Almost Like Love(70)

“Can I tell you something my grandmother used to say? Or would that be annoying?”

He actually smiled a little. “No. Go ahead and tell me.”

“There are only two things in life you can’t change—yesterday and tomorrow. But there’s nothing you can’t do today.”

She looked him in the eyes. “You don’t have to have all the answers when you talk to Jacob. You don’t have to have any answers. All you have to do is love him—and be yourself.” She laid a hand against his breastbone, right over his heart. “Your real self.”

He looked down at her for a long moment. Then he nodded.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll try.”

He turned and walked across the grass towards Jacob. Kate watched him for a moment, her heart aching for him—for both of them. Then she headed back to the car.




Ian didn’t say anything as he came up behind his nephew, but Jacob must have heard his footsteps. He twisted his head around, and when he saw his uncle standing there, his eyes widened.

Neither of them said anything for a minute. Then:

“Hey,” Ian said.

“Hey.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Are you mad at me?” Jacob asked after a long moment.

“No.”

Jacob had been looking down, but now he met his uncle’s eyes again.

Ian sat down on the grass next to him. “I was pretty scared, though,” he said.

Jacob bit his lip. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, looking at Tina’s gravestone.

BELOVED MOTHER, BELOVED SISTER, BELOVED FRIEND.

It occurred to Ian that there were worse ways to be remembered.

It also occurred to him that during the past year, he’d avoided talking about Tina to Jacob. He’d told himself he was respecting the boy’s grief by giving him privacy, and that Jacob knew his uncle was available if he ever wanted to talk.

But his avoidance hadn’t been about Jacob’s pain. It had been about his own.

Jacob was doing his best to deal with his grief and loss. The fact that he was here proved that.

Ian was the one who hadn’t been dealing with it.

Now, for the first time, he thought about his sister without jerking away from the memories as though they might burn him. He thought of her quick, sideways grin and the sparkle of mischief in her eyes. He thought of how proud he’d always been of her, how much he’d worried when she was overseas, how beautiful she’d looked on her wedding day, and how she’d struggled to keep it together at Joe’s funeral.

He remembered meeting his nephew for the first time, a tiny wrinkled thing in his mother’s arms. He remembered Tina smiling at a photo of Joe and hearing her whisper, “We did good, sweetheart.”

He delved further back, to their childhood in Brooklyn and the Bronx. And then he remembered something he hadn’t thought about in years.

“Did you know your mother loved to draw when she was your age?”

Jacob looked at him in surprise. “She did?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah. She had this sketchbook she carried with her everywhere, and for a long time she wouldn’t let anyone see her drawings. I think she was in fifth grade when she showed them to me for the first time. They were good.”

“I didn’t know she liked to draw.”

“You’re a lot like your mom, you know.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.”

Jacob rested his chin on his knees. “I never thought I was anything like her. She was so strong and brave.”

“You’re strong and brave, too.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have finished your book. It takes strength and courage to create something—especially when it seems like no one in your life believes in you. But you didn’t give up. You believed in yourself. Your mother would be so proud of you, Jacob. Just like I am.”

Jacob hugged his knees tighter. “Thanks,” he said.

They were quiet after that. As they sat in the gentle stillness of the cemetery, Ian felt something inside him loosen—the hard bitterness of pain he’d never been able to acknowledge or release.

“Jacob,” he said after a while. “If I ask you a question, will you give me an honest answer? Even if you think it might hurt my feelings?”

His nephew nodded. “Okay.”

“Do you want to keep living with me? Or would you rather live with your grandparents?”

There was a short silence—but it was long enough for Ian to realize what he wanted the answer to be.

Jacob’s lip trembled. “I want . . . I want . . .” He stopped. “Can I really tell you what I want?”