by Susan Wiggs
Connor had tried to get more details but had been told no covert actions or activities would be discussed. No bodies would ever be brought home. There was nothing to mourn but the memories.
“He’s not coming back after all,” she told Charlie, amazed she could get the words out.
“When is after all?”
“I mean he’s never coming back. Do you know what ‘never’ means?”
“When is never?”
“Look, I need you to know. We’re not going to see Julian again. That’s why I’m sad.”
“No more Daddy-boy?”
“That’s right. No more Daddy-boy.”
His face darkened. “I want him. I want to see him.”
“Ah, baby.” Tears boiled up again, searing her face. “We all want that, but we can’t.”
“Why can’t we?”
“Because he’s dead.” It ripped at her heart to say it aloud.
“Like a dead bug?” He had found some desiccated bugs on his windowsill, only this morning. This morning, when she’d awakened full of excitement about the dress fitting, feeling one step closer to being Julian’s bride.
“Um…” Oh, God. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Kind of like that.”
He offered her an odd little smile. “That’s silly.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“He’s going to jump off the dock with me.”
“You’ll have to jump with someone else.”
“I want to jump with Daddy-boy.”
So do I, she thought. So do I.
She dreamed of Julian every night, so that all she wanted to do was sleep. She couldn’t wait for bedtime because that was when she got to see him again, in her dreams. Her doctor and military family support group, her friends and family were all there for her, but mostly she wanted—needed—to retreat into the shadow world of sleep, where Julian was alive and vibrant, laughing and touching her, whispering secrets into her ear. Waking up was torture, because it forced her to face the bleak reality of a future without Julian.
She dragged herself through each day, struggling to find a smile or soft word for the sake of Charlie. If not for her son, she would have drowned in grief; at least he helped her tread water. People said the pain would fade, that she would find the joy in life again one day, but she couldn’t imagine how to do that. She hadn’t had enough time with Julian. The dreams meant they weren’t done with their relationship. They would never be done, because love didn’t die, did it? It couldn’t be turned off like a light switch. Yet without Julian, she didn’t know what to do with that love, so it froze into one huge ball of pain that wouldn’t let her go.
Lieutenant Tanesha Sayers came to Daisy’s house with a letter from Julian. Sayers talked about being in ROTC with him. Daisy felt a wild surge of envy. Lieutenant Sayers had spent more time with Julian than Daisy had. Yet she was grateful for every crumb she could learn about Julian, and so she listened and wept.
“I’ll tell you something you already know,” Sayers said as she was leaving. “He was the best of all of us. I’m…sorry, I’m destroyed. We all are.”
After Sayers left, Daisy opened the letter with shaking hands.
My beautiful, beautiful Daisy, I’m sorry you’re reading this. It feels surreal to be writing these words, because it means I’m gone. How does somebody who’s gone talk to somebody who’s still around? I’m going to make this short because it’s pretty pointless. Of course, I’m coming back to you. However, they’re making us do all this stuff. It’s part of the drill. So here goes, the only true thing I can think of in all the chaos of getting ready to leave—Love never dies. I know, because of my dad. Even though he passed away, he is still with me, he still loves me. I carry him in my heart, every day. And if you’re reading this, know that I’m with you. I always will be. You can go ahead with your life and do great things. Love other people, make art, watch Charlie grow, laugh and think of me—but not too much. Don’t let this make you sad every day. Be happy for the time we had. Take care. I will always love you, wherever I am, Julian.
“Mom! Help, Mom!”
Charlie’s cry from the backyard startled Daisy into action. Without really thinking about it, she jumped up from the sofa, where she’d been sitting, staring at nothing, and raced out back to find her little boy.
“I’m stuck,” he called from the gnarled apple tree against the back fence. “I can’t get down.”
“Oh, Charlie. What are you doing up there? You could break your neck.” She bit her lip, regretting the choice of words.
“I climbed up all by myself.”
