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  I lose a piece of myself every time I think back on that day. Pretty soon, there will be nothing left.

  Chapter 15

  October 1965

  “We believe the cancer has been growing since Beverly gave birth to Jefferson Junior. Her uterus went through so much trauma during the delivery that it was susceptible to the disease,” the doctor explains.

  I shake my head in denial. It can’t be possible. Jefferson turned five years old in April. Five years since he was born and she’s had this thing growing inside of her, slowly killing her?

  Bevy has been sick off and on ever since Jefferson was born, but we never thought it could possibly be something so serious. For four years, I’ve watched my wife battle cold after flu after pneumonia, and the doctors always told us she just had a low immune system. Plenty of rest, plenty of liquids, that was always the magic cure. When she fainted the other morning and I couldn’t wake her up, I rushed her to the doctor and he finally ran some tests.

  “What do we do? How do we fix it?” I ask.

  The specialist who Doc Wilson brought over from the mainland pats me on the back and shakes his head sadly.

  “There’s nothing we can do, Mr. Fisher. I’m sorry, but your wife has stage four stomach cancer. We believe it started in her uterus and traveled through her body. All we can do right now is make her comfortable for the little time she has left.”

  I stare down the hall of our home at the closed bedroom door where Bevy is resting. Glancing around the room at the framed photos of our life together, I want to rip them from the walls and let them shatter on the floor so they resemble the pile of rubble that is my heart. She promised she wouldn’t leave me. All those years ago on that beach when I finally gathered up the courage to tell her how I felt and asked her to marry me, she promised she wouldn’t leave. She’s going to leave me here alone, in this house we built together, in this life we live together.

  I turn away from the doctor and run from the house. He shouts after me and both of my parents call my name as I race past them on the front porch. They came over this morning to keep Jefferson occupied while I spoke with the doctors, and even though I’m thankful for their help, I can’t talk to them right now. I can’t talk to anyone. I want to scream and cry and punch holes in the walls, not watch my parents fall apart when they find out the news.

  Getting into my car, I crank up the engine and peel out of the driveway, leaving my parents and Jefferson standing on the front porch looking after me worriedly. I don’t know where to go, I don’t know what to do. When I have a problem, I talk it out with Bevy. Whenever I’m in need of advice, I go to Bevy. I can’t very well go to Bevy and ask her how I’m supposed to live without her, can I?

  Ten minutes later, I find myself pulling into the cemetery. I haven’t been back here since the day of the funeral and I feel guilty, but I know he’d forgive me. Parking my car alongside the path that will take me to the grave with the small American flag stuck into the ground in front of it, I get out of the car and walk towards the headstone. I squat down in front of it and busy myself brushing leaves and freshly mowed grass off the top of it.

  Staring at the etching, I trace my fingers over the letters.

  Billy “Kid” Fortney

  June 2, 1932 – July 21, 1965

  Son, Friend, Hero, Marine

  My best friend was killed in Vietnam a few months ago. When Kennedy became president and there was talk of sending US troops to aid South Vietnam, that idiot went and joined the Marines. He was too old to be drafted when the time came, but that fool had to go and volunteer, still dreaming of being a gun-toting outlaw and finding a way to do it legally. He was with the first group of 3,500 Marines sent to Vietnam back in March and the dumbass stepped on a landmine. He spent nearly two decades counseling me over Beverly O’Bryne Fisher, and I feel sure he’d know exactly what to say right now. I miss him more now than I did when I first found out he was gone.

  “I’m going to lose her, Billy. I don’t know what the hell to do. How do I live without her?”

  I can almost hear him calling me all sorts of names for being an idiot. I know I’m behaving irrationally and that running away was not my best decision. I should have gone right to Bevy, held her in my arms and told her everything was going to be okay, but lying is something I’ve never been capable of with that woman. That’s why I had to get out of that house. Nothing is going to be okay ever again.

  I sit down in the grass with my back against the headstone and I have a nice, long talk with my best friend. I tell him how scared I am, I tell him how unfair it is and I tell him I wish it were me going through this instead of her. The wind rustles my hair and I imagine it’s Billy telling me to stop being a jackass and go to her.

  By the time I return to the house, the doctors are gone and my mother has taken Jefferson back to my parents’ home for the night. My father rocks back and forth on the front porch and I sit with him for a few minutes in silence before he speaks.

  “Whatever you need, son, it’s yours. You need to us to take Jefferson for a while, your mother and I would be more than happy,” he tells me before pushing himself up from the rocker and walking down the steps.

  My father and I aren’t the most emotionally expressive people, but his words mean more to me than he’ll ever know. I can’t even think about taking care of Jefferson right now. We spent seven years trying to bring him into this world and at the time, it felt like a blessing from God that Bevy was finally able to get pregnant. Now, the idea of raising him on my own scares me to death. I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a child. Bevy has been perfectly content doing everything on her own and shooing me away when I offer to help. I’ve played catch with him out in the yard, I’ve taken him fishing and started teaching him how to ride a bike – all of the typical things a father is supposed to do with his son – but I have no idea what the hell else raising a child entails. Bevy can’t leave me, she just can’t.

