Chapter 9: What He Said to the Camera
Three weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, Lily asked to watch the video.
She didn't make an announcement about it.
She came downstairs after lunch, the USB drive in her hand, and said, "I think I'm ready now."
Tony set up the laptop on the coffee table.
Rachel had told us the file was labeled simply: *D — for whoever needs this.*
Lily sat between us on the couch.
She had her blanket pulled up to her waist and her Minnie ears on, which she had taken to wearing more often lately — not out of sadness, she had explained, but because they made her feel like she was still on the trip.
Tony plugged in the drive.
Found the file.
Looked at Lily.
"Ready?"
She nodded.
He pressed play.
The video was grainy, shot on an older phone, the lighting uneven.
Daniel was sitting on a bed in what looked like a hospital room, though the camera was close enough that you couldn't see much of it.
He was thinner than in the photographs.
But his eyes were the same.
He looked directly at the camera for a moment without speaking.
Then he said: "I don't know who's going to watch this.
Maybe nobody.
Maybe that's okay too."
Lily went very still.
"My name is Daniel.
I'm twenty-three years old, which sounds young, and I guess it is.
I'm not going to talk about being sick because that's not the point." He shifted slightly.
"The point is — I wanted someone to know some things.
In case it matters later."
He talked for eleven minutes.
He talked about growing up in Columbus, about his mother's cooking, about the way his father could fix anything with the wrong tool and somehow make it work.
He talked about Rachel, about the time they got lost on a hiking trail and spent four hours arguing about which direction was north.
He talked about the things he loved — old movies, thunderstorms, the particular smell of a library.
And then, near the end, he looked at the camera differently.
More directly.
Like he had saved something.
"If you're someone I loved," he said, "and you're watching this — I want you to know that whatever time I didn't get, I'm not angry about it.
I'm just sorry I didn't get more." He paused.
"And if you're someone I never got to meet — if that's even possible, if there's someone out there I didn't know about — then I want you to know that I would have shown up.
Every time.
For everything.
I would have been there."
Lily made a small sound.
Tony's arm went around her immediately.
She didn't cry.
She sat very straight, the blanket pulled up, and watched the last thirty seconds of the video in silence.
Daniel signing off.
Saying he hoped whoever was watching was okay.
Saying he hoped they knew they were loved.
The screen went dark.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Lily said, "He sounds like you, Dad."
Tony's breath caught.
"Does he?" His voice was rough.
"The way he talks.
The way he says things." She looked up at him.
"Like he really means it."
Tony pulled her closer.
She let him.
She rested her head against his chest the way she had since she was small, and he held on the way he always did — like she was the most important thing he had ever been trusted with.
"Can we watch it again?" she asked.
"As many times as you want," Tony said.
"Remember?"
"Yeah." She was quiet for a moment.
"I want to call Rachel.
To say thank you."
"We can do that today."
"And Dad's parents." She said it carefully, trying the words out.
"Daniel's mom and dad.
Can we maybe…
write them a letter first?
Before we meet them?
I think I want to write them a letter."
I looked at Tony over the top of her head.
He looked back at me.
"That's a perfect idea," I said.
Lily nodded, satisfied, and pulled her blanket up a little higher.
"Okay," she said.
"Can we watch it one more time first?"
Tony reached forward and pressed play.
And the three of us sat together on that couch, in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, and listened to a young man tell us who he was — all the things he loved, all the things he hoped for, all the ways he would have shown up if only he'd had the time.
Outside, the sun was doing something generous with the clouds.
The light came through the window in long, warm stripes across the floor.
Lily reached over without looking and found my hand.
May you like
I held it.
We listened.
