Chapter 2
Jamie
Jack was twenty years old when our parents died. I was fifteen.
He never once made me feel like a burden.
When I graduated high school and left for New York, he hugged me at the airport and told me to go do amazing things.
When I called him crying from my dorm room three weeks later, homesick, overwhelmed, and convinced I'd made a terrible mistake, he talked me off the ledge for two hours and then sent me a care package full of my favorite snacks and a handwritten note that said: You're braver than you think. I believe in you.
I kept that note in my wallet for years.
So when I got promoted, my first instinct wasn't to call my boyfriend or my editor or any of the friends I'd made in New York. My first instinct was to call Jack.
He answered on the third ring. His voice was rough, tired, but warm the way it always was when he heard from me.
"There she is," he said. "My favorite sister."
"I'm your only sister."
"Still my favorite." I could hear the smile in his voice. "What's up?"
"I got the promotion."
"Jamie. Are you serious?"
"They're syndicating the series nationally. The whole thing. Every profile. And they want me to do more. They're giving me my own column."
Jack let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-exhale. Like he'd been holding his breath without knowing it. "I always knew you'd make it."
My eyes stung. It was stupid. I was a fully-grown woman, pacing my apartment in New York, tearing up because my brother told me he was proud of me. Some things you never outgrow.
"Thank you," I said. "For everything. I couldn't have done any of this without you."
"Yes, you could have. You just would've been more stressed about it." He coughed, then coughed again, the sound wet and rattling.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just a little under the weather."
"That doesn't sound like under the weather. That sounds like bronchitis."
"It's nothing. Just some smoke inhalation from a call a few days ago. Doctors are keeping me for observation, but I'll be out by the weekend."
I stopped pacing. "Doctors? Jack, are you in the hospital?"
"It's not a big deal."
"You're in the hospital and you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't want you to worry."
I sank onto my couch, suddenly needing something solid underneath me.
My brother was in a hospital bed. The only family I had left. The man who had been my father since I was fifteen years old.
I'd already lost my parents. I couldn't lose him too.
"I'm coming down."
"Jamie, no."
"I was already planning to visit after the project wrapped. I'll just move up my flight. I can be there tomorrow."
"You just got promoted." Jack's voice was firm. "Celebrate. Go somewhere nice with your boyfriend. I'll be out of here by the weekend."
I closed my eyes. I could picture him in a bed that was too small, hooked up to machines he'd never admit made him nervous, waving off nurses with that stubborn charm he'd perfected over the years.
Jack hated being fussed over. He'd once walked around with a broken wrist for three days because he didn't want to "make a big deal out of it. "
"Jack."
"Jamie." He matched my tone exactly. "I'm fine. I promise. Come visit next week like we planned. Rosie's been asking about you."
Rosie. My chest ached at the thought of her.
"She keeps pointing at your photos and asking when the Little Mermaid is coming to visit.”
Auburn hair and blue eyes. That's all it took for a four-year-old to decide I was a Disney princess.
I laughed despite myself. "She still thinks I'm Ariel?"
"You're not going to convince her otherwise. She's got your imagination." He paused. "And your stubbornness. Lord help me."
"The imagination, that’s me. The stubbornness, that's all you."
He was laughing now, and it made me feel better, even if the laugh turned into another cough at the end. "Go celebrate, Jamie. I mean it. I'm proud of you."
I wanted to tell him I was proud of him too. That I thought about everything he gave up for me more often than he knew. That I didn't say it enough, but I carried it with me every day.
Instead, I said, "I owe you. Big time."
"You're right. You do." I could hear the grin in his voice. "I'm thinking a statue. Life-size. Bronze. Right in the middle of Marion Square."
"You want a statue."
"With a plaque. 'Jack Donovan: World's Greatest Brother.' Maybe some pigeons. For ambiance."
I laughed. "I'll see what I can do."
"That's all I ask." He paused. "I love you, Jamie. I'll see you next week."
"I love you too."
The line went dead.
I sat there for a long time, phone pressed against my chest, trying to convince myself that everything was fine. Jack said he was fine. The doctors were just being cautious. He'd be out by the weekend.
He was always fine.
So why couldn't I shake the feeling that something was wrong?
