I asked the cabbie to drop me off on Grand Avenue. My blood churned lethargically, my limbs heavy and leaden as I roamed the main drag of South Bay, this little beach town I’d lived in nearly all my life. My feet moved at a steady pace, but my mind trailed behind, and I stared at the storefronts and restaurants, the library and the police station and the town hall, without seeing anything. Eventually, I ambled down to the boardwalk and found a lookout point facing the bay. I stood for a long while, watching the waves crash against the shore. Then, when I felt as though even the beach, the acres of sand and the vastness of the bay beyond, were pressing in around me, I ran all over this godforsaken island until I couldn’t move anymore.
Now, I limped into the house, my body bruised and battered, every muscle screaming for some kind of relief. It felt like someone had just hit me with a car.
After slamming the shiny new front door hard enough to rattle the transom window above it, I wandered through the house like I was looking for something.
Fuck if I knew what, though.
In the living room, everything looked exactly the same as it had seventeen months, two days, and – I checked my watch – one hour and seventeen minutes ago. The same books were stacked haphazardly on the shelves, too numerous for their inadequate storage. The same photos lined the mantel, save for one. Photos of a happy Larkin, surrounded by her friends and family. A Larkin who was loved by one of the best men who’d ever walked the Earth, even if his time on it was too short. A Larkin who accepted love gratefully, and gave love generously in return.
A Larkin I didn’t recognize. Because I was pretty sure she didn’t exist. Not anymore.
I moved into the kitchen, where the old Formica counters shone dully in the sunlight. The cabinets, as old as the house itself, were all but hanging off the hinges. The linoleum floors were worn by thousands, if not millions, of steps – too many for even me to count.
I moved down the hall, walking into the small bathroom that still held the claw-foot tub, pedestal sink, and black-and-white hex tiles that were original to the house. Half the tiles were missing, and the tub was rusted, the stains like dried blood spreading onto the feet and across the floor.
I turned around, exiting the bathroom and moving further through the house, past Taylor’s bedroom, now empty of everything that had made it Taylor’s. Past the closet that wasn’t even big enough to hold our coats, past all the photos of people who were gone from my life in one way or another. I walked past everything that had once made this house a home, until finally I came to my bedroom.
Just last night, I’d stood in this same spot, in this same doorway, too afraid to even enter the room. The bed was too huge, the distance to it too far, the walls too close. My mind too dark. The room was haunted. I’d practically fled the house, not stopping until I was dripping all over the antique rug in Graham’s foyer.
Now, it all seemed so small. The bed, the room, the house. My problems. They were all so small.
I remembered the day we’d come to see this house for the first time, three years, eleven months, twelve days, and – I checked my watch – seventeen hours and nine minutes ago. It was the day we’d finally agreed to actually spend some of the money neither of us wanted.
My uncle Tom, who was also our realtor, had worked hard to sell us on the potential of this place. Sure, it’s falling down around us, he said. But it could be so much better. A little paint, some new cabinets, sand the floors down. Just replace that window and fix that saggy porch, Uncle Tom had said, and you’ve got a cute little starter house worthy of the best block in town.
At the time, we saw it. We were young, and idealistic, and full of creative vision. We had our whole lives ahead of us. We could fix up the house ourselves, build a successful business, start a family. We could have it all. And when we’d outgrown the house, we could move on to a bigger one.
But now Daniel was dead, and I – well, I might as well have been. Because while I was still lucky enough to have my life, I sure as hell didn’t feel like I deserved it. I’d done nothing with it but fuck up. Just look what had happened with Taylor, or my brother. Or Graham.
Especially Graham. I’d fucked absolutely everything up with him. I’d spent all of the last week wishing he’d want to be more than my friend, and when he’d finally told me that was what he wanted, I’d thrown it in his face. Now I would be lucky even to be considered an acquaintance.
Feeling defeated, I crossed to the bed, sitting on the edge of it and sliding the nightstand drawer open. I pulled the shadowbox out, running my fingers along the beveled rim, my eyes bouncing from the peony, to the photo, to the napkin, and back again.
“Why did it have to be you?” I asked the man in the photo, the man who was kissing his brand-new wife like he had all the time in the world.
If I had died, Daniel would have dealt with it so much better than I had. He was always the more resilient one, always willing and able to forgive and forget. And he was the smart, capable one. He would have known how to handle all of this, because he knew how to handle everything.
He would have mourned me, sure, but he would have eventually moved on. He would have found love again. He would have lived his life.
He wouldn’t have become this angry, feral creature that I had become. He wouldn’t have been so ungrateful, so suspicious of every good deed, always looking for the switchblade hidden in the handshake. He wouldn’t have pushed away everyone he loved, wielding this seething ball of rage like a weapon, lashing out with this anger that had grown, and grown, and grown, until it had become this living, breathing thing, an entity all its own, fed by every selfish, mean-spirited thought and action.
