Chapter 16 #3
The silence stretched. He could hear his mother breathing. Could picture her on the lanai in Florida, her reading glasses pushed up on her head, her cardigan wrapped around her shoulders despite the warmth.
“Honey.” Her voice was softer now. Something he hadn’t heard in years. “Don’t you remember what Emma always said? About where the stories came from?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She used to tell me—” His mother paused. Took a breath. “She said the creativity wasn’t hers. Not really. She said she just saw things. Beyond the natural. The what-ifs, the possibilities, the beauty of what could be. She called it glimpsing heaven.”
His throat tightened. He remembered Emma talking about the stories like they were gifts, not achievements. Like she was receiving them instead of creating them.
“She spent time with God, Nathaniel. Every morning, before she wrote. She said that’s where the stories came from—not from her imagination but from listening.
From being still enough to hear what He wanted to show her.
” His mother’s voice wavered. “She said the books were her way of sharing that. Of showing people what she saw when she looked beyond the world in front of her.”
He didn’t know what to do with this. The spiritual truth of it—the faith his sister had carried, the faith he’d lost somewhere along the way. It felt too big, too close to the wound.
“I found something,” his mother continued. “When I was packing up her room at the hospital. A letter. She asked me to give it to you.”
His heart stopped.
“I should have told you sooner. But you were so broken after the funeral, and I kept waiting for the right time, and then—” Her voice caught. “I put it in her Bible. The one in her room. I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I should have given it to you years ago.”
“Her Bible.” He was already standing. Already moving toward the stairs.
“Psalm 34:18. That’s where I put it. She had it marked.”
“I have to go.”
“Nathaniel.”
He paused.
“God isn’t finished with your story, even if Emma has finished hers.”
His throat tightened. “Yeah. Thanks. I love you.”
A pause, her breath caught. “I love you too, son.”
He hung up. Took the stairs two at a time. His hand was on Emma’s door before he realized he was shaking.
He crossed to the bookshelf. His fingers found the Bible immediately—worn brown leather, gold-edged pages. Their grandmother’s Bible, the one Emma kept on the middle shelf, the one he’d never thought to open.
The ribbon marked a page near the middle.
Psalm 34:18. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
And tucked against the page, a folded piece of paper.
Emma’s handwriting. The familiar slant, the loops on her y’s and g’s, the little circles she used to dot her i’s.
He sat on her bed, the quilt soft beneath him—purple and blue, their grandmother’s stitches. His hands trembled as he unfolded the letter.
Nate—
If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone and you’re struggling. I know you. I know you’re probably sitting in my room right now, wondering how to go on without me. I know you’re probably blaming yourself for something, or hiding from something, or both.
Stop it.
I need to tell you something I should have said years ago, but I was afraid you’d argue with me, and I was too tired to fight. So I’m writing it down instead, and you’re going to read it, and you’re going to believe it, because I’m dead and you can’t argue with dead people.
You were never the lesser partner.
I know that’s what you thought. I know you saw yourself as the wordsmith, the support staff, the one who polished my ideas into something readable. And that’s garbage, Nate. Complete garbage.
The world was never mine—it was ours. Every kingdom, every character, every twist and turn. You built as much of it as I did. You just couldn’t see it because you were standing too close.
And the ending? That’s not mine to write. It never was.
I gave you the doors, Nate. You’re the one who knows what’s behind them. You always have been. I just asked the questions. You found the answers.
Don’t you dare stop opening them without me.
The story is yours now. It always was.
I love you. I’m proud of you. And wherever I am, I’m probably annoying the angels with plot ideas and waiting to see what you do next.
Write the ending, Nate. The one only you can write.
—Emma
P.S. Mom probably waited too long to give you this. Don’t be mad at her. She’s grieving too. We all grieve badly in this family. Maybe try doing it better than I did.
She knew. She saw him. Three years ago, when she was dying, when she should have been thinking about herself, she’d written this. For him. Permission wrapped in paper and tucked in a Bible, waiting for him to be ready.
Maybe he still wasn’t ready. Still, the words found him. You were never the lesser partner. The story is yours now. It always was.
Huck, then Finn came and settled at his feet. He slid down to the floor, dug his hands into their fur.
Then three years of grief and guilt and silence rattled through him, began to rush out in waves he couldn’t control. He closed the Bible, pressed it to his chest, and let himself break.