  Getting up from the chair, I slowly make my way down the hall and into our bedroom. Bevy is propped up in bed with a bunch of pillows behind her. Her eyes are closed and as much as I know she needs her rest, I need to hear her voice more. I need her reassurance that everything will be okay. She’s the one dying and I’m the one who needs comfort – I realize how selfish that sounds, I really do, but I can’t bring myself to care.

  I carefully climb into bed with Bevy and wrap my arms around her waist, resting my head on her chest. I feel her arms come around me, and a few seconds later, her fingers slide over and over through my hair.

  “I’m so sorry, Trip,” she whispers.

  I squeeze my eyes closed and hold onto her tighter. Maybe if I hold on tight enough, she won’t leave.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about, Bevy,” I tell her.

  “I promised I’d never leave you and now I’m breaking that promise.”

  A tear escapes from my eyes and drops down onto her cotton nightgown. I let go of her long enough to brush it away, and then I push myself up on my hands so I can look down at her.

  “I love you, Bevy, and I’m telling you, you have nothing to be sorry about. It’s going to be okay, everything is going to be okay.”

  I smile, even though every lie cuts me like a knife, and she smiles back at me, even though she knows I’m lying. Nothing will ever be okay again.

  Her hands come up to cup my face and she stares into my eyes. “You’re going to be okay, Trip. You are the strongest man I know, and you’re going to be okay.”

  I don’t answer her. I don’t tell her that each second I live with the knowledge that we won’t be growing old together, I feel like the weakest person in the world. I lay my head on the pillow next to her and she curls her body into mine. I memorize the smell of her skin and how it feels to have her warm breath puffing over my chest. I think about every moment we’ve spent together since we were children. Every laugh, every smile, every kiss, every tear and every argument. I remember the good times and I remembe
r the bad times, flipping through them in my mind like a slideshow. In this moment, listening to Bevy breathe and feeling the weight of her body next to mine, I make a silent promise that I will never forget a single moment I’ve spent with her.

  “Hey, Trip, I’ll race you to heaven,” Bevy says with a halfhearted chuckle.

  I try to stifle my sob as I brush her hair out of her eyes and stare at her beautiful face lying next to me on the pillow.

  “You always have to win, don’t you Bevy?” I reply as the tears roll down my cheeks.

  “Always,” she says with a smile.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you more,” she replies easily.

  “Just remember who said it first,” I tell her as she closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep.

  Chapter 16

  My Bevy died on a Tuesday, four weeks, three days and twenty hours after we found out she had cancer. She’d grown restless in bed at night, so I’d taken to sleeping on a chair next to our bed. I opened my eyes with the morning sun and she had her back to me. I stretched the kinks out of my neck and back and called her name, but she didn’t answer me. Bevy died peacefully in her sleep, the way everyone should go. She went to bed with a smile on her face, telling me she loved me, and never woke up.

  We buried her on a Saturday and it would be almost a year before I emerged from our home. I shut down and I closed myself off. I realized I was behaving exactly how Bevy’s mother did when Benjamin died and I was disgusted with my behavior, but there was nothing I could do to change it. I barely ate, I hardly slept and I couldn’t muster up the emotion to care what was happening to my son. My parents took Jefferson home with them after the funeral and I was so consumed by my own grief that I didn’t bother checking on my own flesh and blood at any point during that entire year. What that poor little boy must have been feeling tears a hole right through my heart. His mother was his whole world. True to her word, she was NEVER like her parents. She loved that little boy with all of her heart and soul and made sure he knew it every day. She showered him with kisses and tickles and she was constantly telling him that she wished for him all of her life and that God answering her prayers was the best gift she could have ever been given. I was a fool for believing Bevy’s heart wasn’t big enough for the both of us. She had more than enough love to go around and she proved that every day until she drew her last breath.

  I’m not proud of the way I behaved. I should have told Jefferson about the remarkable woman who gave him life long before now. Even when my mother brought Jefferson to visit with me after I crawled out of the black hole of grief and depression, I never spoke of Bevy. I never said her name and I certainly never shared stories about her life. Pretending she never existed was the only way I was able get up and put one foot in front of the other every morning. The only way I was able to breathe was to push her from my mind. If I thought about her, if I remembered the love we shared for just one second, I would crumble to the floor and pray for death, just to be with her again. I don’t know how many times during that first year I held a gun to my head after downing a bottle of whiskey and just wished I could end the pain. Every damn time, I’d see Bevy’s angry face in my mind, the guilt kicked in and I’d lose my nerve.

  All I can think of now is how much I let Bevy down. Our son deserved to know how wild and rambunctious she was as a child and how strong and amazing she was as a woman. I should have kept her memory alive and spoke about her each and every day. If the tables were turned, Bevy wouldn’t have allowed Jefferson to go through life not knowing what kind of person I was. I left my son, the last piece of my Bevy on this earth, to be raised by someone else. He lost both of his parents the day Bevy died and there aren’t enough words in the English language to erase that fact, but maybe reading my story will help him understand.

