Death Takes a Holiday

by Jennifer Harlow

  “You know, on second thought,” he says, “I’m not really in the mood for the beach. I think we should just get the tree.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, is there anything else you want to see? The Maritime Museum? Midway? I know you’re into naval history.”

  “How did you know that?” he asks, surprised.

  “We’ve lived in the same house for months. That’s all you read.” I pause. Silence is bad. Keep talking. “My grandfather was in the Navy.”

  “He was?”

  “Yeah. He served in the Korean war on a carrier.”

  “I almost joined the Navy.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Um, my father,” he says. “He developed lung cancer when I was seventeen. Mom was a mess. I just couldn’t leave them then. So police officer was my second choice.”

  If I wasn’t already in love with him, this would be when I fell. “Did he recover?”

  “He hung tough for two years, but by then I had already joined the force.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a mercy at the end. He was in so much pain,” he says trying to remain strong but a little haunted too. “He was a good guy. The best. He was an airline pilot so he was gone a lot, but he never missed a baseball game or crew tournament he promised he’d make.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, that’s why I never joined.”

  “He sounds wonderful. You were very lucky to have him.”

  “Both of them,” he says sadly. “She was one of those moms who just instinctively knew what you needed. I’d get home from school some days in a real bad mood, and she’d turn on the Beatles and make me sing and dance with her. She was sort of the neighborhood mom. All my friends loved her. Especially her brownies. Damn, I miss those things.”

  “Has your Mom passed too?”

  “About a year after Mary. She had, um, dementia.” He pauses. “She didn’t even know who I was in the end, which is kind of funny.” He runs his hand through his hair, another nervous tic. He does it a lot around me. “I had her transferred to a care facility near the mansion, so I could go visit her.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  “No. Come from a long line of only children. I have some cousins on my dad’s side, but we were never close.”

  “Same here. An island unto ourselves.” We ride for a few quiet seconds again, but there’s no way I’m letting this conversation go. I’ve found out more about him in the last minute than in all the previous months. “What’s crew?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Crew. You said your Dad never missed a crew tournament. I don’t know what this is.”

  “Oh. Rowing.”

  “Like in a rowboat? They have contests for that?”

  “No,” he chuckles, “we use a flat skiff with arms and legs moving in unison to power it.”

  “Like our rowing machine,” I say.

  “Yeah. I joined crew in high school and just kept up with it.” He smiles at the memory. “Three times a week I’d wake up around five and go for a run. The sun would just be rising over the Potomac, and there’d be nothing but me, the water, and the rhythm.”

  “You miss it.”

  “I do. I love the water.”

  “Me too. I used to fantasize about buying a boat someday, just sailing around the world. No people, no responsibilities.”

  “Sounds like heaven.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “Well, I’m game if you are. We could go. Right now. There’s plenty of boats for sale. I’m sure if we pool our money, we could afford one.”

  “Just run off? Not tell anyone?” he asks with a sly smile.

  “We’ll call them from Hawaii.”

  He thinks I’m kidding. I’m not. Not in the least. There is nothing I’ve wanted more in my life. Him and me all alone in the middle of the vast ocean. Stopping in exciting ports like Fiji and New Zealand. Spending our days sunbathing, reading, making love on the deck for hours on end. Just the two of us. If that’s not heaven, I don’t know what is.

  The man I love stares at me. Maybe he does know I’m serious. As our eyes briefly meet, I can tell he’s more than tempted judging from the way his mouth’s twitching. We could do it. He just has to say the word. Say the word! But I don’t get my wish. He looks away while chuckling nervously. “Yeah, and on the first full moon I’ll rip a hole in the boat. Or you. Or both. No, I think I’ll stick to dry land.” He rolls down his window and shifts in his seat, once again all the joy and playfulness sucked from him.

  He might have actually done it. He wanted to as much as I did. But that jerk reality snatched him away from me. I so can’t stand him. For a brief moment I feel like crying but bite the inside of my lip to stop myself.