“Then you can climb down.” She positioned herself under him. “Slide your foot until you feel that branch.”
“I can’t see it. I can’t look down.”
“Just slide your foot, and you’ll feel it. Trust me, I won’t steer you wrong. Why did you climb up so high, anyway?”
“Grammy Jane said Daddy-boy’s in heaven,” Charlie explained as she carefully guided him back to earth, branch by branch. “I wanted to get a closer look.”
The simple, childlike statement brought a fresh wave of grief sweeping over her, and she staggered a little. “I don’t think it works that way, kiddo.”
“How does it work?”
“I don’t know,” she said, unable to pretty it up for him. “I have no idea, because this is all so new. Tell you what, maybe we’ll help each other figure out how to be closer to Julian.”
When she could finally reach Charlie, she grabbed him around the waist and lowered him to the ground. “Oof, you’re getting so big.” She sank down to the grass and kept her arms around his warm, leaf-scented form. She held on tight because she was shaking, clinging to her son as if he was the one thing keeping her anchored to earth.
A hand-lettered cardboard sign hung on the doorknob of the community center: Grief Group. Daisy stared at it for a moment, then resolutely headed inside, awkwardly joining a dozen or so attendees her grandparents’ age. They gave her tea and cookies and a stick-on name tag, and she bit her tongue to keep from saying, “I’m in the wrong place.”
As she turned to gaze yearningly at the exit door, she spotted Blythe, the girl who had been widowed at the age of nineteen. Blythe took one look at Daisy and drew her into a hug. “I remember you from the family meeting—last spring, wasn’t it? We were all so happy and excited.”
Daisy nodded, then managed to stumble through an explanation.
“I can’t tell you any words you haven’t already heard,” Blythe said. “Just know that you’ll get through this. It doesn’t seem like you ever will, but things will get better. You won’t ever be the same as you were when he was alive, but…you’ll be okay. Life will be good again, I promise. I still have my moments, but I survived, and so will you.”
“I thought you moved on and fell in love again,” Daisy said. She tried to imagine doing that. Impossible. Julian was so deeply embedded in her heart, there was no room for anything else.
“True,” Blythe said, “I am in love again, but a part of me will always grieve for my first husband. You never really get over a loss like that. You have to live your life and find the joy.”
“I have no idea how to start.” Daisy tried to find a shred of inner resolution. “For my son’s sake, I have to try.”
“It won’t happen overnight. Here’s a bit of unsolicited advice. Getting over this kind of blow is not like having a flesh wound where you stick on a Band-Aid and wait for it to scab over. It’s more like you were pulled mangled from a wreck. It’s going to take hard work, therapy, medication, whatever works to get you back to yourself. Mostly, it will take time. Only time.”
On the morning of the memorial service, Daisy stood in front of her closet, completely catatonic at the idea of choosing something to wear.
“Hey,” said Sonnet, who had come up from the city for the service. “Can I help with something?”
“What the hell do you wear to bury an empty coffin?” Daisy asked dully.
&nb
sp; “Anything you damn well please.”
“You’re supposed to wear black for a funeral, right? I’ve got plenty of black…”
“Here.” Sonnet grabbed the yellow-and-white sundress Daisy had worn at Julian’s commissioning ceremony. “I know it’s out of season, but wear this.”
“To a memorial?” She swallowed hard. He’d loved that dress. She could still picture the expression that had lit his face when he’d seen her in it. The memory lashed across her heart. “All right. But Sonnet, I’m a wreck. I’m going to fall apart.”
“So fall apart. People will understand.”
“Charlie?”
“It won’t mess with his head to see you fall apart…so long as he sees you heal.”
“That’s just it. I won’t. I can’t ever get past this.”
“It seems like that now. I won’t pretend I know what you’re going through, but you’re strong, Daisy. You’re the strongest person I know. Look what you’ve done with yourself so far. You had a kid, launched a career, made a life for yourself. You can do this. You need to do this.”
