Echoes Between Us - McGarry, Katie Page 0,134
it’s a battle to not weep.
“I love how you live,” Sawyer says, but there’s something in how he says it that makes me feel like he’s about to drop something heavy. Something not good.
I blink because Glory said I wasn’t living. She said I was dying slowly.
“Being around you is exactly what I needed,” he says. “To see how you live life your way even though the world tells you it’s wrong has given me courage. It’s helped me in seeing that I’m an enabler to the people in my life because all of my decisions are based upon making everyone else happy in that moment, and not doing what’s best for me or best for them.”
I feel like Sawyer and I are standing near the edge of a cliff, but instead of both of us walking away from the edge, it’s like we’re teetering and one of us may fall. The sick sloshing in my stomach warns that it might be me.
“You asked me once if I believe ghosts are real, if residual hauntings are real.”
“I did,” I whisper.
“I didn’t, but now I do.”
I hold my breath, waiting for the fall.
“I’ve been making the same damn decisions based upon the same damn moment for years. Dad’s request that I live with Mom, the burden of responsibility on my shoulders, and Mom’s tears at night. I was eleven and those ghosts have haunted me every second of every day. Who knows, maybe the sage did work and it exorcised my ghosts. I’m not enabling anymore. No ghost, no residual haunting is going to make my decisions anymore. I’m going to be thinking about my best interests and the best interests of those I care for—even if those decisions aren’t what makes them happy.”
I swallow. “That’s good.”
He nods, then turns to fully face me. “I love you, Veronica, and I love how you love life.”
The “but” hangs precariously in the air. The cold wind blowing through the trees and the empty hospital make me shake. I pull Dad’s jacket tighter around myself.
“How did you get Evelyn’s diary?” he asks.
“My mother found it and gave it to me.”
Sawyer nudges the loose stone of the window with his shoe. “Why do you think she gave it to you?”
“So I wouldn’t feel alone in my diagnosis.” Even though Evelyn and I don’t have the same thing, we both faced the same fate at a young age. “You read the diary. Evelyn was in a TB hospital and lived life to the fullest.”
“Yes,” Sawyer agrees. “But she also was fighting her disease. My question to you, Veronica, is why can’t you live life and fight the tumor at the same time?”
“Because it’s a fight I can’t win,” I snap.
“So Evelyn thought she could win hers? Over 110,000 people died every year in the US from TB in the 1900s. In 1918 there was an influenza pandemic that killed 675,000 Americans. You read her diary entries. Evelyn talked about the flu spreading through the hospital. How many people did she say good-bye to? How many were sent home?”
“They could have gotten better.”
“You’ve researched this hospital, same as I have. They tried to send people who were beyond hope to die at home. And think of the friend Evelyn would go and visit at a different part of the hospital, how terrible she said he looked. Evelyn was surrounded by death, a fight she had to know she probably wouldn’t win and still she fought. She doesn’t die at the end of the diary. She was living. Why won’t you do the same?”
I’m stunned silent.
“Why?” Sawyer pushes. “You say you admire her, you say you read her diary so you wouldn’t feel alone, you say your mom gave it to you for a purpose and I’m asking why you’re giving up.”
“I told you, I won’t die like my mom.”
“Fine, but maybe you should try living like her first before you decide on dying. I didn’t know your mom, but I know you and I’ve met your dad and I’m betting your mom lived a life that was like no other.”
I tremble. Not from the cold, but from how his truth strikes me deeply.
“Does your dad know you think the tumor is growing?” Sawyer asks quietly.
“Don’t you dare tell him. That’s my decision. Not yours. You told me your deepest secret and I would have never betrayed you like that.”
Sawyer sadly shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe not, but maybe it should have never been a secret to begin with.