Falling for June: A Novel

by Ryan Winfield

  “It’s from To Have and Have Not,” he added. “It was the first film my father took me to see.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” I said.

  “I’ve got it in a box around here somewhere on VHS. You want to watch it?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Not only was he talking but he sounded like his old self again too. I turned the lamp on. He was sitting up in the bed.

  “Sure. We can watch it.”

  I couldn’t move the TV into the bedroom so I brought my air mattress into the living room. Then I carried him out and propped him up on it with pillows. He told me where to look for the VHS tape and I found it. By the look of the thing he’d watched it many times before.

  “Do we have any MoonPies left?” he asked.

  It was hard as hell not to get my hopes up. The pamphlets had done their job, though, and I knew this didn’t mean he was getting better. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the time with him either.

  We sat and ate MoonPies and drank RC Colas like a couple of kids staying up beyond their bedtime because their parents are away. We both had smiles on our faces and chocolate rings around our lips. When the movie was over I asked him if he wanted to see another. I guess I didn’t want the evening to end. But he didn’t. He said he had just wanted to see Lauren Bacall one last time. Plus, he was looking tired again.

  When I reached for the remote to rewind the tape he laid his hand on top of mine.

  “There’s something I’d like to tell you, Elliot. Something that might not be fair of me to say, but I need to say it. When June passed it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy because I was alone.”

  “You’re not alone now, Mr. Hadley.”

  “I know,” he replied, giving my hand a squeeze. “Thank you.” A few quiet moments passed. “I only have one regret in life, Elliot,” he said. “And that’s not bad for a man my age. I only ever kept one thing from June all the time we were married. I had hoped that maybe someday we’d adopt a child. I always wanted a son. I never told her though. I didn’t want her to think I’d missed out. This may sound silly, but I want you to know that my one regret is not a regret anymore.”

  His eyes were all wet and his chin was quivering like he might cry. He went on.

  “I’m not afraid to die, Elliot. I’ve got my new best friend to see me off and the love of my life waiting for me. That’s better than any man can hope for.”

  I was trying not to cry myself now. “I’m going to miss you. I really am.”

  “I’m going to miss you too, Elliot Champ. You just make me a promise that you won’t be alone. I won’t feel good about leaving otherwise.”

  I thought I understood, so I nodded.

  “I’m in no position to lay advice on you. But I can boil seventy-nine years of experience down into this: Find yourself someone worthy of your love, and love her with all you’ve got. It’s the only thing that’s worth a damn in this life. That and maybe love like this.” He smiled and squeezed my hand again.

  Now both of us were crying, but neither of us bothered to dry our eyes or pretend we weren’t. It was what it was. We lay back on the air mattress together for a while, just staring up at the ceiling, side by side. I think some people go their whole life without feeling what I felt lying there holding Mr. Hadley’s hand. It’s hard to even talk about how much I loved that man.

  Nothing lasts forever, and grace in the form of a midnight reprieve was no exception. His coughing returned and so did his pain. I carried him back to his bed sometime before sunup.

  The dresser drawer was closed still, but we both knew what lay there waiting. At least we had told each other how we felt.

  It was a clear, cold Thursday afternoon when he finally told me he was ready. I had just returned from my walk up to Echo Glen, and I guess I kind of knew because I had told June he’d be joining her soon. When I sat down to show him the video he squeezed my hand and pointed at the drawer.

  It was a heavy drawer to open. But it was harder watching him suffer. I took the bottle into June’s studio, loosened the lid, and set it on the windowsill beside the daybed that overlooked the creek and path up to Echo Glen. Then I went into the kitchen and poured a warm RC Cola into a glass and put it there beside the bottle. Each step, each movement, was a solemn one.

  When everything was ready I went back and unhooked his IV, picked him up, carried him into the studio, and laid him on the daybed. I made him comfortable with pillows and blankets from his room. Then I sat in the chair to wait. He was looking off out the window at the path, almost like he couldn’t wait to get up to Echo Glen and his wife again. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to stay in the room, but then, without taking his eyes from the window, he reached out and felt for me, his hand landing on my knee. We stayed like that for a long time.

  The sky grew darker, the creek and the path dissolving into the twilight. As the light faded from the room, the features of Mr. Hadley’s face faded from my view, and the last thing I saw was a remote kind of smile. I bowed my head and prayed.

  I’m not sure when in the night he passed. Exhaustion caught up to me, and the relief of his decision made it okay to finally rest. I fell asleep there in that chair—the first real restful sleep I’d had in a long time. When I woke there was just a hint of gray in the sky and Mr. Hadley was gone. His body was there on the daybed, but he was somewhere just beyond the second star to the right and straight on till morning, probably flying that old hang glider into the full moon with June.

  I felt like I should be sad but I wasn’t. As scary as it must have been for him, he had danced me through it like a pro. From the day his letter had arrived on my desk to this moment right now. I didn’t notice until I stood up and stretched my legs that the bottle still stood on the windowsill, untouched. He had timed it perfectly, the sly old dodger. He’d set the stage but in the end it was June who had called him home.

