Keep Me in Your Heart
Read Keep Me in Your Heart Online
Authors: Lurlene McDaniel
Y
OU’LL WANT TO READ THESE INSPIRING TITLES BY
L
URLENE
M
C
D
ANIEL
A
NGELS IN PINK
Kathleen’s Story
Raina’s Story
Holly’s Story
O
NE
L
AST
W
ISH
N
OVELS
Mourning Song
A Time to Die
Mother, Help Me Live
Someone Dies, Someone Lives
Sixteen and Dying
Let Him Live
The Legacy: Making Wishes
Come True
Please Don’t Die
She Died Too Young
All the Days of Her Life
A Season for Goodbye
Reach for Tomorrow
O
THER
O
MNIBUS
E
DITIONS
True Love: Three Novels
The End of Forever
Always and Forever
The Angels Trilogy
As Long As We Both Shall Live
Journey of Hope
One Last Wish: Three Novels
M
ORE
N
OVELS
Heart to Heart
Breathless
Hit and Run
Prey
Briana’s Gift
Letting Go of Lisa
The Time Capsule
Garden of Angels
A Rose for Melinda
Telling Christina Goodbye
How Do I Love Thee: Three Stories
To Live Again
Angel of Mercy
Angel of Hope
Starry, Starry Night: Three
Holiday Stories
The Girl Death Left Behind
Angels Watching Over Me
Lifted Up by Angels
For Better, for Worse, Forever
Until Angels Close My Eyes
Till Death Do Us Part
I’ll Be Seeing You
Saving Jessica
Don’t Die, My Love
Too Young to Die
Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever
Somewhere Between Life and Death
Time to Let Go
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
When Happily Ever After Ends
Baby Alicia Is Dying
From every ending comes a new beginning.…
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Saving Jessica
text copyright © 1996 by Lurlene McDaniel
Telling Christina Goodbye
text copyright © 2002 by Lurlene McDaniel
Letting Go of Lisa
text copyright © 2006 by Lurlene McDaniel
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. This omnibus edition is comprised of
Saving Jessica, Telling Christina Goodbye
, and
Letting Go of Lisa. Saving Jessica
and
Telling Christina Goodbye
were originally published separately in paperback in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1995 and 2002, respectively.
Letting Go of Lisa
was originally published in hardcover in the United States by Delacorte Press in 2006.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy Bible, New
International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible
Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Visit us on the Web!
www.randomhouse.com/teens
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visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
eISBN: 978-0-307-80929-2
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
To all my loyal readers
.
Thank you
.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.… Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16 and 18)
1
“D
on’t your doctors know
anything
yet?
You’ve been in the hospital two days. You’d think they would have told you
something
by now!”
Jessica McMillan heard the frustration in Jeremy Travino’s voice. She held out her hand and he took it, holding it tightly as if he were responsible for keeping her anchored to the hospital bed. “They’re supposed to tell me something this afternoon,” she told him. “Mom and Dad are coming in at four-thirty for a big powwow with Dr. Kowalski.”
“Tell me it won’t be bad, Jessie. I don’t think I could stand it if something happened to you.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said with much more
assurance than she felt. In truth, she was scared. She’d begun feeling tired and dizzy the month before.
Her
family doctor had treated her for anemia, but her symptoms—headaches, numbness in her arms and legs and an intolerable itching sensation all over her body—had steadily worsened until the doctor had thought it best to hospitalize her and run extensive tests.
“But what if they still don’t know anything after all this testing? I’ve read about weird symptoms that the doctors can’t figure out.”
“Don’t get paranoid on me,” she said, peering into Jeremy’s worried brown eyes. “Maybe it’s something simple—like some kind of exotic flu.”
“It’s March. Flu season’s in the winter.”
“So I decided to catch it now. You know how I hate to follow the crowd.” She flashed him a smile.
The worry lines in his brow relaxed and he smiled back. “What I know is that I love you and I hate hospitals. What I know is that if they don’t let you out of here soon, I’ll steal you away from the place.”
“My hero,” she said with a grin.
He leaned back in the chair beside her bed, still holding her hand. He shrugged sheepishly. “All right, so patience isn’t my strong suit. I get it from my father.”
Jeremy’s dad was a high-powered attorney in a Washington, D.C., firm; his mother was an executive in a public relations business. Jessica’s parents were both teachers; her mother helped run a Head Start preschool program and her father taught humanities at Georgetown University.
“Well, since you’re a lawyer’s son, maybe you should go plead with my doctor to divulge my test results right now and not wait for my parents to arrive.”
“I’d do it if I thought he’d talk to us. Why do parents always have to hear everything first?” He sounded irritated.
“Because we’re minors?”
“Big deal.”
“Don’t be impatient. I’m a little scared about hearing the diagnosis anyway. Sometimes
not
knowing can be better than knowing.”
“How can you say that? Not knowing is driving me nuts.”
“Because as long as I don’t know, I can imagine it’s something simple, like mono, or anemia that needs more treatment. What if it’s something really terrible?”
He moved forward and ran the back of his free hand along her cheek. “No matter what it is, I’ll be here for you.”
The look of fierce devotion on his face made her insides turn mushy. How had she won the adoration of such a great guy as Jeremy? “Even though I’m an older woman?” she teased.
“Don’t start with that. You’re not
that
much older.”
She was seventeen and a half. He’d turned sixteen in January. But he was so bright and articulate that he seemed older than boys who were eighteen and nineteen. She’d met college-age guys who didn’t act as mature as Jeremy.
“Well, most women stop having birthdays at some point, so that’ll give you time to catch up to me.”
His face broke into a heart-stealing grin. “I like the way that sounds. It sounds as if you plan to have me around for years and years.”
“Just until you catch up with me in age. Then I’ll have to look for someone younger.”
She patted his hand. “You understand, of course.”
“Of course. Whatever you say.” His dark eyes danced with good humor.
“Hadn’t you better get back to school?”
“I want to be with you.”
“You’ve cut two classes and lunch period to be with me. Your parents wouldn’t like it if they knew.”
His good humor evaporated. “Who cares? I’m tired of them always telling me what to do. They’re parents, not my zookeepers.”
Jessica wished Jeremy’s relationship with his parents was better. They seemed always at odds with each other, always tugging and pulling, prickly as cactuses. Sometimes Jessica thought they resented her relationship with him. She wanted them to like her. She was in love with Jeremy and disliked being the cause of any friction between them and their son. Their only living son.