This Is Not How It Ends

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

  “I’m going to marry Philip,” I cried. “He can’t give me a future, but he can make me a wife. His wife.”

  Pity hung from their faces. They knew I’d gone crazy; the sorrow washed their eyes.

  “I’m serious. Judith,” I shouted. Frantic. “You said you would do it. You said you’re a notary.” I sounded pathetic but didn’t care. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Philip’s lucid moments were fleeting, and any justice of the peace would say he wasn’t of sound mind to make decisions. I didn’t care. I loved Philip. I would always love Philip. What better way to honor his memory than to take his last name? To be his lawful wife?

  Judith relented, giving in to my charade. “You hear that, Thomas?” she said. “You still got it.”

  I was half crying, half shaking; Ben blinked back tears.

  Judith preached, then pointed out the absence of rings. There was an urgency in her voice, and I raced to the bathroom for something round. What I found would have to do—I was about to marry him with elastic hair bands. Philip opened and closed his eyes, and when she asked if we do, we spoke in unison. And I swear, Philip was smiling. He was. He was smiling at me. And the words I do meant we were connected for life. He was with me. Always.

  When we became husband and wife, I joined him in the bed and kissed his lips. They were rough, no longer soft, but I kissed them hard. I kissed life into him. I kissed my love into him, making it so every memory of us stayed alive. So that he embraced the darkness with a full heart, without fear.

  Ben watched, a stream sliding down his cheeks. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. Judith was doing what she always did: fixing, primping, making Philip as comfortable as she could. Ben approached the other side of the bed and dropped to his knees. His hands covered his friend’s and he cried.

  Philip had barely uttered any words that day, but I do were two that I’d hold on to for the rest of my life. If he never said another word to me, I knew what those words meant. They meant his promise to me, his love, and I would take them with me wherever I went. I would honor him, and our love. I would keep him alive so the world would never forget.

  For the first time in weeks, Philip’s face was peaceful and calm. I rested my head atop his chest to remind him I was close. That I’d be there with him. He’d never be alone.

  Eighteen minutes after saying I do, and eighteen minutes after becoming a wife, I became a widow.

  CHAPTER 38

  November 2018

  “He’s gone,” Judith whispered.

  I forced myself to look up. “No.”

  I had anticipated this moment for some time, even wished for it while Philip was suffering a senseless misery, though nothing, nothing prepared me for that instant when his soul left his body and he was gone from me. At first, I was afraid to touch him. My limbs froze, and I jerked away from the bed. My head filled with a resounding denial—this isn’t real—but the tears that sprang forth told me otherwise. I vaguely remembered Ben backing away, sobbing into his hands. Philip would never look at me again. His eyes would never open. I would never hear his voice. I would never feel his breath against my cheek. He was gone, and the pain released a foreign sound from my throat.

  Ben left me alone to mourn. I was memorizing Philip’s fingers, the shape of his hands and face. “Oh, Philip,” I cried. I half expected him to answer, to tell me to stop blubbering. I thought about the life we’d had together, the love we were supposed to share forever, and I lay there while my body writhed against his lifeless frame.

  The sun came in through the blinds and hit a shelf on the wall. It was the one that housed the collection of snow globes. They lit up, dazzling me with the places Philip had gone without me, but always with me in mind. In their glass, I saw ice-cream cones and Philip jumping naked in the ocean. I saw him chasing the iguanas off our property and singing at the top of his lungs with the top down on his tiny car. I saw him shuffling down the aisle on the airplane and asking me to marry him.

  When someone you love slowly dies, you have the time to say what you need, and while I had shared a lot with Philip, there was still more I wanted to say. How would Sunny and I survive him? How would I ever begin to explain the love of someone so large? And how could I ever forgive myself for what I’d done? For giving myself to someone else?

  My sobs were streaked with shame, paved with guilt and sadness. “I’m so sorry, Philip.” My voice trembled, my hand caressing his cheek.

