A Walk to Remember

“Open it,” she said, looking right at me.

“You can’t give this to me,” I said breathlessly. I already knew what was inside, and I couldn’t believe what she had done. My hands began to tremble.

“Please,” she said to me with the kindest voice I’d ever heard, “open it. I want you to have it.”

Reluctantly I slowly unwrapped the package. When it was finally free of the paper, I held it gently, afraid to damage it. I stared at it, mesmerized, and slowly ran my hand over the top, brushing my fingers over the well-worn leather as tears filled my eyes. Jamie reached out and rested her hand on mine. It was warm and soft.

I glanced at her, not knowing what to say.

Jamie had given me her Bible.

“Thank you for doing what you did,” she whispered to me. “It was the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

I turned away without responding and reached off to the side where I’d set my glass of punch. The chorus of “Silent Night” was still playing, and the music filled the room. I took a sip of the punch, trying to soothe the sudden dryness in my throat. As I drank, all the times I’d spent with Jamie came flooding into my mind. I thought about the homecoming dance and what she’d done for me that night. I thought about the play and how angelic she’d looked. I thought about the times I’d walked her home and how I’d helped collect jars and cans filled with pennies for the orphans.

As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, then up to the ceiling and around the room, doing my best to keep my composure, then back to Jamie again. She smiled at me and I smiled at her and all I could do was wonder how I’d ever fallen in love with a girl like Jamie Sullivan.

Chapter 10

I drove Jamie home from the orphanage later that night. At first I wasn’t sure whether I should pull the old yawn move and put my arm around her shoulder, but to be honest, I didn’t know exactly how she was feeling about me. Granted, she’d given me the most wonderful gift I’d ever received, and even though I’d probably never open it and read it like she did, I knew it was like giving a piece of herself away. But Jamie was the type of person who would donate a kidney to a stranger she met walking down the street, if he really needed one. So I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it.

Jamie had told me once that she wasn’t a dimwit, and I guess I finally came to the conclusion that she wasn’t. She may have been . . . well, different . . . but she’d figured out what I’d done for the orphans, and looking back, I think she knew even as we were sitting on the floor of her living room. When she’d called it a miracle, I guess she was talking specifically about me.

Hegbert, I remembered, came into the room as Jamie and I were talking about it, but he really didn’t have much to say. Old Hegbert hadn’t been himself lately, at least as far as I could tell. Oh, his sermons were still on the money, and he still talked about the fornicators, but lately his sermons were shorter than usual, and occasionally he’d pause right in the middle of one and this strange look would come over him, kind of like he was thinking of something else, something sad.

I didn’t know what to make of it, being that I really didn’t know him that well. And Jamie, when she talked about him, seemed to describe someone else entirely. I could no more imagine Hegbert with a sense of humor than I could imagine two moons in the sky.

So anyway, he came into the room while we counted the money, and Jamie stood up with those tears in her eyes, and Hegbert didn’t even seem to realize I was there. He told her that he was proud of her and that he loved her, but then he shuffled back to the kitchen to continue working on his sermon. He didn’t even say hello. Now, I knew I hadn’t exactly been the most spiritual kid in the congregation, but I still found his behavior sort of odd.

As I was thinking about Hegbert, I glanced at Jamie sitting beside me. She was looking out the window with a peaceful look on her face, kind of smiling, but far away at the same time. I smiled. Maybe she was thinking about me. My hand started scooting across the seat closer to hers, but before I reached it, Jamie broke the silence.

“Landon,” she finally asked as she turned toward me, “do you ever think about God?”

I pulled my hand back.

Now, when I thought about God, I usually pictured him like those old paintings I’d seen in churches—a giant hovering over the landscape, wearing a white robe, with long flowing hair, pointing his finger or something like that—but I knew she wasn’t talking about that. She was talking about the Lord’s plan. It took a moment for me to answer.

“Sure,” I said. “Sometimes, I reckon.”

“Do you ever wonder why things have to turn out the way they do?”

I nodded uncertainly.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

Even more than usual? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. I could tell she had more to say, and I stayed quiet.

“I know the Lord has a plan for us all, but sometimes, I just don’t understand what the message can be. Does that ever happen to you?”

She said this as though it were something I thought about all the time.

“Well,” I said, trying to bluff, “I don’t think that we’re meant to understand it all the time. I think that sometimes we just have to have faith.”

It was a pretty good answer, I admit. I guess that my feelings for Jamie were making my brain work a little faster than usual. I could tell she was thinking about my answer.

“Yes,” she finally said, “you’re right.”

I smiled to myself and changed the subject, since talking about God wasn’t the sort of thing that made a person feel romantic.

“You know,” I said casually, “it sure was nice tonight when we were sitting by the tree earlier.”

“Yes, it was,” she said. Her mind was still elsewhere.

“And you sure looked nice, too.”

“Thank you.”

This wasn’t working too well.

“Can I ask you a question?” I finally said, in the hopes of bringing her back to me.

“Sure,” she said.

I took a deep breath.

“After church tomorrow, and, well . . . after you’ve spent some time with your father . . . I mean . . .” I paused and looked at her. “Would you mind coming over to my house for Christmas dinner?”