Page 49 of Write Me For You

June

T he warm breeze washed over us as I tried to keep on writing. Even writing a sentence now took me so long. But I was close to the end of the story, and I was determined to finish.

Our oxygen tanks gave us both much-needed air, and tiredness began to drag my eyelids down.

Jesse was already asleep beside me on the egg chair. I ran my finger down his face. Three weeks had passed since we’d been married. Three weeks of talking and loving and being safe in one another’s arms.

And three weeks of falling fast into the afterlife’s awaiting arms as well. We could no longer walk, and some days we slept all day, the pain meds making it too difficult to stay awake. But we were still here, loving and laughing and cherishing every numbered breath.

I kissed Jesse’s bare arm. “Baby,” I said, deciding it was time for us to go back to inside.

Night was drawing in and the orange sunset we loved was trailing across the sky.

Ginger grazed on the grass, close by. He had kept close to our spot for the past couple of weeks now, as we both knew that, one night, we would stop coming out here all together.

“Jesse,” I said again, but he didn’t stir.

Panic came quickly as I tried to shake him awake.

When his arm fell limply at his side, my heart began to tear.

“Jesse!” I said, louder now. I pressed the emergency button I wore around my neck and Susan and Bailey came running from our room and out onto the porch.

“I can’t wake him up!” I said, urgency in my weak voice. “I can’t wake him up!”

Susan lifted me and placed me in my wheelchair. Bailey didn’t even bother with Jesse’s chair. Instead, he lifted him and rushed him into our bedroom, laying him on the bed. As he did, Jesse’s Longhorns cap fell to the ground.

Bailey began working on him, paging the team, but I couldn’t stop looking at the baseball cap. Jesse never took it off. He needed it on his head. In seconds, the door burst open, and Dr. Duncan and his staff filled the room.

“Help him,” I said helplessly, wishing my legs would work so I could run to him. I caught Jesse’s arm falling to the side of the bed. It was a beacon to me—I wanted to hold his hand. I needed to.

“Susan, take me in there,” I said, as we were still in the doorway.

“June, they need to?—”

“Please!” I begged, tears streaming down my cheeks. “He can’t go like this. I need to see him. He needs his hat. I need to be with him. Please, Susan. That’s my husband. I want to be with my husband.”

She pushed me inside, stopping to retrieve Jesse’s hat, which I clutched tightly. I brought it to my nose. It smelled of him—woodsy and smoky.

Once inside, I tried to reach for Jesse’s hand. I managed to grip his fingertips just as my parents entered the room, followed by Jesse’s mama.

“No!” his mama screamed, and they all looked my way for explanation.

“He wouldn’t wake up,” I said, voice shaking, as the staff kept on working on him. “I couldn’t wake him up.” I couldn’t see Jesse’s face. I wanted to see his face. I wanted to see his eyes open, and I wanted to see him smile at me and tell me all this had just been a mistake, that he was fine.

“Please…” I begged everyone and no one at the same time.

My plea was lost in the void.

Dr. Duncan began hooking Jesse up to machines. Eventually, he turned to the room calmly and said, “His body is tired, and his organs are shutting down. I’ve given him medication to make him comfortable. But I’m afraid it won’t be long now.”

I broke down, racking sobs coming from my chest.

“Will he wake up? Will we get to say goodbye?” Jesse’s mama asked.

“Possibly. He may drift in and out of consciousness,” Dr. Duncan said. “Hopefully long enough for you all to say your goodbyes.”

“Good nights,” I said empathically, shaking my head. “We don’t say goodbyes, only good nights.”

Bailey arranged Jesse on our bed, so he was comfortable. When he had finished, my daddy lifted me onto our bed beside him. I shifted until I could lay my head against Jesse’s chest. Cynthia was on his other side, holding his hand.

I had known this moment was coming—for both of us. But now that it was here, I…I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lose him. My mama and daddy sat beside me, each putting a supportive hand on my leg.

There was so much love in this room, it was palpable. There was so much strength, and I wanted Jesse to wake up to see it, to feel it.

I lay there for I didn’t know how long when Jesse’s body moved under my cheek. I sat up, breath held, waiting… Then Jesse’s eyes flickered open, and his confused gaze looked around the room.

Cynthia glanced up at her son.

Confused eyes then looked at me and the haze in Jesse’s green eyes cleared.