  I drive with nothing but the holiday music between us for a minute. Then, out of the blue, he says, “Do you think because of what we are we don’t deserve happiness?”

  My head snaps in his direction. His gaze doesn’t leave the window. “What?”

  “Because I don’t know. We’re human but … not. We’re killers. We’ve killed and let people die. Do you think that God made us this way for a reason? As punishment?”

  “I was born this way. I didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

  “There wasn’t a reason for what happened to me either,” he says. “Not really. Just a … casualty in a war I had no place in. One minute I was normal. In love. Happy. And then … a force of nature swept in and ruined everything. My wife, gone. My job, gone. My sense of the world, just gone. Nothing but blood and pain left in its place. But you get used to it. It becomes comforting. You’re at the bottom. You know it can’t get worse. Nothing and no one can hurt you as badly ever again.”

  “But that’s not life. That’s just existing.”

  “Maybe that’s all I deserve now.”

  I shake my head. “Not you, Will.” I pause.“You’re not a monster.” He finally looks at me; if I couldn’t already feel his despair, I’d read it like a book on his face. “You’re a strong, handsome, decent man who deserves every happiness in the world. Every. Single. One. But you have to reach for it. Rise from that bottom. And yeah, it’s scary. And hard. And there’s no guarantee you won’t end up exactly where you were. But at least you can say you tried. That is for just one day, one moment, you lived. That life was full of possibility and happiness. That’s all any of us can hope for. You just have to take the first step. Come what may.”

  He turns away from me. “I wish it was that easy.”

  Me too. But the best things in life rarely are.

  We barely talk at the tree lot or on the drive back. We get the tree inside the still empty house, leaning it against the wall. It’s perfect, tall and full. “Where’s your Christmas stuff?” Will asks.

  “Crawlspace above the hall. I’ll get the ladder.”

  When I return from the side of the house with the rickety ladder, Will’s already got the crawlspace open. He climbs up and sneezes. I’ve never heard him do that before. “It’s really dark. I can’t read the writing.”

  “Just bring them all down.” He begins handing me box after box of stuff: mine, Brian’s, one marked “Stella,” and three Christmas boxes. I hand him back Brian’s but keep the others. When that’s done, we get the tree on the stand and start unpacking the lights and ornaments. “Look,” I say, holding up a ceramic pink snowman missing one of her arms. “I made this when I was nine. Her name is Princess Icicle.”

  “Cute,” Will says as he starts untangling the lights. I then pull out a miniature Scarlett O’Hara in her drape dress. This is my favorite. I caress her with a smile. “Is that from Gone with the Wind?”

  “Yeah. My mom gave me this one our last Christmas together.” With a sigh, I put her next to Princess. “She came home Christmas Eve from a late night at the bar thinking I was asleep. She kissed my forehead and left Scarlett and this tiny box beside my head. Inside was this gold-plated charm bracelet with shoes and sunglasses and animals o
n it. I loved it. I took it to show and tell. Even wore it every day until I lost it in college. Looked everywhere. Put up fliers around campus. I swore if anyone ever found it I’d marry him or her in an instant. Like Cinderella and her shoe or something.”

  He looks away from me. “What was she like? Your mom?”

  “What?”

  “I told you about my parents,” he says. “What were yours like?”

  “Afraid my childhood wasn’t as Norman Rockwell as yours,” I chuckle nervously. I start unwrapping more ornaments. “I have no idea who my father is. She never got his name or anything, and I was too young to ask many questions before she died. I just knew other kids had dads, but since Brian didn’t have one either, I never thought it was a huge deal. Then when I got older and I realized it was, there was nobody to ask.”

  “What about your Mom?”

