Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“What’s so funny?” I ask as I return, lying down on the other side of Summer and pointing my eyes to the sky.
“Norah was just telling me about Casso…” She pauses and glances at Norah. “What’s her name again?”
“Cassiopeia,” Norah answers with a smile.
“Right. Her. She said she was a queen who was, like, a total diva, so Pose…” She pauses again, looking at Norah for another confirmation.
“Poseidon.”
“Yeah. That guy,” Summer continues, and I chuckle a little in my head. “He punished her by putting her in the heavens on her throne upside down and with her skirt around her head,” she finishes the story, nearly snorting more than once, she’s so tickled.
“You know a lot about astronomy, Norah?” I ask.
“Only what John Cusack told me.”
Now, that makes me laugh. “John Cusack? As in, the actor?”
Norah chortles. “Yep.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Then you obviously haven’t seen the movie Serendipity,” she replies. I can hear her smile.
“No, can’t say that I have.”
She hums. “Oh man, it’s a good one. You’re missing out.”
“I want to watch it,” Summer interjects, her voice growing a little sleepy. If we’re going to have a chance of her staying awake to see a shooting star, we’re going to have to keep her talking.
“I’ll find out where we can rent it or stream it,” Norah offers.
“Are you watching the sky, Sum?” I ask. “You’ve got to stare at it, okay? Or you might miss the stars. They go fast.”
“I’m looking, Daddy.” There’s a short pause, and then she continues. “Do you think that’s really what heaven is like? Up there, with the stars? Like, if someone goes to heaven, what do you think it’s like for them?”
A sheen of tears coats my eyes, and my throat threatens to close. I have to blink several times to keep the emotion at bay. I reach out to grab her hand, but end up grabbing Norah’s instead, and the three of us stay there, our hands in a stack of sorts. “I think heaven is whatever you want it to be, Summble,” I whisper. “Whatever your happiest place is, that’s what it’s like.”
“That’s like what Norah said too,” she says, and I can feel Norah’s eyes dart to my face.
I meet her gaze, and her lips turn down in a frown. She feels guilty, but she has no damn reason to. I shake my head at her, silently saying, It’s okay.
Because it is okay. It’s more than okay. Norah has been nothing but good to my daughter. Nothing but kind and caring and maternal to a little girl who has never had a mother figure in her life.
I can’t be anything but grateful for her.
“Maybe heaven will be just like here,” Summer whispers. “With you and Norah and the stars up in the sky. Except, I think maybe I won’t hurt like this. Right, Dad?”
I know my sweet girl tries hard to put on a brave face. I’ve witnessed her do this for years, and I’ve always tried to make her feel like she didn’t have to. But that’s not my Summer. Her soul is pure, and her heart never wants anyone else to feel bad.
And right now, this is her way of telling me she knows what’s coming. She knows she doesn’t have much time left here on earth.
My eyes sting and my throat burns and I mash my lips together, willing myself to put on a brave face like Summer always does.
“Right, baby.” My voice is ragged. “When you’re in heaven, you won’t hurt at all.” Me, on the other hand—I’m going to hurt like hell.
“Dad!” Summer shouts then, her sweet voice the only thing that could break the barrier of my thought’s misery. “A shooting star! I saw it! It went streaking by so fast! I can’t believe it’s so fast!”
“I saw it too,” Norah cheers from the other side.
“That was so cool! I want to see another one!”
“Keep looking at the sky, then,” I cajole. “They’ll come.”
The three of us lie there for who knows how long, staring at the sky, waiting for falling stars to shoot by. Summer gabs and Norah laughs, and I listen to the two of them like there’ll be a test on their every word. And I take a million mental pictures of my baby’s face as she giggles and smiles up at the sky.
It’s a long time before their conversation slows, and Summer’s labored breathing eases to a steady rhythm with sleep. Norah and I stay there for several minutes even after that, willing the silence and the sky and the heavens to bring us a miracle both of us know won’t come.
I swipe a hand down my face, removing the remnants of the few tears I’ve allowed to slip from my lids. I know my heart is breaking, but surprisingly, I know Norah’s is too. Just as I expected, she and Summer fell in love with each other hard and fast, and I’m not in the least bit confused about why.