like everyone else. You deserve them more! You’re wonderful. You couldn’t be evil if you wanted to. You don’t have to worry about not making it back to Heaven.”
“It’s not that. I do want it all. Of course I do. But don’t you see? I’d be allowing my memory to be taken from me. Any memory I might be able to hold onto—my memory of you, of us, of Kenneth. It would be like you asking Lucas to take your memories again. All of them. Would you want that?”
Jamison’s first reaction would have been to say “Hell no, I’d never do that.” But if he did, that would leave Skye thinking that her memory of him should be worth more than life itself, and that just wasn’t so.
He wanted her to live, to be happy. If he couldn’t be with her, then...then he couldn’t, but she deserved happiness. She deserved to fall in love with her high school sweetheart, just as he had.
Just as he had.
“You do understand, then? Why I don’t take the loophole?”
“No. You’re wrong, sweeting. And I’m going to prove it.”
She shook her head, not wanting to hear.
“Tell me the truth, now. Why you don’t want to have a life? Is it because you don’t want me to be alone in my misery? Do you think it would be more fair for me to be miserable if you are out there, doing your angel duties, pining away for me, too?”
“I don’t want to forget you.”
“And I don’t want to forget you, but I will. If that’s what it takes to keep you from worrying about me, I’ll do it. After the—” Oh, he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t think about tomorrow. It was miles and miles and miles away. He swallowed hard. “After I get back home, I’ll go to Lucas and ask him to take away my memory of you.” He hugged her to his chest to keep her from reading the lie on his face. He was beyond the ability to act anymore, not with the truth spilling out of his eyes and getting them both wet.
Finally, she spoke.
“You said you didn’t think you could survive my leaving. If you can’t remember, I won’t worry about you so much.”
“And if you take the loophole, your heart won’t be broken either, and I won’t have to worry about you.” He loosened his hold and stepped back. “So, no more talking about how horrible it will be, all right? We have until three o’clock to be together. You’ll take the loophole, promise?”
Eventually, she promised.
“And I will go to Lucas, and we’ll both live happily ever after. Maybe we’ll meet up with Granddad on the other side and have a good laugh.”
“That would be lovely.”
Jamison led her to the blanket and they sat. “That reminds me, though. Will you see Granddad when you get...home? Can you give him a message?”
“I’m sorry. I won’t see him. We won’t be in the same place.”
“Won’t you both be in Heaven?” Jamison took a deep breath and held it.
Skye laughed. “Of course we will. It’s just that Heaven isn’t like one great big room where everyone walks around shaking hands. Life moves kind of in a line. It has nothing to do with time, more to do with progress. Once you enter the flow of life, you are constantly moving, progressing, like a leaf in a stream.
“Sometimes you progress faster than other times. The water moves, you move, but always flowing in one direction.”
“Downhill?”
“Yes. But not in a bad way. Everything just flows. It would be against natural law for something to move against that flow. And since Kenneth is part of that flow, he’s moved on. And who knows where I’ll be dropped into the stream. It could be tomorrow. It could be fifty years ago. To The One who tends to the flow of life, time means nothing.”
Jamison couldn’t help but be excited.
“So, Skye. There is a chance I could go open a phone book and find you. Your life could be overlapping mine right now.”
“Yes. Of course. But Jamie, which name are you going to look for? And how long would you look before you gave up?” She ran her hand down one side of his face. “That’s why you must go to Lucas, when it’s over. I will not have you torture yourself like that.”
Jamison knew she was right. He wondered how many of those hoarder people, with three foot stacks of phone books in their houses, had started