  “A free spirit. She hated being tied down to one job, one place, one man. But she loved us. No question. When she could, she’d read us bedtime stories and sing to us. She loved to bake too. Once a week the three of us would crank up the tunes and sing and hop around while making cookies or cupcakes or spaghetti.” I shake my head. “But she wasn’t perfect. Brian likes to pretend she was some saint, expanding our horizons with adventure and freedom. But we were poor. Really poor. She couldn’t or wouldn’t keep a job. And more often than not she’d get involved with some loser and move us in with him until he got sick of us. We ended up living out of the car at least half a dozen times that I can remember. She called those the Gypsy Days. We’d just keep driving until the gas money ran out, and the cycle would begin anew. Until Leonard.” I haven’t looked at Will until now. He’s grave and has stopped working on the lights. “But you’ve read my file. You know all about that.” I avert my gaze and resume unwrapping the ornaments from the paper towels.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “But it all worked out in the end. We came to live with Nana, and the rest was pretty dull. Went to school, got a job, had a boyfriend. Almost normal.”

  He nods and starts with the lights again. “I miss normal.”

  “What about it do you miss?”

  “Stupid stuff. Going out for drinks after work with friends. Mowing the lawn. Trips to the grocery store. Cleaning the gutters.” He scoffs. “Privacy. Not knowing by smell when people are afraid or angry. Not having to keep track of the moon. Untangling Christmas lights,” he says with a small smile. “Like I said, stupid stuff.”

  “That’s not stupid, Will. That’s life. It’s all in the details, right? And you can still do those things. Heck, you can go clean out our gutters and mow the lawn right now. I won’t stop you. Hey, do Mrs. Ramirez’s too.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I do. I want the same things. And I want them with him.

  “You know, you have the right idea,” he continues, “about quitting. I’ve considered it about a thousand times. I’m sick of the pain. Of the suffering we see.” He starts violently pulling at the lights. “I’m sick of hotel rooms and greasy food and that ridiculous plane. I’m sick of dead bodies and guns and everyone dying on me. I’m sick of seeing my friends’ throats ripped out and withering away and me not being able to do a fucking thing to stop it. I’m sick and tired of failing everyone. Of being so goddamn angry and taking it out on people I care about. Wounding people I’d rather die than hurt for no reason except … ” He must realize who he’s talking to and stops, shocked by his outburst.

  “Except … ” I say breathlessly.

  He shakes his head, throwing the lights down. “Nothing.”

  I bridge the gap between us. “No. Say it. Please.”

  “I can’t,” he says as he steps away from me, embarrassed and pained by himself.

  He turns his back to me, but I spin him around by the bicep. I don’t release him and he doesn’t pull away. “Yes. You can. Just say the words.”

  “I can’t,” he whispers. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.” He brushes my hand off.

  “Will.”

  “What do you want me to say, Bea?” he blows up. “That I care about you? That I might even be—” He stops himself, shaking his head. “Even if I did. Even if I was, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t. I’m still a monster. I smell blood, and I get excited. Someone challenges me and it takes all my willpower not to go for the jugular. Literally. I turn into a deadly, vicious, wild animal. An animal. It never leaves me. I don’t get a normal life. I don’t get happily ever after.”

  “You think I do?” I ask. “Will, I kill people with a thought. If you’re a monster then so am I.”

  “It’s not the same, and you know it. I’m not human, Bea.”

  “Will, I don’t care that you’re a werewolf. It doesn’t define you unless you let it. When I see you it’s not as a monster. I know monsters, met my first at age eight, and you sure as hell aren’t one of them.” Nothing can stop me from touching him now. I grasp his arm again, but this time he doesn’t move away. “When I see you, all I see a good, strong man who would do anything for others. Who cares with all his heart about people, even total strangers. Making their lives better. I see a teacher. A protector. A leader. Someone who I care about. Very deeply. Who I want more than anything, and who I think feels the same way about me.”

  Hesitantly he caresses my head, then my cheek. “Of course I do,” he whispers. “You’re beautiful, and sexy, and smart, and you have the best heart of anyone I know. You drive me crazy. But that’s the problem: you drive me crazy. You have since the moment I saw you. And since then …” He runs his thumb down my sensitive lips, and I shiver. His eyes are as lustful as mine. But then he pulls away, lust replaced with sadness. “But it doesn’t matter. Can’t you see that? Can’t you understand that? There’s no future for us. Despite what you think, we cannot have what we want.”

