The End, page 30
See? I told you people can actually be good sometimes, too.
Dad and I stayed up and talked for a long time. We turned off all the lights except the Christmas star that’s still hanging in the kitchen window.
Something happened. It’s like we saw each other as people for the first time, outside of or apart from the roles we’ve had my whole life. We were Jens and Lucinda, not father and daughter. I don’t know if you can grasp the difference, but it’s enormous. Light-years.
I asked him if he’d dated anyone since Mom died. He said he’d had some brief relationships, but they were never significant enough that he wanted to introduce them to Miranda and me. I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to date without me noticing anything. Apparently, they usually met during the day, while Miranda and I were in school.
We talked about Mom. I knew how they’d met—a New Year’s Eve party at some mutual acquaintances’ place during Y2K—but tonight he told me how she’d danced, what she’d been wearing, and that he’d immediately known he’d fall in love with her.
He told me what she was like. That she was effortlessly magnetic, but could make herself invisible when she didn’t feel like talking to anyone. She hated the winter and black licorice, just like me.
He told me what it was like to plan her funeral while being terrified that he wouldn’t be enough for his two kids.
I said he’s been more than enough.
And I read him what I wrote to you in my ninth post here on TellUs. That was the first time he’d heard what it was really like for me when I got sick.
I cried in front of him for the first time since the diagnosis.
And I told him about Simon. I said I was happy. That might sound strange, considering I have approximately thirty-six hours left to live. But it’s true.
I love him.
I love my dad more than ever, too, and Miranda.
And I love Tilda. Now that we know what happened, and I’m no longer busy trying to solve anything, my brain has finally started calming down, leaving some space for my feelings.
I’m off to see Simon soon. We’re going to meet where everything began.
Tonight, you can see Foxworth with the naked eye.
P.S.: Dad and I decided we’re going to join the service at the church. I’ll get to be with both my family and with Simon.
I think it will feel good to be with other people.
Funny that I, of all people, should say that.
SIMON
This time, we’ve brought blankets and pillows. Lucinda’s head is resting on my arm. We’re lying next to each other on the swimming dock, looking up at the sky.
If it were cloudy, we wouldn’t see it. But now it’s sparkling over the treetops on the other side of the lake.
Foxworth. Our death.
I pull Lucinda closer and shut my eyes. Listen to the gentle splash of the water under the dock, the faint whisper of the wind in the trees, Lucinda’s breaths.
“I wonder which star Tilda wrote about in her letter,” she says. “The one that was forty light-years away.”
I open my eyes. My gaze is automatically drawn to Foxworth. Am I imagining it, or is it shining more brightly than it did just a second ago?
“In forty years, they might see us lying here,” Lucinda says.
I raise my hand, waving to our audience in the other solar system. Lucinda laughs, and waves, too.
“Maybe they’ll see our first meeting,” I say.
Lucinda raises herself on her elbow and looks at me. Her eyes shine in the dark.
“If it hadn’t been for Boomer, you would have just pretended not to see me, right?”
“Yes,” I confess. “I didn’t know what to say to you.”
“I just wanted you to leave.” She leans her head against my chest. “I thought you were the kind of person who’d think you had to talk to me.”
My fingers brush against her cheek. She pulls the blanket up to her chin.
“So we wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been for Boomer,” she says.
“And if I hadn’t been out running that day, despite my hangover.”
“And if I hadn’t walked all the way here, despite not having the energy.”
A fish splashes in the water out on the lake. Other than that, everything is still. Can the birds sense it? They fly across the globe, follow the stars and the sun and the magnetic fields to find their way home. They have to notice the new star that shines more brightly than the others. They must know that something is wrong.
“What if we’d missed each other?” Lucinda says.
“We’re together now,” I say, and borrow Stina’s words. “That’s all that matters.”
She lifts her head and kisses me lightly on the mouth.
“I probably would have hidden at home if it hadn’t been for Tilda,” she says. “She forced me back into my life.”
I nod. Lucinda puts her head on my chest again.
A mosquito whizzes around my ear, drawn to the scent of our warm bodies, and I bat it away. It’s the first mosquito I’ve noticed tonight. It really is fall.
“I think it would have rained the day after tomorrow,” I say. “Perfect weather for staying in and watching a movie.”
I can feel her cheek move when she smiles.
“Is that your prognosis?”
“Yes.”
“What movie would we watch?”
I consider it. “Something decent. Not so terrible that we couldn’t stand it, but not good enough that we’d care too much. It would be just the kind of movie you watch when you have all the time in the world.”
“Plus, it wouldn’t matter if we missed parts of it while we were making out.”
“Exactly.”
“And then what?”
“Sex.”
“And then?”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Latin America.”
“Same.”
“Okay. Let’s take a year off and travel around Brazil, Chile, Peru . . .”
“Imagine the amazing food we’ll be eating.”