  Now all there was left to do was make a call of my own so that I didn’t feel alone. I’d honor my last promise. That and find his farewell binder. I was sure everything I might need was in there. After all, he used to be an accountant, you know.

  37

  I WAS THE ONLY one left on the hill as the grave was filled in. But I wasn’t alone. Estrella was not far off, standing between her mother and father beside the waterfall, their hands linked as they watched for signs of rain in the cloudy sky above the glen.

  They had come to pay their respects, but mostly I think to support me, since they knew it would be hard to say good-bye to Mr. Hadley. And I suppose it was in a way, although I felt as though we had already said all there was to say.

  As Mr. Thorpe’s son piled on the last shovelful of dirt and packed it down, I was not so much sad as I was relieved that his long suffering was over and that he and June could now lie side by side forever in peace. I thought about that day in his story when he had come up here with June, the day she told him that if he shouted a wish at the falls that wish would come true. And his wish had. I was looking at the proof.

  Then, when a drop of rain landed on the fresh mound of earth, I thought about the afternoon Mr. Hadley and I had come up here in the pouring rain. I thought about sitting right here where I’d just put him in the ground, beneath that huge umbrella, and listening to him tell me about the beauty of each raindrop and the stories they held. He said everything was a cycle, and he said everything had an echo. And I know now that he was right about that too, because his and June’s love story would forever echo in my heart.

  Mr. Hadley had not wanted a stone, and it was his only wish that I didn’t follow. It was a simple slab of marble picked from a local quarry. The mason had inscribed it for me on site.

  HERE RESTS

  DAVID JOSEPH HADLEY

  JANUARY 22, 1935–NOVEMBER 14, 2014

  WHOSE WISH WAS ANSWERED HERE IN ECHO GLEN, WHERE HE RESTS NOW FOREVER BESIDE HIS BELOVED WIFE, WHO TAUGHT HIM
TO LET GO OF HIS FEAR AND FALL INTO HIS LIFE

  We all ran together down the path toward the bridge that led to the house. None of us had thought to bring an umbrella, and the rain had come all at once, almost as if on cue to chase us away so that David and June could be alone at last.

  We were soaked by the time we reached the house. I built up a fire in the stove and we sat in front of it to dry off and had tea while I told Estrella’s parents funny stories about June and Mr. Hadley. Her father was quiet but very nice. I liked him. It felt almost like we were a family, which scared me a little.

  Estrella wanted to stay behind with me, but I couldn’t be sure when I would be going home. I had lots of odds and ends at the house to take care of yet. I saw them off in the driveway.

  “I know you have a lot on your plate right now,” Estrella said after our third hug good-bye. “But I’d love to see you. You know, away from all this. Maybe call me when you get settled back in your Seattle place?”

  I told her that I would, and I meant it too. I just had no way of knowing at the time that when I saw her next it would be to say good-bye one last time.

  I watched them drive away, feeling much the same way as I imagined Mr. Hadley must have felt when he’d stood on this porch to watch me go. And then I was just as completely alone as he had been too, there in the very center of the universe.

  He had been an accountant to the very end, and every one of his accounts was current if not already closed. Except the mortgage, of course, but we had already settled that, and the property now belonged to the bank. There wasn’t much money left, but what there was he had left to me. But there was one thing about which he had not told me the entire truth.

  His life insurance policy was not valued at the $25,000 he had offered me. It was for four times that amount and I was the sole beneficiary. I used some of it to set up the annuity for the private cemetery, filing for the license on behalf of the Echo Glen Corporation, of which I was now the owner, but that still left me more than enough to get my dream condo in Miami with big bucks to spare. Still, I wasn’t planning on going through with it until the call came in.

  I’ve told you I’ve never been a big believer in signs, but it was hard to deny the coincidence of finally checking my voice mail only to find several messages from my Realtor in Miami asking if I’d gotten the e-mails he’d sent. He’d found the perfect place, and it just happened to be in a building I’d had my eye on. It wasn’t a penthouse, sure—there was no way I had the scratch for that, even with Mr. Hadley’s gift—but it was a midfloor unit overlooking the pool with a peekaboo view of the baby-blue Atlantic.

  I sat looking at the photo in the e-mail for an hour before I decided to call him up. He answered right away.

  “Damn, Elliot, where’ve you been? You just fell off the face of the earth on me, dude. Left me twisting in the tropical winds, my man.”

  I told him I’d had some personal business to attend to.

  “Listen, Elliot, this is the deal of a lifetime. Not like those others I sent. The bank has foreclosed, the place is vacant, and the best part is they’ll let you do a lease option. That means you can get yourself set up over here, settle in, and close when you’ve saved up the last of your dough.”

  I didn’t tell him I had the money to buy it right now.

  “I don’t know, Kevin,” I said. “I’m reconsidering Miami. Plus, I’m kind of tired of tossing people out of their homes.”

  “Reconsidering? Where are you right now?”

  “I’m out in Darrington, on a ranch wrapping up some family business.”

  “Shit. Okay, listen. I want you to walk to the window and tell me what the weather’s like right now.”

  I walked to the kitchen window and looked out. “It’s raining. But not hard.”

