I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

1.5.41, and there was one small piece of typically scratchy male writing on it. A bit like my own writing.
    It said:

    Dearest Milla,
    My soul needs yours.
    Love,
Jimmy

    During the next visit, she gets out her old photo albums and we look through them. She constantly points out a man who holds her or kisses her or just stands there on his own.
    “You were always so handsome,” she tells me. She even touches Jimmy’s face on the photos, and I see what it is to love someone like Milla loved that man. Her fingertips are made of love. When she speaks, her voice is made of love. “You’ve changed quite a bit now, but you still look good. You always were the most handsome boy in town. All the girls said so. Even my mother told me how great you were, how loving and strong, and how I had to do good by you and treat you right.” She looks at me now, almost panic-stricken. “I did right by you, Jimmy—didn’t I? I treated you right, didn’t I?”
    I melt.
    I melt and look her in her old but lovely eyes. “You did right by me, Milla. You treated me right. You were the best wife I could have ever—”
    And that’s when she breaks down and cries into my sleeve. She cries and cries and laughs. She shakes with such despair and joy, and her tears soak, nice and warm, through to my arm.
    She offers me mud cake after a while. It’s the one I brought her a few days ago.
    “I can’t remember who brought me this,” she tells me, “but it’s very nice. Would you like some, Jimmy?”
    “That’d be great,” I say.
    It’s older now and a bit stale, the mud cake.
    But the taste is perfect.
     
    A few nights later, we’re all on the porch of the shack, playing cards. I’m going strongly until a sudden silence slits through the game. A sound follows it, from inside.
    “It’s the phone,” Audrey says.
    There’s something about it that doesn’t sit right. An uneasy feeling glides over me.
    “Well, are you getting it?” Marv asks.
    I get up and step over the Doorman with great trepidation.
    The ring calls me toward it.
    I pick it up.
    Quiet. All quiet.
    “Hello?”
    Again.
    “Hello?”
    The voice attempts to find the very core of me. It finds it and says four words.
    “How’s it going, Jimmy ?”
    Something breaks in me.
    “What?” I ask. “What did you say?”
    “You heard me.”
    The phone dies, and I’m alone.
     
    I stagger back out to the porch.
    “You lost,” Marv informs me, but I barely hear him. I couldn’t care less about the card game.
    “You look shockin’,” Ritchie tells me. “Sit down, lad.”
    I heed his advice and take my place again in the game.
    Audrey looks at me and asks whether I’m okay just by the expression on her face. I answer yes, and when she stays later, I nearly tell her about Milla and Jimmy. I come so close to asking what she thinks about it all, but I already know the answers. Her opinion can’t change any of this, so I might as well face up to the fact that I have to go on. I’ve given Milla the companionship she’s been needing, but it’s time now to either move on to the next address or go back to Edgar Street. I can still visit her, of course, but it’s time now.
    It’s time to move on.
     
    That night, I go out walking with the Doorman, late. We go down to the cemetery and see my father and wander through the rest of the graves.
    A flashlight hits us.
    Security.
    “You know what time it is?” the guy asks. He’s big and mustached.
    “No idea,” I answer.
    “Eleven past midnight. Cemetery’s closed, mate.”
    I almost walk away, but tonight I can’t. I open my mouth and say, “I’m wondering, sir…I’m looking for a grave.”
    He looks at me, deciding. Should he help me or not? He goes for yes.
    “What name?”
    “Johnson.”
    He shakes his head and laughs, a hint of criticism. “Do you have any idea how many Johnsons there are in this joint?”
    “No.”
    “A lot .” He sniffs at his mustache, as if to erase an itch. It’s red. He’s a