He wouldn’t have pushed away the person who’d been nothing but good to him. He wouldn’t have stomped all over the heart that had been offered to him on a silver platter. He wouldn’t have punished the one who’d earned nothing but reward.
He would have told his new love how he really felt, how much he cared. How he maybe even loved her.
Because unlike me, Daniel would have been open to the idea of love. He would have wanted to be happy. He would have let himself live life to its fullest.
He would have been more like Graham, who had endured the worst of traumas, and had still somehow grown to be a kind, generous, loving person. Graham, who had told me he loved me, who had shown me his heart again and again, who in the short time I’d known him, had made my life easier just by being himself.
Graham, who made me ashamed of the person I’d become – the person who pushed him past his breaking point. The person who’d broken his heart.
The person I didn’t want to be anymore, the person I’d never wanted to be.
I had to figure out a way to change that person, to mold her into the Larkin I wanted to be.
Fuck if I knew how, though.
I put the shadowbox back in the drawer, pushing it to the back, where I couldn’t see it anymore. But it got stuck.
My brow furrowed as I pulled it back out, reaching into the depths of the drawer until my fingertips met well-worn paper.
The envelope.
How long had it been since I’d taken this little square of folded paper out of the drawer – since I’d even thought about it?
Four days, twenty-two hours, and – I checked my watch – six minutes. That’s how long it had taken me to forget that the envelope was there.
I stared at it, my eyes tracing the handwriting that I’d looked at a thousand or more times – more than I could count, though God knows I’d tried.
His hand. My name. Six letters, one heart – but only above that ‘I.’
I took a ragged breath as a decision settled in my brain. This was it. Today was the day I would finally open this goddamn envelope.
I dug my finger into the flap, a sort of fell excitement filling my veins. I’d been both anticipating and dreading this for so long, and now I would finally do it. I would, at long last, experience the exquisite torture of reading the last words my husband had ever given me.
But right before I slid my finger under the flap, I paused, looking up. Not here. The walls were closing in again, and my breathing was labored, like I couldn’t get enough oxygen.
My eyes bounced around the room, looking for an escape route. After a moment, they landed on the French doors. I looked through the glass to the deck, then past it to the tiny backyard, and again to the beach beyond that. A calmness filled me, a feeling of peace, as I imagined sitting on the sand, with the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, the envelope in my hands.
Yes. There. I would open it there, out in the open, where he’d always been happiest. On the beach where we’d played, and read, and made love. On the beach where he’d felt at home.
On the beach where I’d sprinkled his ashes sixteen months, twenty-nine days, seventeen hours, and – I checked my watch – forty-three minutes ago.
I kicked my shoes off, padding over to the door. It squealed when I pushed it open, protesting its first use in a long time. But I hardly noticed. I was single-minded in my purpose now, unable to think of anything but my mission.
Once I’d traversed the small patch of grass that covered the yard, I pushed the little gate open, letting it swing in the breeze as I walked the short path through the dunes and to the beach.
Thoughts of him filled my mind as I walked. Daniel had always loved the beach. When we were kids, we spent at least a few minutes here almost every day. When we lived in the city, while we were at college, he had insisted we come back to South Bay every weekend. He simply couldn’t live without the salt air, the sand between his toes, the water lapping at his shins. This was his true home, this island where everyone put up with nosy neighbors and obnoxious tourists and no nightlife for this – the apex of creation. The beach. This was where he belonged.
And this was where I was going to bury his ghost once and for all.
I walked as though possessed, my feet drawn inexorably toward the shore. When I reached the tide line, I sat on the wet sand, my ass plopping down ungracefully, spraying droplets of cold, salty water all around me. Then I drew my knees up, resting my hands on them. The envelope dangled from my fingertips, but I held it firmly, just barely keeping it from dropping into the ocean.
I watched the waves for a while, enjoying the oddly violent motion of the water throwing itself at the sand, dragging itself back to sea, and repeating the whole process again, and again, and again.
After forty-three waves had crashed directly in my line of sight, nipping at my toes before retreating into the sea, I picked my hands up, bringing the envelope to my lap. Then I flipped it over, inserting my fingertip into the torn section of the flap, where I’d started to open it all those months ago, on the morning he’d died.
I pulled the letter out, marveling at how light it felt. I’d expected it to be heavier, as though it should carry the weight of my expectations in its very fibers.
Slowly, carefully, I unfolded the pages, drawing it out longer than I needed to. Making a meal of it, as Daniel used to say. I couldn’t quite tell if I was trying to prolong the experience, or put it off.
Finally, I took a deep breath and began to read.