“Junebug,” he said, wincing like his throat hurt. “What…?” His breathing was labored, and he must have seen in my terrified eyes what was happening. His eyes filled with tears. “Don’t…cry…Junebug,” he rasped and lifted his weak hand to brush away my tears.

I leaned over and kissed him. I kissed every part of his face. I kissed his lips and then his hand. “I love you,” I said, and realization sparked on Jesse’s face. “I love you, I love you.”

“How long?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, and I broke. I lowered my head to his chest, and he ran his hand over my scalp.

“My…sisters,” Jesse said, and I knew he must have been speaking to his mama.

“I’ll get them, son,” my daddy said.

I couldn’t let go of Jesse. I wanted to die with him. I didn’t want to be here in this life without him. We were meant to do this together. I didn’t want to be left behind.

“It’s…okay…Junebug,” he said, his voice becoming a little clearer the more he was using it.

I lifted my head, and he wiped my tears. “Don’t leave me,” I begged, and pain flashed in Jesse’s gaze.

The door to our room opened, and Chris stepped through. He was doing so well. He was walking stronger, and he had color back in his face. He was doing it. He was surviving; he was going to walk out of this place cured.

“Hey, bro,” Chris said, the only giveaway about how he was feeling was his hand at his side, balled into a fist. “How’s it hanging?”

Jesse forced a smirk, and my heart shattered. “Oh…ya know…thriving.”

Chris laughed, but that laughter was cut off by a strangled cry. He leaned down and threw his arm around Jesse. “I’ll miss you, man.”

When a tear leaked from the corner Jesse’s eye, I didn’t think I could take anymore sadness.

When Chris pulled back, he said, “Say hi to Emma for me.”

Jesse nodded, then said, “Live a good life… for us all.”

“I will,” Chris rasped, leaning over and kissing my cheek. “Love you guys. So much.”

And I knew in that moment, he was saying bye to me too.

Chris left the room, glancing over his shoulder at us one more time, expression racked with pain and grief. I brushed the tear off Jesse’s cheek just as Lucy and Emily walked in, quiet and scared.

Cynthia hugged them with her free arm. Like me, she couldn’t let go of her son, not even for a second, because seconds were all we had left.

“Lucy, Emily, y’all need to say your goodnights to Jesse,” she said, and I felt a shred of flesh rip from my slow-beating heart.

How Cynthia managed to keep her voice strong was unclear to me.

She was an incredible woman with incomparable strength.

My daddy lifted Lucy and Emily onto the bed.

“Hey, gremlins,” Jesse said, and I caught another tear trickling down his face.

“Where are you going?” Lucy asked, brazen as always. But there was a tremor to her voice, like she could tell this wasn’t merely a trip away to a ranch to heal.

“Heaven,” Jesse said plainly.

“I don’t want you to go,” Emily said, and I had to turn my head away for just a moment. My mama’s face was what I saw as I did. Racking pain was etched in her expression.

“Remember what I told y’all before?” Jesse said.

“That you’ll be our guardian angel,” Emily said, repeating how Jesse explained what was happening to his little sisters a few weeks ago.

He nodded. “I’ll always watch over you both. I promise.”

Emily looked down at her hands, then threw herself over Jesse’s chest. Jesse hugged her and kissed her, only for Lucy to then do the same. “I’ll miss you,” Emily said, being so good for someone so young.

“I’ll miss you more,” Jesse said, and his voice broke.

“I’ll take them to Susan,” my daddy said when the girls had said their farewells.

As Jesse watched them leave, his resolved completely cracked. I wrapped him in my arms, and his mama did too. The two women who loved him most, comforting him with so much love as he passed.

I inched back, still holding his hand as his mama sat beside him.

She smoothed her hand over his head. “I love you so much, Sunshine,” she said.

“Thank you for being there with me through the thick and thin. Thank you for teaching me how to be a mom. It’s been the best thing I’ve ever done, and it was all down to you. ”

“I love you, Mom,” Jesse said, then embraced Cynthia so tightly it broke me.

Jesse rolled his head to me as his mom sat back on her chair. “Junebug,” he said and opened his arms.

I fell into his embrace and held him with all the strength as I had left. “I can’t do this without you,” I said, sobs tearing from my throat.

