Prologue
Remember me.
Ten letters. Four syllables. Two words. Goodness, one of them was an overused pronoun. As innocuous as they appeared, Cate knew better. Those two words had shaken Cate to the core on not one, but three occasions. Each occasion had brought tears and a new chapter of her life.
Staring at the framed poem in front of her, Cate scoffed at the two words. There was no way her daughter Jamie had known the importance of the ten tiny letters when she wrote them. Cate had shielded Jamie from the details of that fated night. Yet, they were the exact words Jamie had used as a form of comfort as she moved out for the first time.
Remember me as
The au fait woman you raised
I’m ready to fly
“A haiku, of course it had to be a haiku, and with French, my silly, wonderful, magnificent daughter.” Cate’s voice cracked as the tears started to flow. Jamie had handed her the gift just as she and her roommate, Heather, drove away to their first real apartment after scoring internships their first summer of college. It was only a half hour away, and she would be seeing them within the week, but those facts didn’t help her heart hurt less.
Cate read and reread the poem over and over again, long after she had already buried the words in her heart. Of all the things she had done in life, raising Jamie had been the one thing she was proudest of.
Jamie was a great student, attending the local university tuition-free thanks to her SAT scores. The internship she scored was not only in her chosen field, but also in a prominent company in her field. Cate didn’t pretend to understand the technology behind what Jamie was going to school for, but Jamie soared in it. All signs indicated it would lead to amazing employment opportunities.
She had been lucky that Jamie had chosen to live at home her first year of college to remain debt-free. Cate might not have been ready for her to leave just yet, but she’d had an entire year more with her than many mothers had with their children. She had learned a long time ago not to take a single moment with her loved ones for granted.
At twenty, Cate had been living the good life. She excelled in college, had a dashing and loving boyfriend, and was on track to get a coveted art residency for the summer. Life couldn’t have been more perfect. A stranger who’d had one drink too many changed everything.
One moment she and her boyfriend were driving home from their one-year anniversary dinner; the next thing she knew, headlights were much too close and the sound of crumpling metal filled her ears. Most of the crash was gone from her memory, something Cate counted as one of the biggest blessings of her life. She remembered hanging upside down, looking over and seeing James staring at her, his eyes glossy and wrong.
Before she could begin to process the scene around her, he spoke two words. Just two. “Remember me.” Those would be the last two words she ever heard him say. The next thing Cate remembered was waking up in a hospital bed in hazy fog with a nurse telling her over and over again that both she and the baby were going to be fine.
Cate and James had talked about getting married and having lots and lots of babies. She had even envisioned silly ways to tell him when she did, in fact, become pregnant. Her father left her mother at the word of her impending birth, something her late mother had never fully gotten over, and Cate planned to do it right. Heck, she had enough plans for more pregnancy announcements than she ever planned to have children. Nowhere in all her planning had she even fathomed being told she was pregnant the night of James’ death and having to tell him over his grave. What should’ve been one of the happiest days of her life had turned into a nightmare, thanks to one too many drinks consumed by a stranger.
Of course, the man who had hit them after leaving a local bar in anger—over what, Cate’s lawyer never said—walked away unscratched, while James never made it out of the wreck. The insurance company paid a settlement large enough for Cate to finish her schooling and still comfortably raise Jamie until she was able to get a decent job with her degree. The man did pay for his crime in prison, but none of that would bring James back. None of that would give Jamie her father.
The memories assaulted Cate, from that fateful night to Jamie’s first steps, to the first time she handed Jamie keys to the car. Some memories were practically debilitating, while others set her heart soaring. All of them had her in tears.
When the last tear fell, Cate made a decision, one she had thought about for years, but had lacked the courage to follow through on. One that always seemed too selfish, too self-absorbed, and too risky.
Remember me.
Jamie’s poem gave her the courage to own those words, to shape them, to make them work for her. Cate was going to remember herself. Not who she was in order to survive. No. She was going to be the Cate she had been before her world crumbled. She was going to go back to her love of art, and she was going to pursue her lost dreams.
Remember me. No, that wouldn’t quite do, Cate decided. Remember the me I wanted to be. That was what she was going to do from here on in.