by Tara Sivec
It’s not unusual for us to get guests once the season is over. Some people don’t like the crowds and prefer to be on the island when it’s quiet and peaceful, but I checked the schedule this morning and we don’t have any new guests coming until next week.
I get up from the computer and move around the desk to greet them.
“Hi, my name’s Lucy, welcome to Butler House,” I tell them with a smile, holding my hand out for each of them.
“Thank you,” the woman tells me. “This place is absolutely beautiful. I’m so sorry, but we don’t have a reservation. Will that be a problem?”
We only have one other couple staying here at the moment and they are checking out tomorrow.
“It’s definitely not a problem,” I tell them as I gesture towards the front desk and head back around it, pulling up the registration page on my computer. “How long will you be staying?”
They share a look before the man rests his elbows on top of the desk and smiles at me. “This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment vacation. Is there any way we can pay for a week and then play it by ear after that?”
I nod, typing that information into the computer. “That’s no problem at all. Each of our rooms has a different lighthouse theme and a view of the ocean. We serve breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and even though it’s off-season, all of the businesses in town will be keeping their summer hours for a few more weeks.”
I hand them a brochure with a list of all the attractions on Main Street as well as the ferry schedule to and from the island.
“You probably saw the horrible red shutters we’ve started putting up on the front of the inn, sorry about that eyesore,” I tell them with a smile. “We’re getting into hurricane season, so we like to get a head start on making sure everything is ready, just in case.”
“I saw on the news there were a few tropical storms brewing in the Gulf. Do you guys get many hurricanes here?” the man asks as I print out his registration information and slide it across the desk with a pen for him to fill out.
“We actually haven’t had an official one blow through here for about twenty-one years. Mostly we just get a few bad storms,” I explain.
I can barely remember the hurricane that hit the island when I was nine years old. I was here visiting my grandparents that summer and all I remember was racing around, helping them put up the storm shutters and hiding out in the library with a bunch of candles lit all over the place after we lost electricity. I was too young to remember much else, but from what I’ve heard from people in town since then, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been and the island didn’t get too much damage, thank God.
The gentleman finishes filling out the paperwork and hands it back to me. I grab one of the room keys and slide it over to them. Unlike large hotel chains, Butler House uses old-fashioned skeleton keys for each of the rooms. Attached to each key with a ribbon is a small card welcoming the guest to the inn along with the name of the room they’re staying in.
“You’ll be staying in the Cape Hatteras room,” I tell them. “If you go through these doors you’ll see a central staircase. It’s right at the top, the fifth door down. If you’d like to leave your suitcases here, I’ll have them brought up in just a few minutes.”
I look down at their form and quickly memorize their names.
“I hope you enjoy your stay at Butler House, Mr. and Mrs. Michelson,” I tell them with a smile.
Mr. Michelson returns it and nods at me, wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “Please, call us Seth and Mary Beth.”
Chapter 39
Lucy
Present Day
Seth and his wife, Mary Beth, have been here for two days and, while I enjoy talking to my guests and getting to know them, Seth has gone a little overboard with the personal questions. Whenever I try to ask him about his life, he turns things around and asks me about mine. I don’t know what it is about him. Maybe his age, his kind face, his understanding eyes? Whatever it is, I’ve found myself pouring my heart out to him on more than one occasion.
Mary Beth went into town to do some shopping and Seth offered to help me fold towels at the dining room table. I refused his help repeatedly, telling him there was no way I would let a guest lift a finger to help with laundry, but he’s a persistent old man. He followed me into the dining room, sat down at the table and started folding. He ignored me when I tried giving him a bunch of suggestions of other things he could do on the island, just smiling up at me and continuing to fold until I had no choice but to sit down and let him help.
“So, what do you do for a living, Seth? Aside from push your way into doing manual labor when you should be relaxing?” I tease him as I grab a towel out of the laundry basket and shake it out.
Seth chuckles, resting a folded towel on top of the pile he’s already made on the table. “Well, I’ve been retired for a few years now, so I spend my spare time volunteering as a counselor.”
I smile to myself, not really shocked by this admission. Within just a few hours of meeting Seth, we were drinking coffee and I was spilling my guts to him. He’s friendly and easy to talk to and I can definitely see him counseling people.
“At the VA Hospital on the mainland,” he adds, not meeting my eyes when I stop what I’m doing and stare at him.
Well, isn’t that just a strange coincidence? A counselor who volunteers at the same hospital where Fisher spent the last year suddenly shows up at the inn when Fisher and I are having problems?
I clear my throat in irritation and Seth finally stops folding to look at me.
“I know, I should have said something when we first checked in, but I didn’t want to make you nervous,” he tells me with a soft smile.
“Definitely something you should have mentioned before I talked your ear off,” I tell him in annoyance, thinking about all the things I told him about my relationship problems with Fisher. “So, you worked with Fisher I assume?”
He nods, folding his hands in his lap. “I did. I was the only one he would work with for quite a while. Probably because I can be just as stubborn and pig-headed as he can.”
