DEAR LISA | JENLISA

THIRTY

LISA

Month eleven

January
***

THE LETTER HAD sat there for a few days now, throbbing like a wound in her mind. She dreaded reading it. She was dying to read it. But after this, there would only be one more, and once these stopped, she didn't know how she would face the future. Couldn't she have done this for two years? Five? Ten?

Finally, with a sigh, she sat down, patted the couch so Kuma would leap up next to her, then opened the letter.

Hello, honey.

If you're still reading these, I guess you still want to hear from me. I'm glad, Lisa. I know one thing. Even if I'm dead, I would never really leave you. I don't know what or how that looks right now, but I remember feeling my dad around me. I hope you can feel me there with you sometimes, just enough to reassure you.

So it's been a good long while since I died. I hope your new normal isn't too isolated or sad. I hate the idea that I've made your life sad. We had shitty luck with the IPF, but God, we had the best luck with each other.

I've been thinking a lot here on Cape Cod, listening to the ocean, trying to imagine what your life will be like eleven months after I die. I hope you at least gave some thought to meeting your biological father. If you do decide to meet him, I hope and pray it goes well. I hope whatever you decided, you know that the last thing you could ever be is disposable.

She had to stop for a minute and take a few breaths. She'd been right about that meeting. It had given her something. A face. A story to fill the void. A sense of peace. And it reinforced the knowledge that Ben Han was the greatest man Lisa had ever known. She felt even closer to him after meeting her biological father.

I think about when I first came to your apartment, and it was such a mess. Hopefully, I broke you of that habit and our place is neat and clean.

"It is, honey," she said.

I remember how you went for days without going outside, how you never went to the rooftop unless I ordered you to. I remember how when we were dating, I'd be the only person you saw sometimes for days at a time.

I don't want that to be your life now, Lisa. And so . . .

I think you should buy a house. That's my job for you this month, honey. Start looking for houses. One with a yard for Kuma, grass for you to cut, a garden where you can grow tomatoes, because you love tomatoes fresh from the vine, warm from the sun. I want you to have neighbors to wave to, and I want you to shovel some old lady's walk when it snows. I want little kids to ring your doorbell on Halloween. I want you to walk out to the mailbox and chat with the nice folks across the street. Our apartment was great, but it's pretty isolated, and even I couldn't win over that couple from the second floor. Plus, Creepy Charlotte scares me (if she's your second wife, I'm going to kill you, FYI).

She laughed out loud. Creepy Charlotte had opened her door the other night the second Lisa had come home from a run. She was wearing a towel only. "Did you knock?" she'd asked.

"Absolutely not," she said, running up the stairs before the towel could "slip." She'd definitely gotten better at reading people this past year.

What do you think, babe? You don't need to buy a house right now (but you can afford it, don't forget). Maybe just start looking. Take Roseanne. She loves open houses.