  And the finality crushed me. It collided into me, making it impossible to accept. I tried shaking him awake. I tugged on his hands, hoping they’d fold around mine. I took hold of his face and yelled for him to stay. “Please don’t go, Philip. Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be here without you. Stay with me. Please, don’t go.”

  I was tugging at him, jabbing at his arms and thinking I could beat the life back into him. “Philip!” I was crying—large watery tears that made me scream louder as I begged him to open his eyes.

  The door opened and Ben appeared.

  “He can’t die,” I shouted at him. “He can’t . . .”

  Ben closed in on me with devastating grief. I resisted him, punching and swiping, preferring to touch Philip, to wake him up, to convince myself he was playing one of his stupid jokes. Exhausted, my body fell limp, but Ben was there to hold me up. He whispered into my hair, “It’s going to be okay.” I pulled back and found his eyes.

  “It’s not,” I whimpered. “He’s gone.”

  Whether it was because of my pain or how close we were standing, Ben retreated, sadness dotting his face. He brought the back of his hand to my cheek, but I turned away. His body was so awake and alive, it made me furious.

  “Charley.” He was sobbing, too. “I know it hurts . . .”

  “No. Don’t call me that.” I was sobbing, the raw, bleeding ache running through me. “You don’t. You’ll never know how I feel . . .”

  Darkness flooded his eyes. When he spoke, his voice trembled. “I know how you feel.”

  What I’d said to him was unforgivable. Regret coiled around my body and I felt unsteady. I turned to Philip and collapsed on his bed, the slow realization that he was gone forever filling my every bone, making it impossible for me to move.

  “He loved you so much, Charlotte,” Ben said in this tone that made me sadder. “All he wanted was for you to be happy.”

  I was sobbing into Philip’s lifeless body, blocking out Ben’s words.

  “Just go, Ben.”

  He didn’t respond. He simply left the room, leaving me to bawl in Philip’s pillow. Leaving me to memorize his scent, because soon it would be gone, and I’d have nothing left.

  Philip wanted his ashes spread along the ocean. The idea pained me in theory, but when we held the private service behind our home, Philip’s presence tightened around me, and I understood. In his will, he made it abundantly clear there was to be no large gathering. He wanted me and Ben, Meghan and Myka, Natasha and Bruce, Elise, and Liberty. That was it. He prepared a separate note for Jimmy, which made it clear to the young boy that he didn’t need to come to this “horribly boring and sad” event. In the envelope were two box seats to the upcoming Heat game. “You enjoy this game with your father, mate. This is no time to be sad.”

  Elise nodded at me when she handed him the envelope. I later learned she went through multiple tickets until the time finally arrived. Philip instructed her for each missed date to give the unused tickets to children at Miami’s Overtown Youth Center.

  The house was filled with flowers and food, well-wishers expecting a crowd, but there was none. Elise made sure calls were answered and clients and employees were given the information for donations in Philip’s honor. He asked that any financial contributions be made to pancreatic cancer research, but not in his name, in my mother’s. “Time to end this rubbish.”

  Ben and I didn’t speak a single word to each other, moving side by side like strangers.

  A bouquet of flowers arrived with a note; it was o
ne of the largest arrangements I’d ever seen, and it was one of the few cards I decided to read. It was from a woman whose name I didn’t know, though the company was familiar. She worked at TQV, the air-bag company Philip came to Kansas City to buy. The note was a lengthy one, detailing lawsuits and lost lives, and finished with gracious praise for the new management team Philip instated and their careful restructuring. Millions of lives have been saved because of Philip Stafford.

  I found Elise and asked her what should have occurred to me but had not. “TQV? His parents’ accident. Is this why?”

  Elise nodded. “Their bags didn’t release.”

  Most people would want to destroy the company responsible for killing their parents, but not Philip.