Seth laughs, but I don’t find anything about this funny, so I just cross my arms angrily. He leans forward and pats my arm.
“Now, now, don’t be cross with me, or with Fisher. He has no idea I’m here. He called the other day wanting some advice and I decided it was time to take him up on his offer to see the island,” he explains. “And to meet the woman he talked my ear off about every day for a year.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat. This man knows everything about Fisher and probably myself, as well. He knows what Fisher went through the year that he was away from me and I’m sure Fisher spoke to him about a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t now about. Personal things, confidential things. Things I’m suddenly dying to know about, but I don’t feel right asking. If Fisher wanted me to know what he discussed with his counselor, he would have told me himself.
“Isn’t there some sort of doctor/client confidentiality rule you’re breaking by being here with me right now?” I ask.
Seth laughs and shakes his head. “I’m not a doctor, I’m just an old war vet myself who has nothing better to do with his time than spend my days at the VA trying to help men who were just like me.”
I nod in understanding, but I still don’t feel right talking to him about Fisher without Fisher knowing and I tell him that.
“I don’t think Fisher will be very happy knowing that you’re here, divulging personal information about him.”
Seth shrugs. “I’m sure he’s going to be a little pissed off that I’ve been here for a few days and didn’t tell him I was coming, but I plan on giving him a call later tonight and getting together with him. I wanted to spend some time alone with you before I did that. Fisher has always known that I’d want to speak to you at some point and he’s made it perfectly clear that I’m free to talk to you about anything we discussed during his stay at the hospital. He doesn’t want there
to be any secrets between the two of you, but some things, well, they’re just a little hard for him to talk about on his own.”
I’m already well aware of that fact. The times we’ve talked over the last few months about what he experienced overseas were very difficult for him. He’d get choked up talking about friends he lost, he’d have to stop and take a few calming breaths when he told me about scary situations and the dreams that still haunted him to this day. I’m suddenly back to feeling horrible about pushing him away over a couple of stupid comments from a woman I despise. All of the pain he suffered, all of the tragedy he lived through and the choices he had to make to protect the freedom of people back here at home who have no idea what those men and women are living through day in and day out makes my issues and my insecurities feel small and pathetic.
“I’m not going to bore you with my opinions about Fisher’s character or how far I think he’s come since I met the ornery little shit at the hospital,” Seth explains with a smile, pulling a thick manila folder out from under the pile of towels that I didn’t even see him place there. “I think it would just be better for you to read it in his own words.”
Seth passes the folder over to me, pushing it into my hand with a smile when I reach for it tentatively. “It’s okay, it won’t bite you. When Fisher and I first started talking, he told me that he used to keep a journal when he was younger. I suggested he start doing that again. There were things that he was having a hard time remembering and I knew writing them down might help. He wanted to remember everything he’d done, even though he knew it would be hard. He understood that the only way for him to get better would be for him to relive every moment of his breakdown.”
Placing the folder in my lap, I run my palms over top of it. I’ve read his journal pages from when we were younger, and his words and the way he saw me and our relationship were nothing short of beautiful. I’m scared to death that what’s in this folder will cut me in half.
Seth gets up from the chair, resting his hand on my shoulder as he walks by. “To get to the good, sometimes you have to live through the bad.”
He walks out of the room, leaving me alone. Taking a deep breath, I hug the folder to my chest and get up from the table, moving into the library to curl up in a chair in the corner, next to the fireplace. With a shaking hand, I open the folder and pull out the first page, filled with Fisher’s neat, block handwriting.
I start to read and realize it’s about the day he came home from the last deployment and we had sex in the kitchen. We’ve already talked a little bit about how disappointed he was in himself for the way he behaved with me, and I did my best to convince him that he did nothing wrong. Seeing how he felt tortured that night makes me press my hand to my chest to stop the ache. He watched me sleep and traced his fingers over the bruises he’d left on my hips, crying with hate and anger at himself. He started to have a panic attack, thinking he’d hurt me and that I’d hate him and when he went to the bathroom, he had a horrible flashback.
My hand moves to press against my lips and I cry silent tears as I read what was going through his broken mind on a night when I went to sleep so happy and fulfilled and woke up the next morning with a husband who wouldn’t look at me or touch me.
I flip the page and move to the next journal entry, the day I came home to find him packing my things and ordering me out of our house. It’s like reading a fictional thriller as he talks about hearing the explosion of bombs and creeping through the house looking for an enemy that wasn’t there. My cracked heart breaks in half as I read about how he crawled through our bedroom, believing with everything inside of him that he was back in the desert, fighting for his life. I cry harder when I read that I startled him when I came home and he reached for a gun that wasn’t attached to his hip. He was so afraid he would hurt me, so afraid he would never be able to separate reality from his flashbacks, that he didn’t know what else to do other than get me away from him where I’d be safe.
I read the words he said to me in anger, as well as the words he chanted in his head the entire time he was shouting at me, and I’m crying so hard I can barely see the page by the time I’m done.
“We’re done, this is over. I’m packing your shit and you’re leaving.”
I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“Everything is fucked up, don’t you get that? It’s ruined, all of it is ruined and you need to fucking leave.”
