“Do you have any regrets?” I asked her. She was in her bed under the covers, a tube in her arm feeding her the medication she needed. Her face was pale, her body feather light. She could barely walk, and when she did, she now had to be supported by someone else.

“We all have regrets, Landon,” she said, “but I’ve led a wonderful life.”

“How can you say that?” I cried out, unable to hide my anguish. “With all that’s happening to you?”

She squeezed my hand, her grip weak, smiling tenderly at me.

“This,” she admitted as she looked around her room, “could be better.”

Despite my tears I laughed, then immediately felt guilty for doing so. I was supposed to be supporting her, not the other way around. Jamie went on.

“But other than that, I’ve been happy, Landon. I really have. I’ve had a special father who taught me about God. I can look back and know that I couldn’t have tried to help other people any more than I did.” She paused and met my eyes. “I’ve even fallen in love and had someone love me back.”

I kissed her hand when she said it, then held it against my cheek.

“It’s not fair,” I said.

She didn’t answer.

“Are you still afraid?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid, too,” I said.

“I know. And I’m sorry.”

“What can I do?” I asked desperately. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

“Will you read to me?”

I nodded, though I didn’t know whether I’d be able to make it through the next page without breaking down.

Please, Lord, tell me what to do!

“Mom?” I said later that night.

“Yes?”

We were sitting on the sofa in the den, the fire blazing before us. Earlier in the day Jamie had fallen asleep while I read to her, and knowing she needed her rest, I slipped out of her room. But before I did, I kissed her gently on the cheek. It was harmless, but Hegbert had walked in as I’d done so, and I had seen the conflicting emotions in his eyes. He looked at me, knowing that I loved his daughter but also knowing that I’d broken one of the rules of his house, even an unspoken one. Had she been well, I know he would never have allowed me back inside. As it was, I showed myself to the door.

I couldn’t blame him, not really. I found that spending time with Jamie sapped me of the energy to feel hurt by his demeanor. If Jamie had taught me anything over these last few months, she’d shown me that actions—not thoughts or intentions—were the way to judge others, and I knew that Hegbert would allow me in the following day. I was thinking about all this as I sat next to my mother on the sofa.

“Do you think we have a purpose in life?” I asked.

It was the first time I’d asked her such a question, but these were unusual times.

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking,” she said, frowning.

“I mean—how do you know what you’re supposed to do?”

“Are you asking me about spending time with Jamie?”

I nodded, though I was still confused. “Sort of. I know I’m doing the right thing, but . . . something’s missing. I spend time with her and we talk and read the Bible, but . . .”

I paused, and my mother finished my thought for me.

“You think you should be doing more?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know that there’s anything more you can do, sweetheart,” she said gently.

“Then why do I feel the way I do?”

She moved a little closer on the sofa, and we watched the flames together.

“I think it’s because you’re frightened and you feel helpless, and even though you’re trying, things continue to get harder and harder—for the both of you. And the more you try, the more hopeless things seem.”

“Is there any way to stop feeling this way?”

She put her arm around me and pulled me closer. “No,” she said softly, “there isn’t.”

The next day Jamie couldn’t get out of bed. Because she was too weak now to walk even with support, we read the Bible in her room.

She fell asleep within minutes.

Another week went by and Jamie grew steadily worse, her body weakening. Bedridden, she looked smaller, almost like a little girl again.

“Jamie,” I pleaded, “what can I do for you?”

Jamie, my sweet Jamie, was sleeping for hours at a time now, even as I talked to her. She didn’t move at the sound of my voice; her breaths were rapid and weak.

I sat beside the bed and watched her for a long time, thinking how much I loved her. I held her hand close to my heart, feeling the boniness of her fingers. Part of me wanted to cry right then, but instead I laid her hand back down and turned to face the window.

Why, I wondered, had my world suddenly unraveled as it had? Why had all this happened to someone like her? I wondered if there was a greater lesson in what was happening. Was it all, as Jamie would say, simply part of the Lord’s plan? Did the Lord want me to fall in love with her? Or was that something of my own volition? The longer Jamie slept, the more I felt her presence beside me, yet the answers to these questions were no clearer than they had been before.

Outside, the last of the morning rain had passed. It had been a gloomy day, but now the late afternoon sunlight was breaking through the clouds. In the cool spring air I saw the first signs of nature coming back to life. The trees outside were budding, the leaves waiting for just the right moment to uncoil and open themselves to yet another summer season.

On the nightstand by her bed I saw the collection of items that Jamie held close to her heart. There were photographs of her father, holding Jamie as a young child and standing outside of school on her first day of kindergarten; there was a collection of cards that children of the orphanage had sent. Sighing, I reached for them and opened the card on top of the stack.

Written in crayon, it said simply:

Please get better soon. I miss you.

It was signed by Lydia, the girl who’d fallen asleep in Jamie’s lap on Christmas Eve. The second card expressed the same sentiments, but what really caught my eye was the picture that the child, Roger, had drawn. He’d drawn a bird, soaring above a rainbow.

Choking up, I closed the card. I couldn’t bear to look any further, and as I put the stack back where it had been before, I noticed a newspaper clipping, next to her water glass. I reached for the article and saw that it was about the play, published in the Sunday paper the day after we’d finished. In the photograph above the text, I saw the only picture that had ever been taken of the two of us.