Chapter 42 My Wish
My Wish
JAMIE
Ipractically carried her back to her cabin, telling her how panicked I’d been when I found her door open but no sign of her there.
It was the footsteps that led me to her.
The joy of finding her under those stars, willing to let me kiss her, to tell her how sorry I was again and again.
To promise I’d never leave her—not in affection and not physically, either.
We stripped off our clothes when we got back to the cabin of course, right after we poured the fish baby I brought into a wide glass vase we’d found in the cupboard.
I’d panicked after realizing I forgot about him tucked away inside my shirt for warmth.
Thankfully his bag of water remained intact even after picking her up.
I ran a bath for Sarah, and she told me to come in, and when we only lasted a moment slicked against each other in the water before she turned around and climbed onto me, we still took it slow and soft.
“I love you, Sarah,” I whispered into her ear as she dropped onto me, the sensation lifting me, momentarily, right off this earth. “I think I always have.”
“I love you, Jamie,” she told me, and I told her how I wasn’t done saying sorry. How I hadn’t lied when I told her I’d say it a thousand times.
“I’ll say it until you’re as old and gray as me, Sarah. I’ll say it as my dying words.”
“No,” she whispered as she pressed her forehead to mine. “I want those words to only be love.”
I wanted to treasure every moment with Sarah, to memorize her body once more now that she was mine. So I did.
Afterward, we sat in bed, Sarah wearing that shirt of mine that made me want to take it off of her immediately, me in a pair of sweats and nothing else.
We ate the lasagna Seamus had frozen for me from that first night I came home and insisted I bring with me.
We drank from the wine Chelsea had handed me, begging me to be safe.
She told me about her call with Natasha and her plans to accept the job.
And we tried to come up with a name for our fish.
So far, I’d vetoed all the ones she suggested, telling her about each person I’d known with the same name.
Finally, exasperated, she said, “Okay, Jamie. What would you choose?”
I thought for a minute, then shrugged, setting my dish aside and taking a hearty sip of wine.
I smiled. “Zwicky.”
Sarah’s eyes widened, then filled with tears. “You remembered.”
“Of course.” I could never forget that story she told me. How honored and enraged it had made me.
I’d been thinking of Fritz a lot over the past three days—and thousands of miles I’d driven in the worst conditions of my life before coming here.
Sarah leaned into me, her hand idly stroking my beard.
As we moved on, talking about other things, I wondered if she saw our future spinning out together the way I did.
Sarah, with her own office in the house I built for her.
A menagerie of animals, and a giant workshop so she could do woodworking whenever she wanted.
I’d already decided I’d hand Seamus Reilly Contracting within the next couple of years and would take on select projects as an independent consultant.
After that? Who knew. All I knew was it didn’t get any better than this, right here.
I told Sarah as much as I lay back on the bed, folding my arms behind my head.
“You really think this moment can’t be matched?” Sarah asked.
She looked so beautiful I wasn’t sure how this moment could be topped. But I knew it would be, over and over, each thing better than the last.
“No,” I said. “I’m dead wrong. This is just the beginning.”
She curled against me, running her hand across my chest. We stayed like that for a long time. And as we did, I made my wish. I asked the stars to let me keep Sarah as long as humanly possible. To keep both of us safe and together and feeling like this for as long as the universe permitted.
And to help me remember that even if somehow I outlived her, I would survive. To remind me I could survive anything, because I’d had love so big for my little while on earth.
“Jamie,” Sarah said, some time later, her voice soft. I thought she’d been sleeping.
“Yes, angel?”
“I was thinking, if you’re up for it, maybe…” She hesitated. “Maybe you could tell me about Kevin?”
It wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. For a moment, I was quiet.
“If it’s too hard—” she began, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I want you to know him, too.”
So, we lay there together, the blanket pulled up around us as the stars shone through the glass, and I told Sarah about my beautiful boy.