I’m so sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“You need to get a life.”
I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“All those sad, pathetic letters.”
I’m lying, don’t believe me, please don’t believe me. I loved your letters, I kept them all and I cherish every one of them.
“I prefer women with a little more experience.”
I don’t mean it. I don’t mean any of it. Knowing I’m the only man who has ever been inside of you makes me feel like a fucking king and the luckiest man alive. I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“It doesn’t get better when I come home to you. I hate this life.”
I’m lying! Every word is a lie. I love our life and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. I love you, I love you, I love you.
I quickly turn the page over, unable to see those words anymore through my tears, unable to stand the pain he must have been going through when he said them. The next page doesn’t get any easier. It’s later that night at Barney’s. The reason why I’ve been avoiding him the last week, and the reason why I can’t let go of my own hurt and anger.
I’ve never known the exact order of events from that night. I knew he got drunk at Barney’s, I knew that he thought I was Melanie, I knew he went on a rampage through the town and I knew Bobby knocked him out and dragged him to the ferry, but I never knew exactly how it all happened. Now I do, and it makes my stomach cramp and my chest physically ache. I read exactly what he was thinking and feeling and hoping for and I want to die from the pain in my heart.
Maybe it’s Lucy. Maybe she ignored everything I said to her and came back to me. I know it’s wrong and she shouldn’t be here, but I just need her right now. I can see her one more time and then I’ll leave and I’ll walk away.
She doesn’t feel the same and she doesn’t smell the same, but none of that matters. Her legs straddle my thighs and I clutch onto her ass, pulling her closer so she doesn’t change her mind and walk away.
I don’t like her voice. It’s not the same soft, sweet cadence that always makes my ears tingle and my heart beat fast. It’s probably because my heart died and there’s nothing inside my chest but a shriveled up, useless organ. This voice is shrill and annoying. Lucy is changing right before me, but I don’t care. It’s my fault, anyway. It’s my fault she’s different and doesn’t feel the same or smell the same. I changed her, I hurt her…all my fault.
She doesn’t taste the same and I hate it. I want my Lucy, not this drunken, morphed version of her.
I hear angry shouts and the shuffling of feet and the Lucy on my lap speaks again and it makes me wince. I want to tell her to stop talking like that. Stop talking in a different voice, stop smelling different, stop feeling different…just stop it. Be MY Lucy. I need MY Lucy.
I’m not a hero, I’m not a good man, I’m not a good husband…I am none of those things and they need to see that.
The papers and the folder flutter to the floor as I lean forward, wrapping my arms around my waist to try and hold myself together. I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe, each ragged breath I take in making my chest hurt and each tear that falls making my eyes burn. He loved me so much and, even during his darkest time, he never lost sight of that. I let a few words from a woman who means NOTHING to me make me lose my faith in him. I’m such a coward and a fool. I had the proof of his love right in front of me this entire time and I refused to believe it. When you’ve been hurt once, it’s so hard to let go and not be afraid you won’t be hurt again. I should h
ave trusted him, I should have believed him and I should have taken the love he gave me, wrapped it in my arms and never let it go.
I think about the journal pages he gave me himself, his memories of when I tutored him in Chemistry and how he flirted with me and only had eyes for me and became the sweet, strong amazing man that I fell in love with.
The day he proposed and how nervous he was, how scared he was of leaving me and how I gave him something to fight for, live for and come back home for.
Our wedding day and the crash of glasses in his parents’ home that caused him to panic, sending him running to find me and breaking tradition by seeing me in my gown before the ceremony. How he couldn’t calm down until he saw me, held me and told me he loved me and how we promised to renew our vows at the lighthouse on the fifteenth anniversary of when we started dating.
The fifteenth anniversary that is only a few weeks from now.
A howling wind outside rattles the windows, making me hop up from the chair and quickly wipe the tears from my eyes. The sky that was slightly overcast this morning has now turned pitch black with swirling, angry clouds. The trees that line the street in front of the inn are flopping from side to side with the force of the wind.
I quickly grab the folder and the papers from the floor and race out of the room, turning on the small television set on the counter in the kitchen, listening to the newscaster report on the quickly changing weather.
“Tropical Storm Vera has made an unexpected turn and is now bearing down on the coast of South Carolina. With damaging winds measuring up to forty miles per hour in some places, we’re asking everyone in our viewing area to take precautions and begin hurricane preparations. While this storm hasn’t yet been upgraded to a hurricane, it’s still a good idea to be safe. We’ll keep you posted on Vera, so stay tuned.”
Chapter 40
Lucy
Present Day
The lights flicker as I try to call Fisher for the fifth time, still with no answer on his cell phone or at Trip’s house. I’ve tried Bobby and Ellie’s cell phones, as well, and neither of them are picking up, either. I finish gathering the wireless LED lights, checking the batteries as I place them around the first floor of the inn while making sure Seth and Mary Beth know to stay away from the windows and in a central part of the house, just to be safe. I hear the front door fly open and slam shut with the force of the wind and I race out of the living room, hoping it’s Fisher.