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And I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry And I said to myself, What next big sky? —Laurie Anderson
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. —Albert Camus
Because she was Bree Boyd. She was twenty-six years old; she had her whole life ahead of her. She had more than a million followers on Instagram; she’d had her photo posted with three (almost four) of the Kardashians; and she hadn’t finished her bucket list yet. Hell, she hadn’t even finished composing her bucket list. She couldn’t die.
When they were little, Jodie had been her shadow. When Bree wore red, Jodie had to wear red; when Bree had bangs cut, Jodie had to have bangs cut; when Bree got rollerblades, Jodie screamed blue murder until she got a pair too.
Chemo had taught Bree that fear was an emotional black hole. It had gravity so dense it not only pulled you in, it pulled you inside out. It was best to avoid it. To deny it. To chart a course in the opposite direction.
Until Bree got sick, Jodie hadn’t realized how painful love was. It stung. Like lemon juice poured on an open wound. But worse. It wasn’t pink and pleasant; it was bloodred and visceral.
She wanted to go up to her old bedroom, and sleep in her childhood bed. She wanted to watch the witchy branches of the ash tree scratching at the window in the wind, just like she had as a kid. She wanted to go home.
Grief was like weather: it had seasons and moods, and it could always take a turn for the worse. Today had started with lowering clouds of gloom and the rainy smell of despair; there had been razor-sharp, heart-hurting cold; then a bitter wind had blown in, churning the flat gray sky into a stormy sea of misery; and now there was driving, sheeting, pelleting sleet. The kind that flayed the skin off your bones.
She felt like a worm. A selfish, petty little worm. Of course he did. And so did Mom. They hadn’t just lost a daughter; they’d gained a mountain of debt. Debt and extra shifts and a complete lack of hope for the future.
“Over the years I managed to finish ninety-four items on this list!” Even wasted away and close to death, there was a glow about Bree as she gazed down at her list. Memories chased across her expression, like shoals of shadowy fish passing beneath the surface of a pond. “I guess I must have known time would be short.” She looked up again and the look of loss on her face was profound. She turned the placemat around so the camera could see the list. “I have six items left. Six I will never finish. I know them by heart . . .” She began to recite them:
17. Plant a tree that will live long after I’m gone. Something shady. That also has blossoms. (I can’t quite believe I never got to this one—it seems the easiest.) 39. Find Mr. Wong and finally have those piano lessons Mom and Dad paid for that I never took (long story). 73. Eat a sandwich at Katz’s deli in New York and simulate the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. Make sure to take someone to play Harry. 74. Perform a walk-on cameo in a Broadway musical (multitasking while I’m in New York—but probably best to do this on a different day than number seventy-three, as I don’t think nerves
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That was the thing about death, it put someone out of reach forever. You could never, ever ask them a question, ever again.
Alright, New York, here I come. I might not be the Boyd you deserve, but I’m the Boyd you’re going to get.
Why do you think people travel? To feel free. Because that’s how Jodie felt right now. She didn’t have to be anywhere, do anything, please anyone but herself. There was no work, no responsibility. There was just the night and the streets and . . . Times Square.
It’s very clear, our love is here to stay . . . but her notes said love was already gone, that nothing stayed, that all things passed away. Things pass, Jodie. But love stays. Nothing disappears, things just transform. You still love me, don’t you?
She would love her sister until her last breath. But the love that remained was sad in the same way the end of fall was sad. Transformation wasn’t always good. Spring and summer had flown, and winter was falling like a long shadow. She hurt. All the time. Like she had a phantom limb that ached and ached, even though it wasn’t there anymore.
Jodie didn’t know how to say it. “I . . . gave up,” she blurted. “No one fought for me . . . and I didn’t fight for me. I just let it pass me by. I gave up. Right at the beginning.” “Gave up? On what?” Claude sounded even more baffled now. “On me. On everything. I mean, ‘gave up’ is generous. I never even tried. And now I’m stuck.” Somehow, she’d frozen in time.
“I’m scared and sad and also full of gratitude and joy. I’m all the things at once. And that’s life, Smurfette. Being everything at once and not trying to fix it. Or escape it.”
“About how even the best love stories have to end.” Bree’s smile turned melancholy. “But I’ve also been thinking about how natural death is. How it’s just another part of life, another cliff to jump from . . . another trip to take.”
“You never really have someone,” the speaking pixels said, “not forever. You just get them for a little while, if you’re lucky. And you never know how long you have them for.”
“Number one hundred says fall in love . . .” Bree’s voice was slurring now. Whatever medication she’d taken was having its full effect. “It doesn’t say they have to love you back.” Her eyelids were growing heavy. “Because you can’t control that bit. And loving is good. Whether you’re loved back or not.”
She was twenty-six years old, and not likely to see twenty-seven, but she’d lived a bigger life than anyone else she knew. And it had been fun. Her only regret was that there couldn’t have been more of it.
