Page 124 of Here We Go Again

The next morning, Joe sees them through the open window, kissing on the front porch while they drink their coffee and watch the sunrise.

“I take it the HGTV Hail Mary worked?” he asks haggardly as they come back inside. He’s alert again, even as his mouth twists in familiar agony.

Logan grins at her, and Rosemary reflexively grins back. Joe is dying, and they’re so in love, and it’s beautiful and painful all at once. “It did,” Rosemary confirms. “I love my new writing room.”

Joe exhales and allows his tired eyes to close. “Finally. Now I can die happy.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

LOGAN

The end finally comes. Rosemary is still on her walk with Odie, Guillermo is tinkering in the kitchen, and Logan is holding Joe’s hand. Tonight is the night. She can feel it.

He hasn’t had water in three days and his chest barely moves with each shallow, ragged breath. Over the weeks, Logan has learned you can only say goodbye so many times, so she presses her forehead to his and says, “Let go, Joe. You can let go now.”

He coughs like he wants to argue, but he hasn’t said real words in over twenty-four hours. “We’re going to be okay. I promise. You can let go.” She kisses his wrinkled temple. “Rosemary and I are going to be okay. You’ve given us so much, Joe. You raised us right. Trust that we are going to be okay and let go.”

She starts to cry. Guillermo goes quiet in the kitchen. Then, she hears his receding footsteps and the sound of the patio door opening and closing.

Logan is alone with Joe now. “You win, you crusty old hag. I’m in love with Rosemary, and she’s in love with me, and we’re going to figure out how to be happy. Here, I think. In this cottage. If she’ll let me stay with her.”

He doesn’t move in his hospital bed.

“Isn’t that what you wanted, you manipulative diva? You wanted me and Rosemary to live in this cottage like you and Remy did? Make a new life here, next to the ocean and among the trees?”

Tears dribble all the way down her chin. “That’s what you wanted, and now you can give up the damn ghost, okay? We’re going to be fine. We’re going to move into this house, and I’m going to sub for the local school district, and Rosemary is going to write her novel and sell it and make tons of money so I never have to work again. We’ll take hikes with Odie and we’ll swim in the ocean and we’ll travel. We’ll travel the whole fucking world. Is that what you need to hear?”

She can’t catch her breath. She lets out a sob, but there’s still something sharp in her throat. “I’ll be healthy, okay? I’ll always take my meds and I’ll find a therapist. I’ll eat vegetables, and I’ll let Rosemary love me. I’ll become okay with the painful parts, and we’ll be okay.”

It’s a stabbing feeling, like a trowel digging down into her esophagus. She’s choking on the pain ofthis—her true last goodbye.

“We’ll be okay.” She buries her face in the crook of his neck. “I promise we will be okay. You can let go.”

ROSEMARY

When she and Odie arrive back at the cottage from their walk, the sun is starting to set. Inside, she finds Logan tucked into Joe’s side, sobbing. She thinksit’s happened, and she’s surprised to discover her first feeling is relief. That his suffering has finally ended.

Joe isn’t dead, though. Not yet.

Rosemary goes to his bedside and wraps her arms around Logan. “Tonight is the night,” she says. It’s not a question. It’s a certainty deep in the pit of her stomach.

“Tonight is the night,” Logan repeats through her tears.

They wait.

Nurse Addison comes by every four hours to administer moremorphine. Guillermo makes thirty cups of tea. They put on baseball, they put on music, and they wait as the world goes dark.

Rosemary falls asleep for a few hours, and when she wakes up, Logan is still sitting upright in her chair on the opposite side of the bed, still holding Joe’s hand.

“Do you remember the first day of freshman year, the first time you walked into his classroom?” Logan asks her.

His brightly colored scarf, the rainbow flag, the way he said, “Welcome, my children,” as if they were his, instantly. His to teach and to protect. His to love, no matter what.

“I do remember, yes.”

They spend the rest of the night telling stories about Joe and sharing memories. ReadingRomeo and Julietas a class. Debate tournaments out of town, hours in a district van while Joe curated the playlists, the first time they saw him eat Taco Bell and realized he really was human after all.

Eating lunch in his classroom. A safe space where they didn’t feel judged.