“Yes. And how much we’ll swim. We’re going to spend the days on the beach.”
“And get drunk at night. We’ll celebrate over and over that I’m healthy again.”
She caresses my chest.
“I want to see Dominica, too,” I say. “Is it okay if we take a detour on the way home?”
Lucinda nods. “Of course. But after that, we need to take charge of our lives. I barely started high school.”
“Are you going to keep swimming?”
“Yes, but I won’t be on a team. And I’m going to apply to a new high school. An art school, I think. I’m only going to swim when I feel like it. And then I’m going to try to write a book.”
I take her hand. Kiss the back of it. Continue to her fingertips. Down toward her wrist.
“What about you?” she asks. “What are you going to do when we get home?”
“First, I’m visiting Emma and my new godchild. And then I’m going back to school.”
“You’ll be done a year before me.”
“Yes. But I have no idea what I want to be.”
“You still have time to decide. Maybe you’ll think of it when we’re night-swimming on some Chilean beach.”
“True.”
“I like our future,” Lucinda says.
“So do I.”
Our mouths find each other in the dark. I curve a hand around her neck. Play with her short hair. She gets on top of me, pulling the blankets up around us both while Foxworth glimmers in the sky above us.
THE FINAL DAY
SIMON
It’s still dark outside when a high-pitched whine wakes me up. I look up. Boomer’s sitting next to my bed, licking his lips.
“Hi, boy,” I say.
His tail pounds weakly against the floor a few times, but he keeps whining, fixing me with his large brown eyes. And suddenly, I remember. I pick my phone up from the floor.
It’s six in the morning. I’ve only slept for a couple of hours.
We have less than twenty-four hours left.
Panic grips me, making the muscles in my back contract, my skin tighten.
“What is it? Do you want to go for a walk? Do you need to pee?”
Boomer hardly reacts to the magic words.
I put my legs on the floor, and pat him on the head. Try to seem calm. He licks his lips again.
“Come,” I say.
He lumbers after me out of the room. Emma and our moms are sitting in front of the television, Judette in her robe, Emma and Stina in the T-shirts they slept in.
A Catholic Mass is on the television. The cathedral is full of people, and everything is covered in gold and white and red. A choir of hundreds of children sings so beautifully it makes my chest ache.
“Sixty thousand people are there,” Judette says. “There’s at least sixty thousand more in St. Peter’s Square outside.”
The image transitions to the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The sky is pale and cloudless. A soft yellow at the horizon.
Foxworth is clearly visible now. Notably larger than it was yesterday. My entire spine tingles. My fingertips prickle.
“Has anyone been out with Boomer?” I ask.
“We just went for a walk,” Stina says.
“He’s worried.”
“It started last night,” Judette says. “He was scratching at our door at three in the morning.”
Boomer tilts his head to one side. His eyebrows draw together, as if he’s trying to understand what we’re talking about.
I sit down on the floor and pull him close. He sighs heavily and lies on his side with his head in my lap. The eye that stares up at me is so wide that the white is visible around the entire pupil.
The choir keeps singing. I try to breathe.
If only Foxworth had come at us from a slightly different angle. Or arrived a few minutes later, when the Earth had spun farther into space.
The floor sways beneath me. And my head is buzzing. It feels overheated, like my synapses are on fire.
“How are you?” Emma says.
I look up at her. I can’t hide anything. I’m busy struggling for air.
“I’m having a panic attack.”
Emma scoots down from the couch, sitting next to me.
“Don’t fight it,” she says. “That only makes it worse. It’s not dangerous.”
“I feel like I’m breaking.”
“You’re not. I promise.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. Keep breathing.”
She looks at me steadily. The simple fact that she doesn’t seem concerned calms me. I focus on her gaze. Force air into my lungs. Emma nods encouragingly, and I take another breath.
I suddenly realize, with total clarity, what a good mother she would have been.
She puts her arms around me. I’m vaguely aware of Judette and Stina joining us on the floor. That they’re holding us, too.
And I tell them that I love them. That I’m happy they’re my family. I say I’m sorry we’ve had so many fights toward the end, and Judette says it’s because we care about each other.
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0053
There’s a saying I’ve always hated: today is the first day of the rest of your life!
It’s supposed to mean that you can transform yourself, change your habits, make new and better life choices. Become an improved, happier version of yourself. Like you could erase everything that’s happened to you by just deciding it. I had to hear it a few times when I was sick. Usually, the people who say it have no clue.
But today I’m beating them at their own game.
Today is the final day. Period.
And this is my final post.
I’ve been with Dad and Miranda all day.
Apparently, Dad got Grandpa to understand how video calls work so we could see each other when we talked with him and Grandma. (Not that Grandma said much. She mostly sat there and slumbered on.)
I’m taking a final shower in a few hours. Then we’re eating our final dinner (three courses, another thing on Miranda’s bucket list, even though Dad and I helped) and going to church. But first, we’re watching the final sunset together in the garden. And we’re saying goodbye to the house.