  All these years later, he doesn’t need me, he doesn’t want me and I’m not even sure that he loves me. He looks at me like I’m a stranger, and I am. Because of my father’s influence, he became a strong, successful businessman. My father took him to the bank every day, grooming my son to take over the role that his never wanted. Jefferson thrived under his grandfather’s tutelage and it didn’t seem right, when I finally got my shit together, to take away the only source of stability he’d had since his mother left us. My father tried, as did my mother, to make me wake up and realize that I was losing my son, the only part of Bevy I had left, but at that point, it was too late. The damage was done.

  Looking at one of the few photos I have of Jefferson when he was a young boy, I’m overcome with feelings of grief and loss. The two of us are standing in front of a half-built structure, me covered in dirt and grime and little Jefferson looking sharp in a nicely pressed suit. I’m helping him hold a hammer and he looks so adorably uncomfortable that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry because this photo was taken the day I realized I’d probably lost him forever.

  And it was my own fault.

  Chapter 17

  April 1967

  Hammering the last nail into the board, I take a step back and stare up at the building in front of me, proud of what I’ve accomplished. These last few months, being outside in the sunshine instead of drunk and cooped up inside the house, have been good for me. When my father stopped by and told me they needed a general manager to oversee the construction of a new bed and breakfast on the southern end of the island, I dragged my ass out of bed and forced myself to go to work. The distraction has been good for me. It’s kept my mind off the whiskey in my kitchen cabinet calling my name, and instead of looking sickly and pale all the time, I’ve got a nice, golden tan from all the hours spent working outside. I still feel like death most of the time and it’s always an effort to get out of bed first thing in the morning, but I have to do it. I can’t keep going on the way I have for the past year.

  “Trip! The inn is looking wonderful!”

  I turn to see my mother standing a few feet behind me, smiling in awe at the huge building.

  Pulling a rag out of the back pocket of my jeans, I wipe the sweat from my head and walk towards her. It’s then that I notice someone behind her, hiding behind her long skirt. My heart thumps in my chest and part of me wants to turn and run away. I’m not ready for this. I can’t handle this, not right now, not when I’ve finally got my shit together.

  My mother sees the panic on my face and gives me a reassuring smile, reaching behind her and tugging the little person out in front of her. My breath catches in my lungs when I get my first good look at him in almost a year. He’s got a full head of curly brown hair that my mother has cut short and his blue eyes are so much like hers that my legs threaten to give out from under me.

  “Jefferson, say hello to your father,” my mother urges.

  He gives me a shy smile and I feel tears forming in my eyes. Two dimples, one in each cheek, just like his mother. It’s too much. It hurts too much.

  “Whatcha doin’?” he asks in a quiet voice as he looks at the building behind me.

  I swallow thickly, unable to form any words to answer him. He’s so small and beautiful and his voice warms my cold heart, even though it’s so painful to hear.

  “Your daddy is building an inn so that guests can spend the night here on the island, isn’t that wonderful, Jefferson? Your daddy is very talented,” my mother brags, giving me a big smile. “Does the inn have a name yet?”

  I finally tear my eyes away from my son to look at my mother. “Butler House Inn. It’s called Butler House Inn. It should be finished in another month or so.”

  She smiles and nods, giving Jefferson a gentle shove on the back to move him closer to me. “I have a few errands to run. I thought it would be nice if you two spent some time together.”

  Without giving me a chance to protest, she bends down and kisses Jefferson on the cheek, telling him she loves him and that she’ll be back for him soon.

  She quickly walks away and Jefferson and I stand there, quietly staring at each other. I don’t know what the hell
to do. I don’t know what to say. Does he even want to spend time with me? I didn’t realize until now how much I’ve missed him and how horrible of a father I’ve been. I more or less washed my hands of him, leaving the childrearing to my parents, not bothering to ask about him or attempt to see him. This little boy doesn’t even know me, and that thought is suddenly very sad.

  Jefferson takes a few tentative steps towards me before reaching out towards the hammer I still have clutched tightly in my hand.

  “What’s that?” he asks me as he stares at it curiously.

  I turn the hammer over in my hand and squat down to his level. “Um, this is a hammer. It’s what I used to build that big building behind me. Do you want to try and use it?”

  He scrunches up his face and I can just see the wheels turning in his mind. He finally shrugs and holds his hand out to me. I place the hammer in his hand and chuckle when the weight of it makes his arm drop and the hammer smacks into the ground.

  “Did I break it?” he asks worriedly.

  I laugh again, reaching out and wrapping my large hands around his small ones to help him lift it back up.

  “Nope, you didn’t break it, it’s just a little heavy. How about I teach you how to use this thing? Do you want to hit a few nails into some wood?”

  He shrugs again and I stand up, holding my hand out for him to take. My heart stutters when he slides his soft, clean hand into my callused, dirty one. I walk him over to a pile of scrap wood and show him how to hold the nail against the wood and gently hammer at it to get it started. It takes a few tries for him to get the hang of holding the nail steady while moving the hammer, but with my help, we get a few nails pounded into the remnant piece of wood.

  “Well, would you look at that?” I tell him as we both stand back and admire the work. “You’re a natural with a hammer.”