Chapter Twenty-one
Jamie was gone.
Grief is a funny thing. Norah had mourned her brother’s death so hard she thought it would break her.
She cried until her eyes physically hurt.
She stayed in bed for days on end. She lost so much weight, even her sweatpants were loose on her.
But losing Jamie was almost…worse. You can’t really compare loss.
Norah had known Davey her whole life, whereas she’d known Jamie for only a couple of months.
But the unbelievable sadness that had engulfed her since finding out about Jamie was somehow unlike any pain she’d ever known.
She had killed her. Norah had killed her friend.
John took on the brunt of the work for the next few days. And Chase never left Norah’s side. She held her. She cried with her. And on the rare occasion they could manage it, she laughed with her.
“I want to start planning Jamie’s service,” Chase said on the afternoon of the third day.
She’d coaxed Norah into eating a few bites of a turkey sandwich, the first thing she’d had in twenty-four hours, and for the moment at least, Norah felt like she might survive this grief. At least as long as she had Chase here.
“God. I didn’t even think of that.”
“I’m going to take care of it, okay? I’ve already started talking to John and a couple of the others about it. I think we should do it out on that place that overlooks the bayou, the spot she always liked.”
Norah’s heart swelled. The juxtaposition between the Chase who wanted to pick wildflowers to put out and have photos printed from Jamie’s social media and call her family in on Zoom, and the Chase who had left Norah entirely alone to plan Davey’s memorial, was enough to give her whiplash.
Chase had shown her repeatedly since their reunion that time had changed her.
She had been there for Norah every time.
And she was doing it again in the biggest way possible.
She couldn’t find the right words to express the layers of gratitude and love and nostalgia that had overcome her, so Norah took Chase’s face in her hands and kissed her sweetly.
“What was that for?” Chase said, after Norah had gently pulled back.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Just…thank you.”
Along with the debilitating grief came the anxiety of not knowing whether Jamie had succumbed to the virus itself, or to Norah’s selfish decisions.
She waited for a full week without any word from the hospital.
Timmons had promised he’d notify her when they finished their investigation, having no idea, of course, about Norah’s experimental treatment.
He was sure Jamie had been lost to the virus, like so many of the others.
But he told Norah he’d let her know there was nothing else that could have been done.
Even lying next to Chase, the Sleepy Scientist in her ear, couldn’t soothe Norah to sleep on those nights.
She lay wide awake, replaying the moment she pushed the syringe full of the poison that killed her friend.
She stopped sleeping alone, lying next to Chase being the only hope for even the smallest amount of rest. Some nights, she dreamed of Jamie’s face, pale and serene at first and then morphing into a green monstrosity, the flesh falling off the bone until Norah was staring at a corpse.
She’d wake up in a cold sweat, reaching for Chase and holding onto her tightly.
“This landed on my desk for you today,” John said, sitting down next to Norah at breakfast. Chase had insisted she come out at least long enough to drink some coffee and eat some Cheerios.
“What is it?”
“Look for yourself.” He slid a sheet of fax paper to her.
Jamie’s name and medical record number were on top. Below was a very condensed summary of what the hospital coroner believed killed her.
“She died of H7J1,” Norah whispered, still staring down at the words.
“Yes.” John offered her the most sympathetic smile she’d ever seen, one that asked Norah to forgive herself.
“They didn’t do a full autopsy,” she said, doubt creeping in around the cautious relief she’d allowed herself to feel.
“Don’t do that to yourself, Norah. You know they aren’t doing many posts on H7J1 patients. Because she was one of us, they did more than most.”
There it was, in plain medical English.
Cause of death: acute respiratory distress syndrome secondary to H7J1 virus
Norah reread the words repeatedly. That didn’t bring Jamie back. But Norah found peace in knowing she’d tried everything she could to help her friend. She’d done the right thing, even if it hadn’t worked.
Chase emerged a few minutes later, a plate of eggs, sausage, and home fries teetering on top of her second cup of coffee. God. Nothing killed this woman’s appetite.
“What are we looking at?” she said, shoveling a forkful into her mouth. Norah handed her the report. Chase swallowed and picked it up, reading it carefully.
She said nothing, just put her arm around Norah’s shoulder and pulled her in until she could wrap both her arms around her and kiss the top of her head.
That night, tucked in next to Chase, Norah fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Planning Jamie’s service was important to Chase because Jamie was her friend, but also because Norah deserved the chance not to have to.
The single greatest regret of Chase’s life was not being there for Norah when Davey died.
And for what? Because she was afraid she couldn’t be strong enough for her?
Chase’s cowardice had ruined them. There was no way to make up that blunder to Norah. But she could at least do this for her.
