“Sweetheart, please …” I can’t stand to watch him suffer anymore, can’t bear to feel the constant quivering with pain.
I see the pain in his eyes and maybe he sees it in mine, because he finally nods and accepts the lollipop. It clicks around in his mouth, against his teeth.
Outside, the temperature’s fallen. Fat flakes blur the night, swirling, surrounding, cloaking the pavement, entombing the city. I stare at the shrouded trees across the street in Central Park. Weighted in white, distorted, they look both beautiful and frightening. I squint to see the winding path through the park. It’s covered, nearly obliterated by numbing snow.
My eyes move from the window back to Jess. “I love you,” I tell him, smoothing my fingers on his skin.
He nods.
I run my hand down Jess’s trembling back, trying to make him feel better while the morphine kicks in. The music’s over. The only sounds in the room are faint clangs and hisses from the heating system—that and Jess’s labored breathing.
The snow is unrelenting.
The city is obscured.
Jess’s head lies nuzzled in the crook of my neck. Our bodies are entangled, his heart hammering against me. I glide my pinky along his cheek, absorb his warmth.
I’ll love you from the heavens
for eternity,
Evermore.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Greg Goldston & ASD Publishing for giving this book digital life.
Thanks to Evelyn M. Fazio for originally publishing it.
Thanks to my teacher Bunny Gabel for helping me sort this novel out, and to my classmates for their thoughts and crucial support.
Thanks to The New School Graduate Writing Program.
Thanks to the Long Island Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for their early encouragement and continuous camaraderie, and to all my writing friends I’ve collected over the years (there are a lot of them!) for being the superb human beings they are. Special gratitude to Lynne Marie Pisano.
Thanks to Pascale Laforest for helping me with some specifics, and Susan Abrahams for providing a crucial plot point. Thanks to Cheryl Lazarus for leading me to Forrest Church’s beautiful book, Love & Death.
Thanks to Caryn Wiseman for her valuable help, especially in sorting out Gwen.
Thanks to Carolyn P.Yoder for believing in my ability to write a novel – and then convincing me to believe in myself.
Thanks to my mom—Norina—and my Aunt Olga for encouraging and fostering my love of writing, and particularly for their patience in Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips the day inspiration struck and I jotted copious story notes on a stack of yellow napkins when I was about nine. This was my first inkling that my writing was important and worth waiting for.
Thanks to Tony Castrovilla and Barbara Castrovilla for providing me the time and space I needed to write.
Thanks to my precious sons, Michael and Casey, for putting up with my idiosyncrasies (there’s a fine line between lunatic and novelist) and loving me unconditionally.
The Girl Next Door Page 17