My deepest wish for you is a fate different from mine. I wish that you learn to open your heart. I kept mine closed for all these years, because I was frightened, and that was a mistake. Life is a series of chances, and you have to have the courage to seize them, before the years pass you by and leave you with nothing but regrets.
Your life still lies before you, as does Annie’s. Learn to let people love you, my Hope, for you deserve that love. Learn to love freely. Love is so much more powerful than you realize. I know that now, but it is too late for me.
What I wish for you, dear Hope, is a life lived fully. A life lived freely in this country that lets you be what you are. A life lived knowing that God exists everywhere you are; he lives among the stars. And I wish you a life lived happily ever after, just like in the fairy tales I told you when you were a little girl. But you must go after that kind of life with all the strength of your heart. For it is only by loving, and having the courage to be loved in return, that you can find God, who exists most of all in your heart.
I will love you always,
Mamie
Chapter Thirty-three
I’m crying by the time I finish reading the letter. I put it down, and with the blanket still wrapped around me, I pad to the back door and walk out onto the deck, breathing in the cold night air. I pull Mamie’s blanket tighter around my shoulders and imagine that it’s her arms, enveloping me in one last hug.
“Are you up there?” I murmur into the nothingness. In the distance, perhaps carried across the bay a block away, I can hear the faint sounds of people celebrating the last hour of the year that’s about to end. I think about all the things that can be started over, and all the things that can never be undone.
I look up at the sky and try to locate the stars, the ones Mamie was always looking for. I find them now—the stars of the Big Dipper—and follow the line formed by two stars in the bowl, just like she’d taught me, until I see the North Star, Polaris, glimmering overhead, due north. I wonder whether that’s the direction to heaven. I wonder what she was searching for all those years.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been looking at the sky when I notice a tiny motion somewhere between the Dipper and the North Star. I squint and blink a few times, and that’s when I see them.
Against the inky backdrop, so faint I can barely make them out, two stars are moving across the sky, just past Polaris, making their way deeper into the heavens. I’ve seen shooting stars before; after all, the nights on the Cape are black and deep enough that you can see farther into the darkness than most people along the East Coast. I spent many nights during my teenage years counting stars and wishing on the ones that fell from the sky.
But these stars are different. They’re not falling. They’re making their way across the blanket of night, shimmering and brilliant as they dance side by side across the darkness.
My jaw falls as I follow their flight. The sounds of the earth—the distant laughter, the faint babble of a far-off television, the lapping of the waves on the beach—fall away, and I watch in a bubble of silence as the stars grow smaller and smaller, and finally disappear.
“Good-bye, Mamie,” I whisper when they’re gone. “Good-bye, Jacob.” And I believe somehow that the wind, which is whistling around me now, is taking my words up to them.
I search the sky for another minute, until the cold begins to seep into my bones, then I go back inside the house, where I pick my cell phone up from the kitchen table. I dial Annie first and smile when she answers.
“Everything okay, Mom?” she asks, and in the background, I can hear the sounds of celebration in Chatham. There’s music, laughter, happiness.
“Everything’s fine,” I say. “I just wanted you to know I love you.”
She’s silent for a moment. “I know,” she says finally. “I love you too, Mom. I’ll call you later.”
I tell her to have fun, and after I hang up, I stare at the phone for thirty seconds before scrolling through my phone book and hitting Send again.
“Hope?” Gavin’s voice is deep and warm when he answers.
I take a breath. “My grandmother left me a letter,” I say without preamble. “I just read it.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and I curse myself for not being better at this.
“Are you okay?” he finally asks.
“I’m okay,” I say, and I know it’s the truth. I’m okay now, and I know I’ll be okay. But there’s still something missing. I don’t want to wait a lifetime to put the pieces back together, the way Mamie did, the way my mother never had a chance to. “I’m sorry,” I say in a rush. “I’m sorry about everything. For pushing you away. For pretending you didn’t mean something to me.”