I wonder what Gill is thinking, if she’s watching the live broadcasts from around the world. Naked hippies on the Canary Islands are preparing to welcome the comet. Tens of thousands of people have gathered on Gärdet in Stockholm. A group has occupied a pyramid in Cairo in order to divert the comet with the power of positive thinking.
Is Gill a little bit worried that she and the other comet deniers are wrong after all?
We have about nine hours left until it’s all over.
I’m lucky. I’m going to be in church with my family and my boyfriend. And Mom and Tilda are in the cemetery. When Foxworth hits us, their ashes will mix with ours.
Don’t tell anyone, but right now, it doesn’t feel like it’s all just going to end. I wouldn’t call it God, or anything like that, but maybe there’s a spiritual equivalent to all those radio waves being beamed into the universe. It seems unreasonable that eight billion lives could cease to exist in just a couple of seconds without leaving a trace behind. We’ll still be here somehow.
But you and I have to say goodbye now. I’ve enjoyed writing to you. And now that I think about it, maybe we’re not that different. Wherever you are and whatever you are, we were created in the same Big Bang, the one that kick-started this universe. We were connected in something that wasn’t anything, and then suddenly became everything. So maybe there’s a chance that you understand something of who I was.
And one day, we might be connected again.
Until then, thanks for everything.
— L
THE FINAL NIGHT
SIMON
People are squeezing into the benches, sitting in folding chairs and on the floor in the aisles, filling the balcony behind the pipe organ. Stina is at the front of the church. Standing up straight and confident, she leads us through the psalm:
Fair is creation, fairer God’s heaven,
Blest is the marching pilgrim throng.
Onward, through lovely regions of beauty,
Go we to Paradise with song.
It’s nearly time. We barely have a couple of hours left.
I hold Lucinda’s hand tightly. She’s on one side of me. Judette is on the other. I can see that Lucinda is miming the lyrics. She’s not the only one who doesn’t know the melody. Most of the people singing it are a bit older, but I grew up with this psalm; it carries memories of my childhood.
Ages are coming, ages are passing.
Outside the window, it’s almost as bright as day. It’s a world completely bleached of color. From the black sky, Foxworth glows like a white spotlight, like moonlight times a hundred.
The psalm is over. Stina looks out across the crowd. In the silence, barks can be heard outside the church. I try to make out if any of them is Boomer’s.
We’ll be right there, I think.
Stina agonized over what she was going to do with the pets, but when people came rushing in, it soon became clear that all the dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs wouldn’t fit. And it seemed unfair to people with allergies to even try.
Stina talks about eternal hope, eternal life.
Emma touches a hand to her stomach.
Lucinda’s dad tells Miranda to stop kicking at the benches in front of us.
Calm has settled over the church. I expected tears and hysteria. I wonder if more people feel the way I do. That there’s something bigger than myself here. I don’t know if it’s God. Maybe it’s just all the people here, the fact that we’re sharing this moment.
We’re one and the same. No one here is alone.
I wonder what Johannes is doing right now. We spoke for a long time today. They were going to have a party. Keep on dancing till the world ends. I hope they’re at Vinterviken. That’s where I want to picture him.
I wonder if Caroline and Tommy are with each other. If Ali and Moa are playing games in their dark cocoon. I wonder what’s going on in the True Church, if Erika and Molly are there. Probably. I wonder what my family, the ones I’ve never met, are doing in Dominica. It’s going to be 10:12 p.m. over there when Foxworth hits. I think about Micke. He sent his love to me when he and Emma spoke for the last time this afternoon. I think I understand him a little better now. He wasn’t just rejecting Emma; he was also choosing to be with his family.
I’m so glad I never had to choose between my family and Lucinda.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
Stina asks us to find Psalm 256. There aren’t enough books to go around. I angle mine so that Lucinda and her family can see. I know it by heart. It was my favorite psalm as a kid.
Don’t be afraid, there is a secret sign, a name that protects you wherever you may land.
Lucinda gasps. Her eyes fill with tears.
Your loneliness has beaches into the light. Don’t be afraid, there are footsteps in the sand.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“This psalm,” she says. “They sang it at Tilda’s funeral.”
He loves you, he waits for you tonight.
“I like it better now,” she whispers.
I squeeze her hand tightly. We cry together.
From eternity, he has chosen to meet you here.
The tears dissolve my final trace of resistance. I’m cracked open.
You’re on your way. One day the night will turn white. One day and stars grow out of his embrace. Don’t be afraid, there is a dark haven. You can’t see it now, but you’ll alight.
The song fades away. It’s time for the Holy Communion. Stina reads the first prayer. Then we pray Our Father together, and she breaks the bread. When she says that anyone who wants to may approach, Lucinda and her family stay seated.