  “That’s what he does, Charlotte. He fixes companies, people, lives . . .” Her voice trailed off. “He leaves them a little richer . . . better . . . stronger. He never wanted anyone to experience the pain he went through.” I’d always known Philip’s capacity to give, but hearing this bittersweet story moved me. How harsh their death had to be, how deeply it affected him, so much so to inspire him to single-handedly take on their killer. I ached to hold him, knowing I never would again. And while I thought there was something else Elise wanted to say about Philip, she stopped herself and let me hold on to this memory.

  It was hard to capture the essence of my emotions those first couple of days. There was a heavy grief for what was lost to me, lost to Philip. I was angry at God, angry at cancer, and angry at myself. It was impossible to go back in time and remember when things turned sour—and the phone call that had changed my life—without referring to Hurricane Kelsie. Her damage spread wide across our lives, each of us left forever marked.

  I stopped going to Morada Bay and avoided Ben. I hit “Decline” when he called, and I left a flurry of text messages ignored. I think he thought we could go back to the way it was, but a triangle wasn’t a triangle without a third point. Besides, we could never go back to the way it was, even if Philip were still here. Ben was off-limits to me. No matter what we once felt for each other, that night changed everything.

  I slowly returned to work. Liberty greeted me like a mother tending to a lost child suddenly found, easing me into my return with a few hours in the afternoon. On my fourth day back, Jimmy showed up carrying a large brown package. I met him at the door. “Where’s Carla?” I asked. “Did you walk here yourself?”

  He shook his head no. “She’s waiting outside.”

  “You don’t have an appointment today.”

  “I came to see you.” And then, “I’m sorry about Philip.”

  We took our seats in the waiting room. “Me too.”

  Propping the package against a chair, he held on to the armrest nervously.

  “You okay, buddy?”

  “I’m not doing the treatment anymore.” He paused. “Not here and not in New York. I hope you’re not upset.”

  “Why would I be upset?”

  “We worked so hard, and I know how important it is to you. I just want to be a regular kid. And not eating peanuts doesn’t bother me.”

  “What matters to me is you being comfortable, Jimmy. You made so much progress and can eat so many foods that were once forbidden.”

  “Will Liberty be upset?”

  “Are you kidding? She’s thrilled you can eat eggs and gluten. Most things in life aren’t all or nothing. The nice thing is now you have some choices, before you didn’t.”

  “It’s weird to have a choice. I think rules make life easier.”

  I thought about his insight, knowing it pertained to more than merely food.

  “We’re all sensitive to stuff, Jimmy. People, music, words. And sometimes those sensitivities affect us in ways we can’t control, forcing us to do things we otherwise wouldn’t. If you’re not one hundred percent in with the treatments, don’t do them.”

  This seemed to appease him, and his mood immediately lifted. “Tell me about the game,” I finally said.

  His eyes widened, and he recapped the Heat loss against the Nets. “I rooted for the Nets,” he said. “Hope you’re not mad.”

  “Why would I be mad? New York’s your hometown.”

  “I like it here,” he said. “I don’t want to move.”

  “Your grandparents are there. Your cousins. It’ll be fun for you.”

  “You won’t be there.”

  I let this sink in while he stared at the wall, at the list of names of people who had been cured by NAET.

  I reached across and stroked his hand. His eyes were a miniature version of Ben’s. “Maybe I’ll come visit.”

  He turned to me, his face brightening. “You’d do that?”

  I knew I shouldn’t make a promise, but I did. “I would.”

  “I’d like that,” he said. The package was on the ground, propped up between the chair and his legs. He grabbed it with two hands and said, “This is for you. So you don’t forget us.”

  I didn’t believe I had any tears left inside of me when I ripped open the paper and saw what Jimmy had painted for me. I didn’t want him to see how much it touched me. It was a thin line I tried to avoid.

  The canvas was the three of us. And Sunny. We were floating in the ocean, each on our own raft. Close enough, but not touching, Jimmy was smiling. The sun was a beautiful gold.

  “It’s perfect,” I told him, biting my lip, biting back the tears.

  “You’re doing that thing my mom used to do.”

  I looked up. “What’s that?”

