The Last Song

She felt the lump in her throat. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I’m not sure there’s anything you can do.”

“But I’m scared,” she said. “And my dad…”

“I know,” he said. “And though both of you have made him very happy, I know your dad is scared, too.”

That night, Ro

Pastor Harris was still with her dad. Pastor Harris told her he pla

Behind her, she heard the back door squeak open; Will closed it gently behind him. As he approached her, she continued to gaze out over the sandy beach.

“Jonah’s finally asleep,” he said. “But I don’t think he really understands what’s happening. He told me he’s pretty sure the doctor will make his dad all better, and he kept asking when his dad could come home.”

She remembered his cries from the hospital room, and all she could do was nod. Will slipped his arms around her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“How do you think I’m doing? I just found out my father is dying and that he probably won’t live to see Christmas.”

“I know,” he said gently. “And I’m sorry. I know how hard this is for you.” She could feel his hands on her waist. “I’ll stay tonight so if anything happens and you have to go, someone can be with Jonah. I can stay around here as long as you need me to. I know I’m supposed to be leaving in a couple of days, but I can call the dean’s office and explain what’s happening. Classes don’t start until next week.”

“You can’t fix this,” she said. Though she could hear the sharpness in her tone, she couldn’t help it. “Don’t you get that?”

“I’m not trying to fix it-”

“Yes, you are! But you can’t!” Her heart suddenly felt as if it were going to explode. “And you can’t understand what I’m going through, either!”

“I’ve lost someone, too,” he reminded her.

“It’s not the same!” She squeezed the bridge of her nose, trying to stifle her tears. “I was so mean to him. I quit the piano! I blamed him for everything, and I didn’t say more than a few words to him for three years! Three years! And I can’t get those years back. But maybe if I hadn’t been so angry, he might not have gotten sick. Maybe I caused that extra… stress that did all this. Maybe it was me!” She pulled away from Will.

“It’s not your fault.”

Will tried to take her back into his arms, but it was the last thing she wanted, and she tried to push him away. When he didn’t let go, she pounded his chest.

“Let me go! I can handle this alone!”

But still he held her, and when she realized he wasn’t going to let go, she finally collapsed into him. And for a long time, she let him hold her as she cried.

Ro

Beside her, on the bedstand, was her father’s Bible. Earlier, she’d glanced through it, unsure what she would find. Had he underlined passages or folded down pages? As she flipped through the book, she’d found few traces of her father, other than a well-worn feel to the pages that suggested a deep familiarity with nearly every chapter. She wished that he’d done something to make it his own, something that left behind clues about himself, but there was nothing even to suggest that he’d found one passage more interesting than another.

She’d never read the Bible, but somehow she knew that she would read this one, searching for whatever meaning her father had found within the pages. She wondered if the Bible had been given to him by Pastor Harris or whether he’d bought it on his own, and how long it had been in his possession. There was so much she didn’t know about him, and she wondered now why she’d never bothered to ask him.

But she would, she decided. If she soon would have only memories, then she wanted as many as she could collect, and as she found herself praying for the first time in years, she begged God for enough time to make it possible.

32 Will

Will didn’t sleep well. Throughout the night, he’d heard Ro

He felt sadness for Ro

As he lay on the couch, he reflected that he wanted to be the same kind of father someday. Though he loved his dad, he hadn’t always been the easygoing man Ro

But Steve was an altogether different kind of parent.

Ro

What kind of person would do that?

Only Steve, a man he’d grown to admire, a man he’d learned from, and the kind of man he himself hoped to be as he grew older.

He was awakened by the morning sunlight streaming through the living room windows, and he stretched before rising to his feet. Peeking down the hall, he saw that the door to Ro