“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Jack didn’t want you to know.”
My stomach turned over.
“Know what?”
“That he thought he was going to die.”
I kept looking at that photograph.
“Mrs. Harris — not because he didn’t trust you.”
“I know.”
“He said you and Mr. Harris needed to have hope. He said it was the only thing keeping you two upright.”
And that hurt in a specific way that I did not expect.
“He was the one who was sick, Theo.”
“I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
And Theo smiled, sadly.
“He said, ‘Yeah, but Mom’s dramatic.’”
And I laughed so hard I cried, standing in front of a photograph of two muddy eight-year-olds.
“That little jerk.”
“He loved you so much.”
“I know he did.”
Then He Told Me the Thing That Actually Helped, Which Is That It Wasn’t an Act
