It seemed so long ago. I brought the article nearer to my face. As I stared, I remembered the way I felt when I had seen her that night. Peering closely at her image, I searched for any sign that she suspected what would come to pass. I knew she did, but her expression that night betrayed none of it. Instead, I saw only a radiant happiness. In time I sighed and set aside the clipping.

The Bible still lay open where I’d left off, and although Jamie was sleeping, I felt the need to read some more. Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said:

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it to the earnestness of others.

The words made me choke up again, and just as I was about to cry, the meaning of it suddenly became clear.

God had finally answered me, and I suddenly knew what I had to do.

I couldn’t have made it to the church any faster, even if I’d had a car. I took every shortcut I could, racing through people’s backyards, jumping fences, and in one case cutting through someone’s garage and out the side door. Everything I’d learned about the town growing up came into play, and although I was never a particularly good athlete, on this day I was unstoppable, propelled by what I had to do.

I didn’t care how I looked when I arrived because I suspected Hegbert wouldn’t care, either. When I finally entered the church, I slowed to a walk, trying to catch my breath as I made my way to the back, toward his office.

Hegbert looked up when he saw me, and I knew why he was here. He didn’t invite me in, he simply looked away, back toward the window again. At home he’d been dealing with her illness by cleaning the house almost obsessively. Here, though, papers were scattered across the desk, and books were strewn about the room as if no one had straightened up for weeks. I knew that this was the place he thought about Jamie; this was the place where Hegbert came to cry.

“Reverend?” I said softly.

He didn’t answer, but I went in anyway.

“I’d like to be alone,” he croaked.

He looked old and beaten, as weary as the Israelites described in David’s Psalms. His face was drawn, and his hair had grown thinner since December. Even more than I, perhaps, he had to keep up his spirits around Jamie, and the stress of doing so was wearing him down.

I marched right up to his desk, and he glanced at me before turning back to the window.

“Please,” he said to me. His tone was defeated, as though he didn’t have the strength to confront even me.

“I’d like to talk to you,” I said firmly. “I wouldn’t ask unless it was very important.”

Hegbert sighed, and I sat in the chair I had sat in before, when I’d asked him if he would let me take Jamie out for New Year’s Eve.

He listened as I told him what was on my mind.

When I was finished, Hegbert turned to me. I don’t know what he was thinking, but thankfully, he didn’t say no. Instead he wiped his eyes with his fingers and turned toward the window.

Even he, I think, was too shocked to speak.

Again I ran, again I didn’t tire, my purpose giving me the strength I needed to go on. When I reached Jamie’s house, I rushed in the door without knocking, and the nurse who’d been in her bedroom came out to see what had caused the racket. Before she could speak, I did.

“Is she awake?” I asked, euphoric and terrified at the same time.

“Yes,” the nurse said cautiously. “When she woke up, she wondered where you were.”

I apologized for my disheveled appearance and thanked her, then asked if she wouldn’t mind leaving us alone. I walked into Jamie’s room, partially closing the door behind me. She was pale, so very pale, but her smile let me know she was still fighting.

“Hello, Landon,” she said, her voice faint, “thank you for coming back.”

I pulled up a chair and sat next to her, taking her hand in mine. Seeing her lying there made something tighten deep in my stomach, making me almost want to cry.

“I was here earlier, but you were asleep,” I said.

“I know . . . I’m sorry. I just can’t seem to help it anymore.”

“It’s okay, really.”

She lifted her hand slightly off the bed, and I kissed it, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek as well.

“Do you love me?” I asked her.

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to be happy?” As I asked her this, I felt my heart beginning to race.

“Of course I do.”

“Will you do something for me, then?”

She looked away, sadness crossing her features. “I don’t know if I can anymore,” she said.

“But if you could, would you?”

I cannot adequately describe the intensity of what I was feeling at that moment. Love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together, sharpened by the nervousness I was feeling. Jamie looked at me curiously, and my breaths became shallower. Suddenly I knew that I’d never felt as strongly for another person as I did at that moment. As I returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that I could make all this go away. Had it been possible, I would have traded my life for hers. I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me.

“Yes,” she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. “I would.”

Finally getting control of myself, I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. Even now she was perfect.

My throat began to tighten again, but as I said, I knew what I had to do. Since I had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what I wanted to do was give her something that she’d always wanted.

It was what my heart had been telling me to do all along.

Jamie, I understood then, had already given me the answer I’d been searching for, the one my heart had needed to find. She’d told me the answer as we’d sat outside Mr. Jenkins’s office, the night we’d asked him about doing the play.

I smiled softly, and she returned my affection with a slight squeeze of my hand, as if trusting me in what I was about to do. Encouraged, I leaned closer and took a deep breath. When I exhaled, these were the words that flowed with my breath.

“Will you marry me?”

Chapter 13