Single dad was tricked into christmas blind date—but what she did left him in tears…

A Voice From the Past

Marcus was heading for the door. He just needed air and space.

“Marcus, wait!” Natalie’s voice cut through the noise.

“Amanda wanted me to find you.”

Marcus stopped dead with his hand on the handle. His back was still turned.

“What are you talking about?” he said without turning around.

Natalie’s voice was shaking but determined. Before she passed, Amanda made her promise something. She told her to find Marcus during Christmas week two years later.

“She knew you’d shut down,” Natalie said. “She wanted me to deliver a message.”

Marcus turned around slowly. The entire cafe had gone quiet. His eyes were burning with tears.

“She planned this two years ago?”

Natalie nodded. She asked him to sit back down so she could tell him what Amanda said. Marcus walked back on legs that didn’t feel solid.

Natalie pulled out a sealed envelope from her purse. It looked worn. Marcus saw his name in Amanda’s handwriting. He felt like someone had squeezed his chest.

“She gave me this the night before she passed,” Natalie said.

She made Natalie promise to give it to him exactly two years later. Natalie had been carrying it in her bag every single day.

“I don’t know if I can read this here,” Marcus whispered.

Natalie understood. She also needed to tell him what she had been made to memorize. Marcus braced himself.

“Tell Marcus that I’m not gone,” Natalie said.

“I’m in every sunrise he shows Iris. Every house he builds with those strong hands.”

The message said that loving her didn’t mean stopping his life. Two years was long enough to mourn. It was time to let someone new make him smile.

Marcus put his head in his hands and started shaking. He was crying in front of strangers. Natalie reached across and took his hand.

“Tell him Iris needs to see him happy, not just surviving,” Natalie continued.

Marcus looked up with tears streaming. He wondered how Amanda knew he would still be stuck.

“Because she knew you, Marcus,” Natalie said.

The waitress appeared with tissues and water. Marcus tried to pull himself together. He confessed he hadn’t decorated for Christmas in two years.

“I make excuses. Say maybe next year. And she stopped asking because she knows the answer.”

Natalie squeezed his hand. Amanda knew that too. That is why she picked Christmas week. She wanted him to love it again.

“She thought of everything, didn’t she?” Marcus let out a broken laugh.

Natalie smiled through her tears. She told him how Amanda talked about their college meeting and their first apartment.

“I can’t believe you remember all that,” Marcus said.

Natalie pulled out her phone. Amanda had made a video.

“Do you want to see it, or is this already too much?”

Marcus felt his heart pounding. He needed to see her. Natalie turned the screen. There was Amanda in the hospice bed, thin but smiling.

“Hi baby,” Amanda’s voice came through.

She joked about his ratty sweatshirt and cereal for dinner. She said she didn’t marry him so he would stop living when she did.

“Iris deserves to see that version of you. The one who smiles and jokes.”

She asked him to go on a date and decorate for Christmas. She told him to be nice to Natalie.

“Now go live for both of us,” the video ended.