“I’m leaning on Charlie too much,” she fretted. “It’s terrible of me to be so emotionally dependent on my little boy. But honestly, he’s the only reason I take the next breath of air. If not for Charlie, I wouldn’t bother.”
Tears sparkled in Sonnet’s eyes. “Aw, Daisy. Do us all a favor and keep breathing, okay?”
A police escort drove in front of the shiny black hearse, two cars ahead of Daisy. She was shocked to see the entire main street of Avalon lined with citizens holding flags, most of them strangers to her but all of them showing an attitude of deep respect. Although she hadn’t brought her camera, she couldn’t stop herself from framing the scene with a photographer’s eye, seeing everything in heartbreaking detail. There were old men in lawn chairs, wearing veteran’s medals. Teenagers held out cell phones to take photos. A clutch of bikers, helmets held under their arms, watched from the roadside. A mother held her toddler on top of a newspaper vending box, pointing out the flags on the hearse. Shopkeepers stood in front of their stores, and tourists spontaneously stopped and stood still. Many put their hands to their hearts as the cortege passed. The flags at the library and town hall flew at half mast.
“It’s like a parade,” Charlie said, pressing his hands to the window.
“Kind of,” Sonnet agreed. She was driving and Daisy sat in the passenger seat, trying not to claw her way out of the car, burst past the crowd and escape.
“It’s really sad,” Charlie added. “I’m sad.”
“We all are. The whole town is. They’re showing respect for Julian, because he was brave and good.” Sonnet’s voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “I need a root beer barrel. You want a root beer barrel, Charlie?”
Daisy passed out the candies, taking one for herself, though she could hardly swallow past the lump in her throat. She loved the people of Avalon for the gesture. At the same time, she wanted to scream at them—What are you crying about? You didn’t know him….
“Look, there’s where Dad works,” Charlie said. “And there’s Dad. Hi, Dad!”
Logan’s business was located next door to the radio station. The display window was painted with the slogan, O’Donnell Insurance Agency—You’re Safe With Us. Logan stood in the doorway of the building. He didn’t seem to see Charlie, waving from the backseat of the car. Logan’s gaze was fixed on the hearse. He held his Yankees cap to his chest, and his expression was completely unreadable. Daisy had no idea how the news had affected him. He and Julian had been rivals, which was ridiculous, since there was no competition for her heart. She was loyal to Logan, who had been nothing but good to her and Charlie. But her heart had always been with Julian.
Mourners packed the Heart of the Mountains Church. Julian’s mother, his aunt, uncle and cousin Remy were there. Remy wept openly, his huge size magnifying each shuddering sob. “He shouldn’t have died,” said Julian’s cousin as everyone filed in. “I gave him a kit to survive, with matches and a compass. He shouldn’t have died.”
Julian’s mother looked beautiful, perfectly dressed in a black sheath and veiled hat. From what Julian had told Daisy of his upbringing, she hadn’t exactly been the model parent, but behind the veil, new lines etched her face.
Daisy sat one row from the front. She didn’t really look around, simply sat frozen, trying not to shatter into a million tiny pieces on the floor. The pallbearers, perfectly uniformed and achingly somber, brought in the flag-draped coffin. All she could think about was that it was empty. There was no part of Julian left in the world.
She closed her ears to the music because every note chipped away at her heart. A poem was read—“Breathe soft, Ye winds, Ye waves in silence rest.” She shut her eyes, trying not to picture the deep waters that had taken Julian away, trying not to wish she could somehow follow him. She cast a desperate glance at Charlie, in Sonnet’s lap. He was her anchor, the one thing keeping her here.
“In our unit, we called him Jughead,” said Lt. Tanesha Sayers, her voice shaking with emotion. “He was completely fearless and completely loyal. Though we’ll never know what his last moments were like, we know he faced them with the same brave dignity with which he lived his life. Julian Gastineaux was an officer and a gentleman, with a warrior’s spirit that will never die.”
