Chapter 12
S he had leukemia; she’d known it since last summer.
The moment she told me, the blood drained from my face and a sheaf of dizzying
images fluttered through my mind. It was as though in that brief moment, time had
suddenly stopped and I understood everything that had happened between us. I understood
why she’d wanted me to do the play: I understood why, after we’d performed that first
night, Hegbert had whispered to her with tears in his eyes, calling her his angel; I
understood why he looked so tired all the time and why he fretted that I kept coming by
the house. Everything became absolutely clear.
Why she wanted Christmas at the orphanage to be so special …
Why she didn’t think she’d go to college …
Why she’d given me her Bible …
It all made perfect sense, and at the same time, nothing seemed to make any sense at
all.
Jamie Sullivan had leukemia …
Jamie, sweet Jamie, was dying …
My Jamie …
“No, no,” I whispered to her, “there has to be some mistake… .”
B ut there wasn’t, and when she told me again, my world went blank. My head started
to spin, and I clung to her tightly to keep from losing my balance. On the street I saw a
man and a woman, walking toward us, heads bent and their hands on their hats to keep
them from blowing away. A dog trotted across the road and stopped to smell some bushes.
A neighbor across the way was standing on a stepladder, taking down his Christmas lights.
Normal scenes from everyday life, things I would never have noticed before, suddenly
making me feel angry. I closed my eyes, wanting the whole thing to go away.
“I’m so sorry, Landon,” she kept saying over and over. It was I who should have been
saying it, however. I know that now, but my confusion kept me from saying anything.
Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t go away. I held her again, not knowing what else to
do, tears filling my eyes, trying and failing to be the rock I think she needed.
We cried together on the street for a long time, just a little way down the road from
her house. We cried some more when Hegbert opened the door and saw our faces,
knowing immediately that their secret was out. We cried when we told my mother later
that afternoon, and my mother held us both to her bosom and sobbed so loudly that both