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told him as I shifted to fully face him. “Well, maybe,” I relented, changing my mind. “I don’t know. I haven’t read them all...”
    He nodded slowly and stretched his neck from side to side. “It’s just that—I was thinking about my own son, that’s all. He would never admit it, he’s like his mother in that sense—but I can tell, apart from everything going on in his life, with his mother being sick and all—I can tell it’s really tearing him up. That’s hard for a father, you know.”
    I didn’t know. But I improvised. “If you want the truth—I haven’t read or thought about those letters in a very long time.”
    He appeared confused. “Why not?”
    I answered without thinking too much about it. “My mother wasn’t a fighter like your wife.”
    “Sure she was. She left you those letters, didn’t she? In my opinion, there’s a lot of defiance in that.”
    I picked at an invisible piece of lint on my pants. “I guess I never really looked at it that way.”
    “You know, son, none of us really knows what it’s like to be sick — until we are. I watch my wife suffer, and I want her to fight this—I really do. But in turn, it’s hard to say what I would do if it were me laying there in that bed day in and day out. It’s not easy watching her live out the remainder of her life—however long that may be in such a rotten way. So I can’t imagine that it’s any less hard being the one going through it all. She’s either sick—or hurting—or missing something. Sometimes, even I—as much as I want her here, wonder if that’s really living.”
    “I hear you.” I agreed with a nod. “It’s tough.”
    “Some fights take multiple rounds to win, you know. You don’t always get it right straight out of the gate. “
    I gathered that we were no longer just talking about my mother or his wife. “No, I guess you don’t,” I said, even though I didn’t really believe what he was saying.
    But the old man didn’t stop there. It seemed he had something to say and he was determined to say it. “Look, all I know is this—if you love someone — you tell them. Work out the details later. The details… they’re always variable anyhow. Take the weather, for example. We’re really shitty at predicting it. That’s what love is like…this is what I tell my kids—I tell them life and love are like a hurricane. You may think you have it all figured out. And then it washes ashore and you never know how terrible it’s going to be—or not—until you’re in the eye of the storm. But you can’t stop a hurricane. You can only ride it out and then try to make sense of it all, once things are calm again. And they will be beautiful again as soon as the storm has passed. They’ll likely be even better. Stronger. You’ll be more prepared the next go ‘round. And make no mistake there’ll be another. There always is.”
    “Or—you can flee.” I smirked. “I would argue that’s the smartest plan.”
    The man shrugged. “Yes, but the storm comes all the same. The question is where you wanna be and with whom you want to spend your time with when it hits.”
     

     
     

Six
    Amelie
    ‘The Puritan City’ turned out to be anything but.
    Some conversations you let happen. Others you force. Like with Jack and the old man, for instance. Jack was a mess. He wasn’t going to admit it, of course, because, well—that’s Jack.
    But I knew it from the moment I saw him. Hidden behind that tall, dark, and handsome facade was a man who was tapped out. He likes to think I can’t see right through him—but I can. Jack needs me right now every bit as much as I need him. If not more. And I’m not one of those women who need to be needed either. In fact, I abhor feeling needed. It makes me feel clammy and nauseous—and most importantly—it makes me want to run. But I’ll deal with that later. For now, I’m happy. In fact, I’m over the moon.
    “I’ve never cared for Boston,” Jack remarked as we