I was no match for this moment. All my doubts, fears, all obstacles evaporated. I would have given my life to remain the focus of those eyes.

“Jackie?” his voice was sure and strong. His thick black lashes glistened with unshed tears.

I couldn’t have scripted it more perfectly: Brett in a tailored tux, I in a white robe, demure yet revealing and fluttering in the wind, my hair draped just so around my shoulders.

“Y-Yes Brett?” I quavered.

“Will you marry me?”

I opened my perfectly glossed lips to answer, head tilted back just the right amount, breath still fresh from toothpaste, and in that second, in that pause, I heard the helicopter.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM

MORNING

9:14 A.M.

Emme, my best friend and now my hero, sits next to me, and together we wait.

The ventilator is off, the tubing removed. My face has been washed clean of adhesive and my bed linens freshly changed.

The therapist has cautioned that my respiratory reflexes will continue to function for, at most, ten or fifteen minutes before shutting down. For now, I am breathing my own unsteadying rhythm.

How my family has convinced Emme to oversee this ultimate act of mercy is beyond me. Could Daddy have slipped her a couple grand? No, my Emme could not have been bought. Perhaps it was the despair in Brett’s eyes, or the timbre of my mother’s cry, or the stoop in my father’s back. Whatever prompted her, I am grateful.

Emme bends her head down to mine. A strand of hair falls against my cheek, soft and feathery. She smells of goodness and coconut cream rinse. She extracts a small amber bottle from her pocket and puts several drops on my hand. The scent is musky, tropical, like under the cool, shaded canopy of a rainforest.

Let go.

“It’s okay now, Jackie, I’m right here with you.”

I release my body and tumble over the falls, cleansed by Emme’s words and anointed with oil. Life ebbs, the end credits roll, and Emme’s sweet voice will be the last thing I know. She rubs her potion up my arms into my shoulders and neck. Wisps of hair brush against my eyes. Butterfly kisses.

“Jackie?” she whispers.

“Jackie.” Her voice finds me behind the waterfall.

I swim out to meet her and we float on the surface, making ripples in the water. She swims around me, sure strokes, and picks up my other hand. Together we drift.

“I read a poem once about death by the poet Emily Dickenson: ‘Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves, and immortality.’ I remembered it this morning when I was coming here. I wanted to say it to you because I do believe that something is waiting for us when we die.”