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I found myself on my couch in the dark, a box of old photos on the coffee table in front of me. I hadn't looked through these in years.
A family trip to the beach when I was seven or eight. Mom, Dad, Jack and me, all of us sunburned and smiling. Jack and me at my high school graduation, his arm around my shoulders, both of us squinting into the sun. Rosie as a baby, asleep on Jack's chest, his hand spanning her entire back.
I stopped at one near the bottom. A childhood photo, faded and creased at the corners. Jack must have been sixteen or seventeen, which made me eleven or twelve. We were in someone's backyard, and there was a third person in the frame.
Sam Reeves.
He was grinning at the camera, sun-browned and easy, frozen in the middle of whatever game we'd been playing. Jack's best friend since we were kids.
I traced the edge of the photo with my finger.
I'd always liked Sam. He was kind and steady and had the sort of smile that made you feel like everything would be okay. But he was Jack's best friend, and I was just Jack's little sister. Whenever Sam was nice to me, I told myself it was because he had to be. Jack would've had his head otherwise.
So I never let myself hope for anything more.
The last time I'd seen him was a year ago, at Sarah's funeral.
He'd stood beside Jack in the receiving line, steady and solid, shaking hands with everyone who came through.
He'd hugged me when I arrived, held on just a beat too long, and said something about being sorry that I barely heard through the ringing in my ears.
I felt it then. That old ache. The one I'd been carrying since I was old enough to understand what it meant.
I put the photo back in the box and closed the lid.
It didn't matter. I lived in New York. I was with Mark. Sam was just a memory from a life I'd left behind.
Mark had made reservations at a restaurant that had a three-month waitlist and no prices on the menu. The ma?tre d' called him by name and the sommelier remembered his preferences.
His friends were already at the table when we arrived. Dave and Alicia, Arthur and Cathy. The women air-kissed my cheeks and told me how thrilled they were. The men shook my hand and said things like "You must be so proud" and "Mark never stops talking about you."
I met Mark a year ago when I was working on a story about corporate philanthropy.
He was one of several executives I'd interviewed, and he was supposed to be a fifteen-minute conversation that I'd use for background.
Instead, he'd kept me in his office for an hour, asking questions about my process, my career, my opinion on things that had nothing to do with the article.
When he asked me to dinner at the end of it, I'd said yes before I could overthink it.
A year later, we were talking about moving in together. He'd shown me a listing last week for a two-bedroom in Tribeca with a view of the river. "For when we're ready," he'd said.
Now I sat across from him at a table for six, wearing a dress I'd bought for occasions exactly like this, watching him raise a glass of champagne that cost more than my first month's rent in New York.
"To the most talented journalist in this city," he said. "I always knew you'd get here."
"You've known me for about a year."
"And I could tell within five minutes." He smiled, that easy, confident smile that had charmed me in his office. "You're going places, Jamie Donovan. I'm just lucky I get to come along."
I smiled back. Clinked my glass against his. Let the champagne fizz against my tongue. I made conversation. Laughed at the right moments. I knew which fork to use.
This was my life now. Mark's friends were my friends. Mark's calendar was my calendar. I'd learned how to navigate his world the same way I'd learned how to navigate everything else in New York—by watching, adapting, becoming whatever I needed to become.
It should have felt triumphant. The promotion. The boyfriend. The champagne. The table full of people who were happy for me.
So why did it feel like wearing a costume I couldn't take off?
The thought came and went before I could examine it. I pushed it down and turned to answer a question Alicia was asking about the series.
I was halfway through explaining the story that had gotten the most traction when my phone buzzed in my purse.
Havensworth area code.
My stomach dropped. I excused myself from the table and walked toward the back of the restaurant, pressing the phone against my ear.
"Hello?"
"Is this Jamie Donovan?"
Not Jack's voice. A woman. Professionally sympathetic in the way of people who delivered bad news for a living.
"Yes."
"This is Havensworth General Hospital. I'm calling about your brother, Jack Donovan."
The floor tilted beneath me. I put my hand on the wall.
"What happened? Is he okay?"
The pause told me everything I didn't want to hear.
"I'm very sorry, Ms. Donovan. Your brother passed away approximately two hours ago. He developed an infection that progressed rapidly. The doctors did everything they could."
