Jake Understood(46)

After we left, the next stop was supposed to be lunch at Bernie’s, a retro diner and one of my favorite childhood haunts. On the way there, though, a feeling came over me that I couldn’t shake. It wasn’t part of the original plan, but I couldn’t leave Chicago without making a certain stop.

“How hungry are you?”

“I could take it or leave it,” she said. “Why?”

“Do you mind if we take a detour?”

“Not at all.”

“Maybe we can pick up something on the way then hit Bernie’s for dinner instead of lunch.”

I hailed an approaching cab, and we hopped inside.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

My chest hurt just thinking about it. “Naperville.”







The cab idled as Nina and I walked up the path of dead, snow-covered grass that led to my sister’s plot. Her name, Amanda Thompson, was carved into the granite gravestone. Guilt set in because I hadn’t been back here since moving to Boston for college. Life happened, then Ivy happened, and the things that were once so important to me here took an unintentional backseat. Dried-up flowers that were half-covered in snow blew in the wind. It made me incredibly sad, but having Nina with me made it a bit easier to face.

I kneeled down at the foot of the headstone. “When you first told me about feeling guilty for not visiting Jimmy during his last days, it reminded me of how I felt after I moved away and couldn’t come here anymore. I used to visit her here when I was a teenager a lot. It was out of the way from where we lived. I bought a crap car just to be able to come out here whenever I wanted to keep her company. I only knew her in death, so those visits were all we had, you know? They were what bonded us.”

“That was how you met your other sister, right? Here at the gravesite?”

I nodded, still looking down at the stone. On the anniversary of her brother’s death when Nina and I had stayed up all night talking, I’d told her all about Amanda. My sister died in a car accident when she was a teenager and was one of two daughters my mother had given up for adoption before I was born and before she’d met my father. I only found out about Amanda when I was sixteen, many years after she died, so I never had a chance to meet her. I met my other sister, Allison, when we ironically showed up at the cemetery at the exact same time one day.

“Even though we’d never met, somehow, I felt closer to Amanda than anyone else in my family. I’d talk to her during my cemetery visits, tell her about my teenage problems, ask her for advice. She almost felt like a spiritual guide to me. And I truly felt she was the one that brought Allison and me together that day.”

“That’s really powerful. You know she’d be proud of you, Jake.”

“It’s hard coming here after all the time away. I know it’s not the same kind of loss you had, since you actually grew up day to day with your brother.”

“But it’s just as significant. You don’t have the memories I have, which might make it even harder because there are no happy moments to cling to.”

“I’d bring flowers every time. I didn’t have a pot to piss in back then, but I always scrounged up enough money to buy some. I wanted her to be surrounded by nice things, wanted her to feel loved if she were to look down and see me here. I should’ve stopped somewhere and gotten some today on the way, actually.”

“Don’t feel bad. It’s really cold. They wouldn’t last.” Nina kneeled down and put her hand on my shoulder. “In a way, even though she’s not around, I bet she’s taught you a lot.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at how you are. You’re an old soul, so wise. You are who you are because of the losses you’ve sustained. You’ve channeled those into a positive attitude about life, while others like me, have let stress manifest into other things. Your sister…her death…have taught you to live in the moment and to not take things for granted.”

“Life is too short not to be happy. I’ve learned that only recently.” I turned to her and words that hadn’t meant to be spoken aloud escaped me, “I want to be happy again.”

After a long silence, she said, “You make me happy.”

I rubbed the tip of my finger along her cheek. It felt as if my sister’s spirit was giving me strength. Amanda would want me to be happy, to live life to the fullest because she couldn’t. That realization gave me the courage to say something I hoped I wouldn’t regret. “You make me happy, too, Nina. If nothing else, please always know that.”

She gave me only a slight smile, seeming to understand the cryptic undertone in the last part of my admission. “Thank you for bringing me here, for showing me this and other important parts of your life. One step at a time.”