Page 118 of Love in Fine Print

My hands were shaking as I slid my finger under the flap and tore it open. It was one page of notebook paper written on both sides. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I had hoped it would be more than a single page.

To my angel,

If you’re reading this, then I’m not with you anymore, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to beat this thing.

“Beat this thing?” I said aloud as I sniffed. He had a heart attack. How was he supposed to beat that? I continued to read.

I’m also sorry I lied to you about my illness. I just didn’t want you to spend whatever time we had left worrying about me.

“What?” I asked the empty room. “What are you talking about?”

When I found out I was sick, not just sick, terminal, I left your mother. I didn’t want her years to be spent caring for me. It was a selfish decision, one that I now look back on with regret.

“You lefther?” More tears fell down my face.

I know that I have no right to ask anything of you, but I’m your dad, even if I’m not there in body, I am with you in spirit. So, I’m going to play my “Dad Card” now and ask you for three wishes. I think the three-wish thing is in my head because you just left to go back to your mother’s, and you watchedAladdineight times while you were here this weekend.

My hand flew to my mouth as I gasped at his mention of the filmAladdin. I remember us watching it over and over again the last weekend I spent with him before he went to the hospital. I kept asking to watch it again because he’d seemed so tired. I was with him on Sunday and Tuesday, my mom pulled me out of school because he’d been found unresponsive in his apartment. I’d spent the next three months going to see him every day after school. I’d gone on weekends. I’d even ditched school several days and gone and sat by his bedside. I will never forget the day I walked in and found my mother signing papers. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I knew that she was signing the papers to kill my father. To take him off life support.

“What are you doing?!” I cried out.

“It’s time, Olivia.”

That’s all she’d said to me.It’s time. It wasn’t time. I wasn’t ready for him to be gone. Tears poured down my face as I continued to read the letter.

My first wish is that you forgive me. I’m sorry that I lied to you about my health. I hope that someday you can understand why I did what I did. When the doctors first told me about my heart disease, they said that I had six months to a year. Well, that was seven years ago, so I’ve definitely beaten the odds. To be honest, if I’d known I would have this long; I wouldn’t have kept it from you or your mother. I didn’t want the time we had left to be spent with you being sad and her having to care for an invalid.

I sniffed as I wiped the tears from my face. I was angry that he lied to me and devastated that he’d had to face such dire health issues alone.

My second wish is that you try and see your mother for who she is. I know that she is not the most nurturing mom, but she does love you, in her own way. She doesn’t talk about her childhood much, but it wasn’t good. She grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father and a schizophrenic mother. She never had things. She never had stability. She was abused emotionally and physically. She tries to be a good mother to you, and she needs you Liv. She needs your love. So, please, if you can find it in your heart…love her.

My third wish is that you be happy, whatever that means for you. You are smart, hardworking, and independent. Your first word was “self.” You’ve always wanted to do everything by yourself, with no help from anyone. I know that if you wanted to, you could rule the world. Alone. But please, please don’t let your ambition and trying to prove to everyone just how independent you are steal the happiness you deserve. You have so much love to give, and I know that there is someone out therewho is worthy of that love, when you find them, please don’t run away from it. Run toward it, even if it's scary.

Because, believe me, love is the only thing that matters in the end.

Loving your mother and us creating you are the greatest gifts in my life. Nothing, and I do meannothing else,matters except the people you love. Money doesn’t matter. Homes don’t matter. Things don’t matter.

In the end, the only thing that matters is people. You and your mom were my people. You have always been the best thing that ever happened to me, angel. You and your mother made my life the happiest life I could have ever imagined. You both gave me seven bonus years. That is the power of love.

I love you forever,

Dad

As I reread the letter, all I was left with was confusion, anger, hurt, and more questions. I wanted answers, and I knew exactly who could give them to me.

52

BEN

My feet poundedon the pavement as Dolly ran beside me. I’d texted Olivia twice with no reply and stopped short of going out to find her. She needed time. Space. Two things I used to be the master of giving to people. But with Olivia, I was finding it hard to accommodate those requests.

I just wanted to see her. To speak to her. To know that she was okay. And if she wasn’t okay, I wanted to do everything in my power to make her okay.

She was my wife. For better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and health. Till death do we part.

It didn’t matter to me the reasons we’d taken those vows or if we’d actually meant them at the time. We’d said them. All that mattered to me was Ididmean them now. And my plan was to fight to make sure that I kept my end of the bargain, whether she wanted me to or not.

I’d spent the first three hours after she left pacing around the house. All that was doing was making me more and more anxious. That was not the energy I wanted to have when I saw her again.

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