Page 105 of Here We Go Again

She flips through the pages one at a time, remembering each assignment she finished days early, and the sense of pride she felt at every perfect grade. She remembers the stories she stayed up all night to write. All of her words chosen with love and care andjoy.

At the back of the stack is a single sheet of stationery. White with a blue border and the words “From the desk of Joseph Delgado” stamped on the bottom. She gave him that stationery pad as a gift for his sixtieth birthday, only two months before the diagnosis. On that single piece of stationery, is a short note.

I kept it all for when you’re a famous author one day.

“You… you weren’t going to give me this until after you died, were you?” she muses.

“No, but I thought you might need a little… encouragement, these days. Some inspiration to go after the things you love.”

She stares at the years of work she threw away because safety was more important than love.

What do you lose by being in control all the time?

Ocean Springs, Mississippi to Bar Harbor, MaineChapter Thirty-Two

ROSEMARY

Eight days after Joe was admitted to the Ocean Springs hospital, they leave for Maine.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Rosemary asks Remy one last time on his front lawn Sunday morning. It was one of the many surprises of the past few days: Remy isn’t coming with them to Maine. He and Joe decided this was the goodbye they wanted.

“I’m sure.” Remy’s smile is unreadable in the early morning light. “We’ve had our happy ending.”

Logan hangs herself out the passenger-side window. “You hadmultiplehappy endings from what I could hear.” She removes her sunglasses and winks at him.

“Logan Maletis, I will miss you very much.” Remy edges toward the swamp gutter so he can plant a kiss on Logan’s cheek. Rosemary has to turn away from the gesture. Eight days, and she and Logan still haven’t talked about anything but Joe’s medical care and the semantics for getting him to Bar Harbor.

They haven’t talked about what happened at the hospital when Logan walked away; they haven’t talked about what was happening before, when it felt like they were building something new and beautiful between them. They haven’t touched each other in eightdays; they’ve barely looked at each other. It’s like it used to be back in Vista Summit: constantly circling each other, colliding but never connecting.

Rosemary’s not sure how she’ll survive losing Joe when she’s already grieving losing Logan.

Remy interrupts her morose thoughts when he hoists a giant red cooler in through the open side door of the van. “I packed y’all a tomato pie for lunch, along with some fried chicken and potato salad for dinner. And a peach cobbler for dessert, of course. There are also meals for you girls to freeze when you get to Bar Harbor. Jambalaya, a batch of biscuits with my homemade gravy, and a week’s worth of okra soup with shrimp.”

“Auto mechanic shrimp?” Logan asks.

“As demanded, yes, I got it from Gladys’s, though I will not be held responsible for the gastrointestinal distress caused by this choice.”

“It will be worth it.” Logan adjusts her sunglasses back over her eyes.

Rosemary reaches up and pulls Remy into a clumsy hug. “Thank you, Remy. I promise we won’t starve.”

He kisses both of her cheeks, and she knowsthisis his love language: feeding people, even when he’s hurting. She holds on to him longer than she probably should.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” Remy whispers into her ear before he finally pulls away. “And one last thing.”

He jogs back to the front porch and grabs a package. It’s a flat rectangle wrapped in brown paper, clearly another one of his paintings. “This is for you, mon chéri.”

Remy sets the package on the back seat next to Joe. “Now, don’t you open this until you get to where you’re going. I want you to hang it on the wall in the living room of that old cottage.”

It’s unclear if Joe can hear his old lover. If he can understand. His eyes flutter open and closed, but they’re unfocused. Un-Joe. Thehospital gave him one last fentanyl patch for the drive, but even with it, the pain of loading into the van was almost too much.

Remy cuts his gaze to Logan. “Will you make sure he’s alert when he opens it? I really want him to see it.”

Logan gives a salute. Remy half climbs into the van to kiss Joe’s dry lips. “I’ll be seeing you soon too, my love.”

Joe’s eyes are closed when he responds, “But not too soon.”

Remy visibly holds back his tears, for Joe’s sake. “Not too soon. I promise.”