  “Not hard. Ha! You want to know what I’m looking at out my window right now? Palm trees and blue skies. Oh, and women in bikinis Rollerblading by. How’s seventy-nine degrees sound next to your raining but not hard? Think about it. This place won’t last long.”

  I told him I would and hung up the phone. I sat there for another hour with Estrella’s number on my screen and my finger on the Call button. I almost pressed it a hundred times.

  I was watching from the porch when the van pulled up the drive and parked. The man who got out wore the clinic uniform. He was very friendly. I wheeled June’s chair down the ramp and helped him load it into the van.

  “It’s nice of you to donate this,” the man said. “It will be put to very good use.”

  “It’s not from me. I’m just carrying out my best friend’s last wishes. They said on the phone you might be able to return the IV and oxygen machine as well. They’re just inside.”

  When the van left, the house was nice and clean. I had tossed out all the food and built up a bonfire the night before and burned all the old miscellaneous personal papers I had found. I made several trips to the dump and some to the Goodwill. No one ever thinks about what happens to their toothbrush or their slippers after they’re gone. I had taken the photo album and some other special things back to my place, which I would probably also be cleaning out soon. Only the kitchenware and furniture and June’s paintings remained.

  I was in the living room watching the tail on the old cat clock sweep back and forth, waiting for it to meow, when the knock came on the door. It was my second conversation with a Realtor in as many days. I invited him in as if it were my place, which seems kind of strange now that I think about it since the place kind of belonged to him.

  “Wow,” he said, glancing around, “looks like whoever ends up buying this place is going to be happy to get it fully furnished or pissed that they have to get rid of all this stuff.”

  “Do you think the bank will auction it?” I asked.

  “I doubt it,” he said, looking at the papers he had brought along for his inspection. “The place is pretty run-down and it isn’t a hot market for houses on undividable acreage right now. Horses are out of style, I guess. They’ll probably list it through us. That’s what they usually do.”

  He walked around writing things down on his sheet.

  “They told me someone had died,” he said nonchalantly. “Looks like we’ll need to get a glass guy out here to fix that window.”

  “Could you do me a favor?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “I appreciate you cleaning it up and all. What can I do for you?”

  I laid my hand on the old carousel rooster in front of the window bay. “If I leave you my number will you call me if whoever buys the place doesn’t want this?”

  He looked at it with a blank expression, almost as if he were wondering who would want the old thing. “You can take it now if you want to,” he said. “All of this is technically yours until you hand me the keys and we change the locks.”

  “I know. But it’s way too big to fit in my car.”

  “They rent trucks down at Olson’s.”

  “The truth is I might be moving to Miami soon.”

  “Well, hell,” he said, “I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard that we put a man on the moon. I’m sure we can ship it there.”

  I looked at Mr. Hadley’s father’s rooster, remembering his song-and-dance routine when I had first arrived.

  “No,” I said. “It belongs here. Just call me if the buyers don’t want to keep it.”

  He looked at it again and shrugged. “I wouldn’t go too far from the phone.”

  As much as she loved Dilettante’s Viennese hot cocoa, I noticed she hadn’t touched hers the entire time I’d been talking. Then again, I hadn’t touched mine either. I guess it was a hard conversation for both of us to have.

  “Could you have picked a place any farther from here?”

  “It’s not like I’m leaving the country,” I said.

  “Are you sure you’re not just running away?” she asked.
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  “Running away? This has been my dream since I was a boy, Estrella. Since way back in Belfair.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Are you psychoanalyzing me now?” I asked.

  “No, I’m just pointing out the obvious. Are you going to tell me that this whole thing with Mr. Hadley didn’t dredge up any feelings about your own dad?”

  Why’d she have to be so damn smart? It just made this all that much harder on me. “Maybe there’s a little truth to that,” I admitted. “I don’t know. But I have to go, Estrella. When I left Belfair all those years ago I pretty much had the clothes on my back, sixty-four bucks, and that condo clipping that I clung to like hope.”

  “Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  I know she meant it, but she still said it with a little heat.

  “Maybe you can come visit. You know, fly out. I should be able to make good money out there. I could spring for tickets.”

  “Come on, Elliot. That’s not happening.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m doubling down on my credits in the spring. Then once I graduate I’ll be looking for a real job, not slinging cocktails at Finnegans. And besides, this is where I plan to build my life. This is where my family is. Not Miami.”

  “I could visit here then.”

  Now she really raised her eyebrow. “Let’s just call this what it really is, Elliot. We’re going our separate ways.”

  “Well, you sure seem over it already.”

  “No, I’m not. This sucks for me, Elliot. I called to invite you to my family’s house for Thanksgiving; I didn’t expect you to dump me. I really like you.”

  She looked off out the window for a minute, biting her lip like she did. Then she went on.

  “You wanna know something? When you started coming into Finnegans I was really attracted to you. But I didn’t think you were the kind of guy I could ever end up with long-term. That’s what was so funny when you told me you only dated girls you didn’t like. Because I knew what you meant. I’d been hoping you’d ask me out so we could maybe have a little fling.”