she wished he would call her by her first name, just once.
“I hope it’s okay for me to ask, but . . . are you okay?”
Rose let out a little laugh, or maybe it was a tiny sob—she couldn’t quite be sure. “I’m fine,” she said quietly, wiping her tears with a fresh tissue.
“It’s just that you seem a little upset and—”
“It’s nothing.” In her effort to keep from crying, her voice came out stiff, cold. It didn’t even sound like her.
“Okay,” he said uncertainly. “Well, bye.”
He turned to leave, and her heart squeezed like it was being ripped from her chest. Suddenly, she knew she had to tell him, even if he wouldn’t understand. “Actually,” she said, her voice breaking, “I’m sorry, it’s just that you . . . you remind me of someone I knew when I was your age.”
He looked back at her, his bright-blue eyes staring into hers. For a second, she almost—she’d probably imagined it, but she almost—thought she saw a flicker of recognition.
“Who?” he said softly. As if he realized that this memory was delicate, and he didn’t want to risk shattering it.
“A friend,” she said. “He’s been gone a long time, but when I look at you, I can still see his face so clearly.”
“He died?”
She nodded. Tears were slipping freely down her cheeks now, and she didn’t try to stop them. “He died a long time ago, and I never got to tell him . . .” She took a deep breath. This boy wasn’t her Justin. She couldn’t talk to him like he was. “Anyway, you look a lot like him, and it brought back a lot of memories. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s all right,” he said, giving her a shy, encouraging smile. “Were they good memories?”
“They were,” she whispered.
“Then I’m glad.” He hesitated, tilting his head. Just another reminder that this boy wasn’t the one she’d known; her Justin rarely considered his words before he spoke. “Dr. Hanley, I’m not sure what happens when you die . . .”
Rose sucked in a sharp breath. How many times had she heard him start a thought just like that?
“But I think, if there was something you wanted to tell him, there’s a chance he already knows. Or that you can still tell him, if you want.” He shrugged, looking a little self-conscious. “I just think there’s so much we don’t know that we can’t rule it out. Right?”
For the first time, Rose let herself truly look at him. Was her Justin in there somewhere? Was there a chance he could hear her? They’d always debated the meaning in his trip to the past, wondering whether some cosmic hand had picked him up in 2023 and placed him down in 1985, precisely where and when he needed to be. If people really could be put in specific places for specific moments, then could that mean that this Justin was here, right now, for her?
She took a deep breath, thinking through what she should say. She wanted to tell him all that had happened after he’d died. How Shawn had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison for second-degree arson and vehicular manslaughter, but had been released after seven for good behavior. After earning his college degree in prison, he’d gone to law school upon getting out, and now worked for the public defender’s office.
One of his first clients was Robbie Reynolds, who had been in and out of prison for various offenses ever since he turned eighteen. Sometime later, Shawn confessed to Lisa—who had faithfully visited him in prison, and continued to keep in touch after he was released—that Robbie’s was one of the rare cases he’d been happy to lose.
She wanted to tell him that Diane had won her race and served as mayor for the next eight years. Lisa had worked as an intern in her mother’s office during college, which was where she’d met the wonderful woman who would eventually become her wife. After the birth of their second baby, Lisa had decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and run for public office, too. It turned out Lisa was even more of a natural than her mother.
She wanted to tell him that Charlene now ran Derrin Family Jams. She was divorced, but still lived with her oldest daughter and three grandchildren—all girls—in the big house across Wilson Bridge. Every fall, Rose and Charlene would find each other at the bonfire, still mostly unchanged after all these years.
Her brother, Karl, had moved out of Stone Lake right after graduating from high school, and rarely visited. Instead of joining the family business, he now made a living writing graphic novels in Chicago. Rose knew from Charlene that he had a son named Dave, although she didn’t know how to ask whether he’d turned out better than the one Justin had known. She liked to think he had.
She wanted to tell him that Mrs. Hanley had died peacefully in her sleep eleven years ago, two weeks after casting her vote for Obama’s second term as president and Lisa’s first as a US senator.
She wanted to tell him that she and Noah had gotten married during their junior year of college—too young, some said, but by the time they finally got together, they both knew it was forever—and that they had three children and five beautiful grandchildren. She wanted to tell him that after Shawn lost the citizenship award, the county decided to grant it to Noah instead, thanks to his heroic actions the night of the fire. She wanted to tell him that Noah had used it to become a doctor, and that he now worked to save lives every day.
She wanted to tell him that she and Noah had named their oldest son Justin, after the boy who’d given up his future to save theirs.
She couldn’t say any of that, of course. But she hoped, somewhere, he knew.
“I’d just want to tell him thank you,” she finally said. “For everything. I’d want to make sure he knew that he was a hero. He made a difference. And . . .”
She hesitated, remembering a boy and a girl sitting across from each other on a flowered bedspread, turning up the radio as they made plans to change the future. “I’d tell him we were both right about the song.”
She understood now. Death, but also love. The end of the world, but also hope for the future. All of it could be true at the same time.
“And it was a sign,” she added, smiling to herself. “Even if he never believed me.”
Justin—the 2023 version, the one who had two living grandparents who were going to teach him to water-ski, the one who was headed to college in the fall, the one who had never died even once, much less twice—grinned. “I think he heard you.”
Rose smiled back. “I think he did, too.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The road from “I think I may try writing a book” to publication has been a long one, and I’ll Stop the World would never have made it out of my head and into your hands if not for all the people willing to travel it with me. Some walked alongside me, some led the way, and a cherished few tossed me over their shoulders and carried me when I felt like I couldn’t take another step. I’ll never be able to list every single person whose fingerprints are somewhere on this book, but to each and every person who helped me get here, thank you.