I don't remember what I said after that. I don't remember if I said anything at all.
I remember the phone slipping from my hand. I remember the sound it made when it hit the floor. I remember Mark's face across the restaurant, confused at first, then alarmed, then moving toward me as my knees gave out.
I remember the champagne that was still fizzing in my glass at the table. The celebration I'd been in the middle of. The life I'd been living five minutes ago that no longer existed.
I broke down right there. In the back of a restaurant, hand on the wall, phone on the floor.
Mark caught me before I hit the ground.
The flight to Havensworth was two hours and twenty-three minutes. I counted every one of them.
Mark sat beside me, his hand covered mine on the armrest. He'd booked the tickets while I was still crying in the back of that restaurant. He'd packed a bag for me while I sat on his bed and stared at nothing. He'd handled everything, the way he always did, because that's who he was.
I should have been grateful. I was grateful. But I couldn't feel it through the numbness that had settled over me like a second skin.
The flight attendant asked if I wanted anything to eat. Mark answered for me. I watched his mouth move but couldn't hear what he said.
I left Havensworth when I was eighteen. Not for college, though that's what I told people. I left because staying was impossible.
Something happened my junior year of high school. I still couldn't talk about it. I'd spent the rest of high school as a ghost, counting down the days until I could disappear.
New York was my escape. My clean slate. The place where no one knew the girl I used to be.
I'd worked my way through NYU on scholarships and overnight shifts, taking every assignment no one else wanted, writing my way into rooms that should have been closed to me.
Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped being the girl who fled Havensworth and became someone else entirely.
The last time I flew home was for Sarah's funeral. A year ago. I'd promised myself I'd come back more often after that.
But then Christmas came and Mark had planned a trip for us. And then my project was wrapping up and I told Jack I'd visit as soon as it was done. Just a few more weeks. Just until the series wrapped.
There was always supposed to be more time.
Maybe there still was. Maybe this was some horrible mistake. A mix-up at the hospital. A clerical error. Maybe I'd land and my phone would ring and it would be Jack on the other end, annoyed that I'd flown all the way to Havensworth when he'd told me he was fine.
The plane began its descent. Havensworth spread out below me through the tiny window. Rivers and bridges and church steeples, the whole city laid out like a postcard.
Mark squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, but I couldn't feel my fingers.
The wheels touched down.
Mark had arranged a car service. Of course he had. By the time we landed, there was a driver waiting for us at arrivals, holding a sign with Mark's name.
I didn't ask how he'd managed it. I didn't have the energy to be impressed. I just followed him into the back seat and let him take my hand as the car pulled away from the airport.
Havensworth slid past the window. The same streets. The same oak trees draped in Spanish moss. The same low-country light that made everything look like a photograph.
We passed the diner where Jack used to take me for pancakes on Saturday mornings. The park where we used to sit on the swings and talk about nothing. The street corner where he'd picked me up from school every day for three years, never once complaining.
I pressed my forehead to the glass and watched it all blur past.
Maybe this was Jack's cruel idea of a joke. His twisted way of scaring me into coming home sooner. I'd walk in and he'd be standing there with his arms crossed, waiting to say "Got you."
I'd kill him. I'd actually kill him for putting me through this.
The car stopped. I looked up.
Havensworth General Hospital.
I was out of the car before the driver could open my door. I heard Mark behind me, his footsteps quick on the pavement, but I didn't slow down. I walked straight through the entrance, past the front desk, past the waiting area, my eyes scanning for—
Sam.
He was sitting on a bench near the hallway. Hunched forward. Elbows on his knees.
He'd been crying. I could see it from across the room. The red eyes. The wet tracks on his cheeks. The shattered look of a man who had already said goodbye.
All the hope I'd been clinging to—the desperate bargaining, the maybes, the what-ifs—it died right there in the hospital lobby.
Jack was gone.
"Sam?"
His head came up. Our eyes met.
And something in my chest cracked open. I could see the same devastation, the same disbelief, the same raw wound I'd been carrying since that phone call.
I didn't remember moving. I just remembered reaching him. My arms around his neck. My face against his chest. The smell of smoke and soap and something familiar I couldn't name.
I stopped holding on. And I broke.