“I do.”
“Do you believe in heaven?”
“I think so.”
“Do you think dogs are there?”
I smiled in the dark. Typical Charlotte. I’d figured we were entering into a philosophical discussion about the existence of heaven and hell, and she was worried about where dogs go. “I do. Is there a particular one that you’re worried about?”
“Richard Stamps.”
“Who?”
“My old dog. He died when I was seventeen. His name was Richard Stamps.”
“Was he named after someone?”
“Sort of . . .”
From her reluctance, I knew there was a story there. One that would be uniquely Charlotte. “Spit it out, Darling. Where did he get his name?”
“Would that be a capital D or a small d?”
“After the bathroom, we’re not going to mention anything involving small d.”
She giggled. God, I love that sound.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” she said.
“Absolutely not.”
She swatted at my chest. “When I was in kindergarten, we learned the Pledge of Allegiance. Since we were just starting to read and a lot of the words were big, the teacher taught it to us one line at a time. I was really proud that I’d memorized it. So one night, I unscrewed the flag my parents had in a flagpole on the porch and stood after dinner to show off how smart I was.”
“Go on . . .”
She sat up in bed. It was dark, but I could see her hand go to her chest. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for Richard Stamps, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
I cracked up. “You thought for which it stands was Richard Stamps?”
“My parents thought it was amusing, too. It sort of became our little inside joke. Whenever my dad would say to my mom, ‘What was that guy’s name we met at the party the other night?’ my mother would say, ‘Richard Stamps.’ So when my parents surprised me for my seventh birthday with a puppy, his name was obviously meant to be Richard Stamps.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you mocking me?”
I laughed. “Richard Stamps is in heaven, Charlotte. I’m pretty sure all the other dogs with names like Spot and Lady are jealous of his cool name, too.”
Charlotte lay back down. This time she rested her head over my heart. “I hope he’s with Mom.”
“He is, beautiful. He is.”
She was quiet for a long time after that. I’d started to think she’d fallen asleep. But she’d apparently been thinking about more than Richard Stamps. “Why would God let someone so young die?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that very question. And the answer is, I have no idea. I’m not sure anyone really has that answer. But I like to think that maybe heaven is a better place than here and death isn’t always a punishment, but sometimes it’s a reward to put people out of their pain.”
Charlotte tilted her head up to look at me. “Wow. That’s a beautiful way to think about it.”
I cupped her cheek with my hand. “Lydia is in a good place. It’s harder for the people who are left behind.”
“I can’t even imagine what my brothers are going through. I feel like there’s a hole in my heart, and I didn’t even get to make memories with her.”
Her sentiment lingered in the air.
I kissed the top of her head and squeezed her. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll make arrangements, and it’ll be a long day.”
She yawned. “Okay.”
Right as I started to doze, she whispered, “Reed? Are you asleep?”
“I was . . .”
“I just want to say one more thing.” She paused. “I think it’s better to spend years treasuring a memory that might hurt sometimes than to never make one at all.”People loved her. Men, women, young, old, it didn’t matter.
I watched from the back of the reception room as Charlotte spoke to an older couple. The only people she’d met before the wake began had been her two brothers. Yet today, as people came to offer their respects at the funeral parlor, everyone knew her and walked away with a smile after a couple of minutes of small talk.
I’d started the day standing by her side, wanting to be near her if she needed my support. But after a while, I wandered off to give her privacy with her newfound family. Charlotte’s adoptive mother had flown in last night to support her daughter. We’d had a late dinner and then dessert at a different restaurant that her mother had read about in a magazine on her flight, which was enough time to realize that Charlotte’s quirkiness came from nurture in the nature versus nurture battle.
Nancy Darling walked over to the row that I sat in. She slipped an untied silky scarf from around her neck and used it to wipe off the clean, empty seat next to me before sitting—something I’d noticed she’d done before she took any seat.