But as I lay there, I couldn’t sleep. I was back in Cape Carolina. With Amelia. With our soon-to-be children. I had sold the Palm Beach house I had shared with Greer. I had done it in baby steps. One day, I donated files of her work to libraries. The next, her friends came and sat on the floor of her huge closet, helping me choose what to donate and what was too precious to let go of. They each walked away with dozens of mementos of the friend they had loved until her last day.
Greer’s sister, much to my surprise, had flown down to help me pack boxes and instruct the movers. I didn’t know which pieces were family heirlooms. We donated a few things; some went back to various family members. But, yes, I still have a storage rental in Palm Beach filled with remnants of our life that I couldn’t say goodbye to. It was too hard, too permanent. I may never go back there, but it soothed me to know that I could.
Greer’s jewelry was the one thing I wasn’t sure what to do with. She was buried in her diamond wedding band, and her engagement ring was in the lockbox. I hoped that I would have a daughter to give it to one day or maybe a son who could pass it on to his wife. The emerald ring she had loved so much that belonged to her grandmother, I gave to her sister. It was right that she have it. Everything else I saved so that our future children could have a piece of their biological mother.
The most curious part of my unearthing process was an envelope inside the felt-lined drawer where Greer kept all her jewelry. On the front, it said, in Greer’s handwriting: Please give to Amelia Saxton. I was extremely confused. There was no note, no indication of why on earth my wife, who hadn’t dictated who a single other item should go to, would have wanted to give a piece of her jewelry to a woman she barely knew. I pulled out a bracelet. It was a thick but plain gold chain and from it hung a gold typewriter with ruby keys and pearl turning knobs. I took it with me, but I never gave it to Amelia. I wasn’t sure if she would want it or if it would be a setback.
The house sold, over asking price, in ninety minutes. I sat on the floor in the empty place for hours, looking out at the water. I thought about how Greer’s face lit up when we first toured it, how exhausted we had been after move-in day. I remembered carrying her over the threshold. And, yes, I remembered her dying in my arms. I felt numb but proud. Letting go of this house had felt impossible, but I had done it.
The one thing I hadn’t let go of was Greer’s journals.
I got out of bed and walked to the end of the hall, to the library, where the journals were all in a row on the bookcase. I had told Amelia about how I read them. It couldn’t have sat well with her, but she must have understood, because when we moved, she pointed to a shelf and said, “I thought Greer’s journals could go here.”
I pulled them out, flipping through them, reading a passage here and there and then, one by one, putting them in a box. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I couldn’t imagine what the “right” entry would be. Maybe a reminder of her true and eternal love for me?
That was what I expected. But, in true Greer fashion, she gave me a goodbye better than my wildest dreams.
Greer
JULY 13, 2016
HOW CAN SOMEONE SOUND MORE like you than you do? If it’s possible, Amelia has done it. She’s only two chapters into my book, but I barely have edits for her. She nailed it.
I feel guilty, of course. I feel badly that when this book comes out, everyone will give me the praise. Dead me, probably. Unaware me, at the very least. I don’t like thinking of that. Not at all. I said to Amelia today that maybe we should do this differently. Maybe the cover should at least say “Greer McCann Thaysden with Amelia Saxton.” Then she could have the glory that I won’t be here to have.
But she said, “This is your life advice, Greer. It’s your memories. The men and women who buy this book are buying it because they want to hear from you. Who technically wrote it isn’t important.”
Maybe it isn’t. And I know it’s selfish, but it soothes me that my legacy won’t be that I was too sick, too depleted, to even finish my own book. I’m sure there’s someone out there who would argue that my truth would help people. But this will help people, too. It comforts me that I will leave people believing that I was fighting with all I had until the very end. That’s a lesson the world needs, too.
I used to think of Amelia as a threat. But now I realize that wasn’t true at all. Amelia Saxton isn’t just Parker’s family; she is mine, too. We are bonded together, connected forever. I trust her in a way I have never trusted anyone. I trust her with my deepest secrets, with the most important parts of myself. I trust her with the future I won’t be here to live. I hope she knows how indebted I am to her. I hope she feels my gratitude. I will be gone. But thanks to her, I will live on. Because of Amelia, the best parts of me, the truest, are yet to be.
Parker
OFFICIAL
I ACTUALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD as I read it. Well, damn. Amelia had written Greer’s last book. I wondered how she had pulled it off. No doubt about it, Greer had had her secrets. But we all do.
As I read, contentment washed over me. It was like she knew. Yes, she was talking about Amelia writing her book. But Amelia was letting Greer live on. And she had been grateful for that. She couldn’t have known… but, somehow, it was like she did.
Greer had been my world. She had been life and all the light inside of it. But I had a new light now—three of them, in fact.
It was time.
As I closed the journal for what I knew would be the final time, I put my hand on the soft, smooth cover. “Goodbye, Greer,” I whispered. “I love you forever. Thank you for giving me permission to move forward.” I took a deep breath, swallowed the lump in my throat, and put the journal in the box for the very last time.
I was closing the box when Amelia walked into the library. I glanced down at my watch and was shocked to see that it was almost nine a.m.
“What are those?” she asked. Then she looked at the shelf. “They don’t bother me, Park. I swear they don’t. I understand needing to hold on to a memory. Hell, I’m living in mine.”
I smiled and pulled her to me. “I know. But, Amelia, I’m marrying the love of my life today. I just don’t need the journals anymore.” I kissed her gently.
Her eyes filled with tears, and I turned and placed the heavy box on the top shelf of the closet. She put her hands on her belly. “For the babies?”
I nodded.
“No,” she said, gesturing for me to take them down. She walked down the hall into the baby blue room overlooking the sound with the matching cribs in the window, the chaise in the corner, the antique chest with the changing table pad on the side, and a huge bookshelf that was already filled with books—some from our childhoods—for our babies to read.
Amelia pointed to the top empty bamboo shelf. She opened the box I was holding and pulled out a stack of journals. “They should go here,” she said. “I never want to hide Greer away. I never want you or the babies to feel like we can’t talk about her.”
When we were finished unpacking the box, I set it on the floor. I put my hand on a volume on the bookshelf, Greer’s second book, the hardback with her glossy picture—and her name in massive type—on the cover. I pulled it off the shelf and handed it to Amelia. “I don’t know how you did it,” I said.