  “It’s okay if you cry,” he said. “I cried a little when I painted it.”

  “I’m so glad you started painting again, Jimmy. You need to express yourself. And you’re so talented. I’m sure we’ll be seeing your paintings in a museum in New York one day.”

  He grinned and fell back in his chair.

  “Will we see you before we leave?”

  “I hope so,” I lied, because it was too hard, all these goodbyes.

  “Okay.” He jumped up to leave. “Carla made me promise not to be long.”

  “You don’t want to keep Carla waiting.”

  We were facing each other, and it tore my heart in two that I didn’t have kids.

  Without warning, his arms came around me.

  “I’m going to miss you, Charley,” he said, capturing the accent we’d all grown to love.

  I kissed the top of his head and told him I was going to miss him more.

  We walked to the door together and said our goodbyes. When I returned to my desk, my phone buzzed, and it was him again. My father. I didn’t hesitate, picking it up and placing it to my ear. He was talking. I sank into his words, tears falling down my face.

  “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER 39

  December 2018

  Hearing my father apologize this time felt different. Sins were sins, no matter the breadth and depth. Was I any better than he? That he returned to me as Philip was leaving didn’t go unnoticed. I racked my brain to try and understand Philip’s motive, eventually deciding it was one of life’s hidden messages. Philip leaving me with a gift. Philip wanting me to understand myself better. Perhaps Philip knowing all along what I needed.

  “I’d like to meet,” he said. “When you’re ready. I know this loss is especially difficult for you. I have a partner. And we have a daughter, Polly. You don’t have to be alone.”

  The announcement came as a surprise, a slick line of envy for the girl who got to know my father through proximity and parenting, whereas I barely remembered our seven years. But then I thought of Philip. And Ben. And Jimmy. And I thought about the families we create for ourselves. And I thought about the life I’d lived—half lived—because I was unwilling to venture through a closed door. While Philip and I had boundless love and laughter, we were two people damaged by emotional wounds. Abandonment leaves a painful mark. It inks you for life, if you let it, making you believe you’re not worthy, leaving you distrustful of wishes and dreams, when
they only disappoint. Philip and I clung to that notion as long as we could, until it broke us. The idea of a sister enveloped me. I could feel myself succumbing.

  “I’d like that.”

  Liberty and I were on a walk with Sunny when I broached the subject.

  “Philip dying . . . I had so much more of him in his leaving . . . and now my father’s back and I have a sibling . . .”

  This revelation was long coming. I had spent weeks hunkered in the dark with the shades drawn, only leaving to go to work at the clinic. I’d been toying with leaving the Keys altogether—there was no reason for me to stay. The people, who I’d once found cheery fixtures, taunted me with their weathered faces. “Too much sun and too much alcohol,” Philip used to say. NAET had satisfied me for a while, but it was no longer enough. It was time to get back to teaching.

  Philip’s voice haunted me at night; I missed him, and how his body pressed against mine in our bed. Sunny had the difficult job of consoling me through another period of grief. We’d spoon each other at night, his even snores lulling me to sleep. After a while, I forgot what Philip’s emaciated body looked like. I forgot the pungent odor of acid-soaked breath. My mind returned to the two of us falling in love—a stagnant place—untouchable and unspoiled, where he both offended me and swept me off my feet. That first kiss opened the door to a thousand more, a silky ribbon that tied us together, heartbeat to heartbeat. Now my heart beat alone, its sound echoing the emptiness of our home and our bed. I’d spend hours smelling his pillow, fanning my hands across our sheets, feeling the fragments of him against my palm.

  Liberty told me it was time to wash the linens, but I’d refused.

  “I’m not ready,” I’d said.

  But even I knew the scent was fading, his memory slipping away as days turned into weeks and time forced me to forget. I tried to fight it. I did. I tried tugging at the moon and slinging my arms around the sun to make time stop. And still the sand slipped between my fingers. Each day a moment faded. Each star-spotted sky a reminder he was gone.