At the cemetery, the ceremony opened with the piercing strains of Taps. An officer in a fine beret, braids looping his shoulders, supervised the folding of the flag. It was handed over to Julian’s mother, who hugged the officer and then stepped back, mascara-colored tears tracking down her face, triangular bundle clutched to her chest.
Daisy wanted that flag with a fierce, almost angry desire, but it was not hers to take. She hadn’t been his wife. She wasn’t his widow. There were no special provisions for a fiancée left behind. Except he had loved her with the same unwavering intensity with which she loved him. How could he be dead when she still loved him so much? How could he be dead?
Goodbye, she silently told him, her thumb worrying the band of her engagement ring. Goodbye. But it didn’t feel like goodbye at all. It felt like falling down a deep well, into dark nothingness.
She grasped at Charlie again, reaching out to her son, her lifeline.
Part Two
Twelve
When the bride stepped in a pile of dog shit, Daisy was tempted to capture her expression of horror and disgust, freezing the moment for all eternity. Blair Walker was that kind of bride, difficult from day one. Daisy resisted the urge to snap a shot, however. Everybody had their moments.
“Get it off,” Blair wailed, and with a kick, sent the shoe flying toward the groom’s grandmother. “Get it off now.”
Some had more of those moments than others.
Daisy rummaged in her bag, producing a container of baby wipes. She handed it off to the wedding planner’s assistant. “I’ll let you do the honors.”
“Lucky me.”
A few moments later, Daisy snapped the bride and groom in the midst of an affectionate hug. Except it wasn’t a hug, it was a death grip. And Blair was not whispering sweet nothings into his ear; she was hissing a threat of dismemberment if he so much as looked at bridesmaid number two again.
The photo would show a sweet moment for the bridal couple, and no one would realize it was an illusion.
Daisy excelled at creating illusions. For her, it was a survival skill. She needed, so desperately, to cultivate the illusion that life was good, and all the effort of living worthwhile. If she didn’t convince herself of that, she’d curl into a fetal position and never come out.
The weather was unseasonably warm for April. The winter snows had melted early this year, emphasizing the inexorable passage of the seasons. Somehow the holidays had slipped by, barely noticed. She’d struggled to make it a joyous time for Charlie, but inside she was hollow, unable to escape the thought that she should have been married by then, a new bride….
“What a nightmare, eh?” mutte
red Zach, approaching her with video camera in hand. “I interviewed the best man, but it’s so full of profanity I’ll have to overdub with music.”
“You’ll figure out a way to edit it so everything sounds fine.”
“One of the wedding guests hit on me,” he added.
“Of course she did,” Daisy said. “You’re gorgeous.”
“It wasn’t a she.”
“Okay then, you’re equally gorgeous to men and women.”
“You’ve got an answer for everything.”
“Must be my unending quest to be right about something.”
“Yeah? So how’re you doing with that?”
She shrugged.
“More to the point, how are you holding up these days?”
“Now that, I wish I knew the answer to. I have no idea. Some days feel pretty normal. I’ll be going about my business, at work or with Charlie or whatever, and things seem okay, and then boom. It’s like somebody hit me in the back of the head with a hammer.”
“Aw, Daisy. You’ve got a lot of people pulling for you.”
“I know. I’m incredibly grateful for that. Thanks, Zach. Thanks for checking in. I know I haven’t been a barrel of laughs, and you’ve been really patient.”
He offered a sideways grin. “You’re always good for a laugh. Anyway. I’d better go interview some more of these lovely folks before they get too drunk to talk.”
She was glad the wedding was being held at the Inn at Willow Lake. The boutique hotel and grounds belonged to her dad and stepmom. The main inn was an elegant Edwardian-style building with a wraparound porch and a belvedere tower. The property featured an old-fashioned boathouse with quarters above and a sturdy dock. There was a gazebo on the grounds, too. Its storybook elements swept people away to another place and time, making it perfect for wedding photos.