Hannah's List Read Free Page A

do hope you’re still meeting Ritchie at the gym three times a week.
    I smiled. Yes, Hannah knew everything about me. Right down to the long hours and skipped meals. I’d tried to quit my exercise regime, too, just like I’d dropped Thursday-night poker with the guys. But Ritchie wouldn’t let me. It became easier to show up than to find an excuse.
    Two weeks after Hannah’s funeral he arrived on my doorstep in his workout clothes and dragged me back to the gym. A couple of early-morning calls from my brother-in-law, and I decided I couldn’t fend him off anymore, so our workout became part of my routine once again.
This next section of my letter is the most painful for me to write. Although it hurts, I have to accept that there’s no hope now. I suppose it’s only natural when facing one’s mortality that regrets surface, along with the knowledge that the end is close. The greatest of those regrets is my inability to have children. This is harder for me than even the discovery that my cancer is terminal. I so badly wanted your baby, Michael. A child for my sake, yes, but yours, too. You should be a father. You will be a wonderful father. Oh, Michael, I so wanted a child.
    Once more I was forced to stop reading as a lump formed in my throat. “I wanted a child, too,” I whispered. I rested the letter on my knee and wondered if I could finish without giving in to the weakness of tears. And yet I had to read on. I had to know Hannah’s last words to me.
I have one final request of you, my darling, and I hope you will honor it.
    “Anything.” I would do anything for Hannah.
What I want, what I need from you, is this, my dearest love. I want you to marry again.
    I gasped. No way! I’d already thought about this, and I couldn’t do it. I’d had the love of my life and I’d be foolish to believe it could happen twice. If I did remarry, I’d be cheating the new woman I pledged to love. I’d be cheating us both because my heart would always belong to Hannah and only to Hannah.
I can see you shaking your head, insisting it isn’t possible. Michael, I know you. I can almost hear your protests. But this is important, so please, please listen. Loving another woman won’t diminish the love we had. Nor does it mean you’ll love me any less. I will always be a part of you and you will remain a part of me.
    The thing you must remember is that my life’s journey is over.
    Yours isn’t.
    You have a lot of living left to do and I don’t want you to waste another moment grieving for me. You made me completely happy, and you’ll make another woman equally so.
    I wasn’t sure I agreed with Hannah, wasn’t sure I was capable of loving another woman, not with the same intensity, the same depth. She didn’t understand what she was asking of me. I had no desire for another woman, no desire to share my life with anyone else ever again.
Knowing how stubborn you are, I realize you’re going to require a bit of help, so I’ve compiled a short list of candidates for you to consider.
    What? A list? Hannah had supplied me with a list of possible replacements? If it wasn’t so shocking I would’ve laughed. Still, curiosity got the better of me.
Remember Winter Adams, my cousin? She was a bridesmaid in our wedding. Winter has a big heart and she loves children. She’d make you an excellent wife. She’salso a chef and will cook you incredible meals. In addition to being my cousin, she’s been a good friend. I want you to seriously consider her.
    Of course I remembered Winter. She and Hannah had been close. We hadn’t seen as much of Winter after she opened her restaurant, the French Café on Blossom Street, not far from my office. Hannah and I had visited the café a few times and enjoyed coffee and croissants. I recalled her keeping in touch with Hannah, mostly by phone. If I remembered correctly, Winter had been going through some relationship crisis shortly before Hannah was diagnosed, and, Hannah, being Hannah, had