That afternoon, she had four privates collecting wildflowers out by the swamp.
“Are these good, Doc?” they’d ask, proudly emerging with a fistful of swamp grass.
“Those are weeds, Private.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep looking, ma’am.”
Much to Chase’s utter shock and delight, by dinnertime they had a table full of spring cress, field thistle, and even some southern blue flag.
Unfortunately, they were short on vases, so Chase made do with some recycled Pepsi cans they’d cut the tops off with a pocketknife.
Catering wasn’t happening these days due to the quarantine orders, but Chase had learned through the rumor mill that one of the epidemiologists had been a Michelin-star chef prior to becoming a full-time nerd.
The next morning, while Norah was still sleeping, Chase drove to New Orleans, where she managed to use her CDC status to get into a restaurant-supply store and pick up all the necessary ingredients for appetizers that Jamie deserved.
John had been an Eagle Scout a million years earlier and had always bragged to Chase about his woodworking skills. She’d recruited him to engrave a wood plaque they could place out by the water after the service.
“What’s all this?” Norah said, emerging from her tent sometime after ten a.m. Chase knew she was awake and had been working on what she wanted to say that afternoon.
“This?” Chase gestured to the floral display behind her. “I got some of the guys to pick them for this afternoon.”
Norah beamed, her smile bright with hope for the first time in a week.
“I can’t believe you did all of this,” she said.
“I didn’t. Your soldiers did.” Chase grinned back at her.
“I didn’t even think of it. And what about food? We have to feed everyone. And it can’t be the same slop we’ve been eating from the mess tent every day. Jamie hated that stuff.”
Chase took a step toward her and put her hand on her shoulder.
“It’s taken care of.”
“I…I don’t know what to say.” Norah rushed closer and hugged her.
“You don’t have to say anything. You just focus on honoring your friend.”
The afternoon sun was low on the water. Norah spent an hour going through what little clothing she had, wondering what would be appropriate to wear to a memorial service in the middle of the swamp during a pandemic.
Pretty much everything she had there was now worn and tattered, but she settled on a blue button-down shirt she’d brought in case she had to meet with anyone outside of the camp and a pair of black slacks.
She had brought some basic makeup for the same reason, just a tube of lipstick and some mascara, but it hadn’t seen any use until that day.
Her hair, which was usually tossed up in a careless ponytail, hung loose over her shoulders.
There was no mirror, of course, and she wasn’t really sure why she cared about looking nice.
For some reason, it just felt important.
She hadn’t realized how many people were in their camp until they were all standing in one place.
The mood was somber but also somehow celebratory.
Jamie’s photo rested against an altar of wildflowers, and a folded American flag lay beside it.
A beautiful wooden plaque that apparently John had managed to carve himself would act as her epitaph until a proper one could be resurrected back home.
Sitting on a folding chair with a guitar in hand was Stevens, who plucked the strings like he himself hadn’t just been fighting for his life a few weeks ago.
It was the perfect homage to Jamie, and Chase had done it all.
At the front of the sizable crowd, hands clasped in front of her, was Chase.
She whispered something to John, and he laughed softly—the kind of laugh that you hear only at funerals, where the living are caught in that odd in-between of remembering their lost loved one and reflecting on their own remaining time on earth.
Chase spotted Norah, her face lighting up like it always seemed to when Norah entered a room.
What a gift, Norah thought, to be loved so fiercely by someone for so many years.
As she approached Chase, who reached out to her and placed an arm around her waist, Norah was suddenly overcome by just how selfish she’d been.
What was she doing? Was she just punishing Chase on repeat?
Jamie was gone. And if she were still there, she would have told Norah to look what she had straight in the eye and stop overthinking it.
“I…uh…heard this poem somewhere back in college,” Chase said, clearing her throat and fiddling with her fingers. She always hated public speaking, and Norah had no idea what she was doing up there in front of everyone.
“I always remembered it. And now, I can’t help but think of Jamie when I read it.”
Some nights you will feel like a thousand galaxies are exploding in every inch of you and you are burning too bright to ever be looked at directly, and some nights you will feel impossibly small, like your whole body could slip through the space between atoms and never reappear in this world again…
and some nights you will feel like each cell in your body is made of the strength that holds the whole planet together, and that is okay, because you are made of stardust and miniscule atoms and breakable bones and the building blocks of everything in the universe, and you are too alive to ever feel anything more than human.
Something inside Norah broke open. It was closer to a blossoming than a shattering though.
The fragility of this life was all at once so obvious to her.
She let herself cry large, restorative tears that mourned the loss of a friend she had tried desperately to save but also celebrated the fact she was still alive. And so was the woman she loved.