Jesse pulled back and put his finger under my chin. “You have a book to finish, baby. You need to complete our happily ever after.” I shook my head, but then Jesse said, “Remember what Pastor Noel said.”

I did. Jesse had told me all about his and Pastor Noel’s conversation in the chapel, about how people see something or someone when they pass. That people can come and get them—loved ones, to help them cross over.

“Don’t leave for heaven without me,” I said. “Stay by my side until I go too.”

Jesse nodded.

I meant his soul. I’d told him that if he went first, he had to wait for me until I followed.

“We go together,” Jesse said. It was our pact.

“Promise it’ll be you who comes and gets me,” I said. I squeezed his hand twice. “Just like this. So I know it’s you.” Jesse squeezed my hand back, twice, showing me exactly what he would do.

Jesse and I just stared at one another, soaking in these final moments. I studied his face, his dimples, his smooth skin. I committed every fleck in his green eyes to memory. And the longer we lay there, the weaker his grip on my hand became.

Hearing Jesse’s breathing grow heavy, I leaned closer and said, “You have made me happier than I’ve ever dreamed, baby. And I have loved every second of being your wife. Thank you .”

I lifted my hand and turned it into a fist. Jesse tried to laugh, but his chest barely moved. “Team two for the win,” I said weakly.

Jesse stared at my fist. His fingers curled around it, and he rasped, “We won…Junebug. We…didn’t beat…cancer, but we…won each other…in the…end.”

“We did,” I said, and Jesse’s eyes began to droop.

I looked to Cynthia with urgency, and she jumped up and kissed his cheek. “Sleep, my baby boy. I’ll see you again someday soon.”

Jesse managed to open his eyes and, looking at me, whispered, “Good…night, June…bug.”

I kissed each of his eyes and rasped out, “Sleep tight.”

Then Jesse fell into a deep sleep. He slept for just over an hour before his chest began to slow. I laid my head over his heart, holding tightly to his hand as his inhales and exhales grew into stillness.

Dr. Duncan checked him over, then said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Torrents of tears sailed from my cheeks, and I cried and cried until I had nothing left. Jesse lay unmoving beneath me, and I prayed that he would open his eyes and crack an inappropriate joke.

But when I ran my fingers over his brow, his cheeks, only stillness met me. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” I whispered over and over again until my throat was raw.

A hand on my back made me jump. I turned to see my daddy.

“They need to take him away, darlin’,” he said, sadness in his gaze.

Susan and Bailey were standing in the doorway to the room. I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No, you can’t. He needs to stay with me. He promised me he would stay.”

“Sweetie,” Cynthia said, and put her hand on my cheek. “He’s gone. We have to let him go.”

I held him tighter. Jesse couldn’t leave me. We didn’t go anywhere that wasn’t together. “He sleeps beside me,” I said, imploring them to understand. “He’s my husband. He’s…” I hiccupped. “He’s my husband and this is our bed. He sleeps beside me.”

I heard my mama begin to cry, but my daddy sat beside me and put his hand on my back. “It’s time to let him go,” he said.

It was pitch-black outside. And I felt so cold. Everyone was looking at me holding onto my husband with pain in their eyes.

“We were meant to live,” I whispered, and Daddy dropped his head onto my back. “We were meant to live, Daddy. We were meant to have our dream on our porch.”

I tucked my head into Jesse’s chest again. I stayed that way until I finally lifted my head and saw in Jesse’s face that he had truly gone. The light that lived in his eyes was no longer there. The twitch to his lips had stilled, and the love that I felt from his heart lived within me now.

I stared at his beautiful face one more time. I kissed his lips and said, “Keep your promise. Come for me soon.” Then I released him and watched as Bailey and Susan put him on a gurney and took him away.

I sat in the middle of our bed not knowing what to do. I looked down and realized that I still held his cap in my hand. I hugged it to my chest as though I were holding Jesse himself.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” my mama said, and I nodded numbly. As I looked around the room, our room, I didn’t want to be here anymore. My happiness had left with my husband. Then a picture on my wall—the picture of our dream, our porch—called out to me.

You have a book to finish, baby. You need to complete our happily ever after…

Jesse was right. I had to complete it. I had to complete our happily ever after, so that somewhere, in another life and universe, we didn’t have to have this moment. I reached for my pen and opened my notebook. And I began to write. I would finish this book, then I would say my farewells.

And I would wait for my husband to come and get me.