  “Why not?”

  “What are we going to do? Move to the suburbs? Lock me in the basement once a month?” he asks wildly. “One time, that’s all it takes. One forgotten lock, one false move, and I get out and I kill you. Or some man makes a rude comment, and I see red like last night.

  Or someone tries to kill you … and I can’t … ” He’s angry now. At himself, at me, at whatever hypothetical situation he’s concocted inside his head. His hands ball into fists. “Staying in control is the only way I can get through the day. It’s the only way I can keep even a sliver of my humanity. But around you … you’re chaos incarnate. You cloud everything, and that scares the shit out of me. You make me want things I can’t have. And being around you makes me think those things are possible. But I know they’re not, and trying to pretend they are … that’s not fair to either one of us.” His fingers relax. “I’m sorry.” With those final words, he walks out of the room into the back yard, leaving me alone with this new reality.

  And that’s it. I’ve lost him before I ever had him. I have no idea what to say or do. I could go out there, I should go out there. Fight for him. Scream, or cry, or plead, I don’t know. But I can’t. I don’t have it in me anymore. Because deep down, maybe I know he’s right.

  The monster never gets a happily ever after.

  ELEVEN

  LOST AND FOUND

  HE LEFT.

  He took the keys to my rental car and left.

  Thank God.

  I’ve never had my heart pulverized before. I’d rather have any supernatural creature kick my butt than go through this. I used to scoff when I heard people died of broken hearts. That they threw themselves off bridges or ended up in the madhouse when the one they loved rejected them. Now I get it. I’ve had chunks of my flesh ripped from me and suffered blinding headaches where I prayed for death, but this … this is proof that the soul is infinitely more powerful than the body. It’s as if every bit of joy has faded, never to return. It’s hard to breathe even. Everything is oppressive as if the air is crushing me like Giles Corey being stoned to death.

 
; I wish I could get angry. Lash out. I wish I could curse him or shoot him and make him hurt as badly as I do. But I can’t. Because it’s not his fault. He has to do what’s right for him, and being around me isn’t that. And he’s correct on a lot of points. Normal isn’t in the cards for us, no matter how much we want it. Pretending it’s possible can’t be good for either of us in the long run. Would have been nice to have had the chance though.

  Nana knocks on my bedroom door after sunset and enters a second later with a cup of tea and ice cream sundae on a tray. I almost smile as I push myself into the sitting position.

  “Here you go, Honey Bea,” she says as she sets down the tray.

  “Thanks,” I whisper.

  She lowers herself onto the bed as I take a spoonful. It tastes like nothing. Like eating air. I put the spoon down. Nana smoothes my hair. “It’ll be alright. Just give it some time.”

  “Yeah.”

  She ceases stroking. “You know, when I was seventeen, there was this ranch hand named Jack who worked for my father.” She closes her eyes and smiles. “He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. Tall, lean, blonde, tan from all his time out in the sun. And he had this scar that cut through his left eyebrow. It was so sexy.” She opens her eyes. “We snuck around for six months. Meeting at his trailer or out on the arroyo under the stars.”

  “Nana!”

  “What? I was in love. And he returned that love. To this day I’m convinced he did. He even asked me to marry him, and boy was I all set to do it, elope with him in the dead of night. But apparently one night when we had a fight, he cheated on me and had gotten a girl pregnant.”

  “Oh God.”

  “He said it was a onetime mistake, but I didn’t care. It killed me, but I told him he had to do the right thing and marry her. And he did. He left with her, and I never saw him again. It wasn’t meant to be.” She takes my hand. “Take it from one heartbroken woman to another; the pain fades. Not completely, but I do believe it makes your heart stronger. Once open it’ll be ready for when the right one comes along. Love, no matter what, is a glorious thing. It is never wrong. It teaches us. It makes us grow. And I have no doubt you will get through this that much wiser and with a fuller heart.” She leans down, kissing my forehead. “Now, I can skip my knitting club if—”