The Good Widow_A Novel

by Liz Fenton

  “She sounds like a good sister.”

  “She is.”

  “Well, I’m intrigued. Tell me more about her,” Nick says, and I realize he was just looking out for me when he was asking about Beth. We’d been living in our little bubble for days, without seeing anyone from our real lives, so I’m sure it was a shock for him that she’s here.

  As we weave our way down the wet Hana Highway, both of us looking away as we pass the stone bench where we’d kissed earlier, I share my favorite Beth stories. He laughs when I tell him about her twitchy-eye tell, and he nods in approval when I mention the slap heard round the world, as we’d come to call it.

  We fall into a comfortable silence as he slowly drives the narrow road. A car whips around a corner and blares its horn at us, and I think of James and Dylan’s accident—the last seconds before their worlds went dark. Had James been trying to avoid an oncoming car and swerved too hard, losing control?

  I don’t know the exact location of where they crashed. Nick does, but I asked him not to share it with me. Not until I’m ready. And after my panic this morning, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. I know from Officer Keoloha that they had been driving on the back side of the road to Hana, considered much more dangerous than the front part—in places, it’s as high as one thousand feet above sea level. It’s deemed so perilous that rental car companies advise against driving it.

  It struck me as so odd when I heard that—James had never been a risk-taker. So I was shocked he’d chosen to venture into such uncharted territory. But then again, I was surprised to hear he’d had an affair. I’d wondered if Dylan had brought out a different side of him that had lain dormant while he lived his predictable life with me. Or maybe Nick was right. Maybe I hadn’t known my husband at all.

  As we turn down the long road toward Hana Airport a few minutes later, I’m not sure what the plan is after we pick up Beth. The subject of returning to the hotel hasn’t come up again. We’re dancing around it like a bear we don’t want to poke. I glance at Nick’s profile and wonder if he still wants to leave the road to Hana before we make it to the back side. Because now that my sister is here, now that we’re pulling into the parking lot and I can see her standing in front of the tiny terminal that looks like a house, wearing a white blouse and tan capris, her hair pulled back into a messy knot, I realize I’m not ready to go home.

  Just the sight of her is giving me strength, and I feel a pull toward James. I want to know where he took his last breath. To say good-bye. Maybe it’s Beth I’ve needed by my side all along. To hold my hand, to make sure I don’t get too close to the edge. To be there for me after I let James go once and for all. To protect me. I hope Nick will decide to stay longer, to say his own good-byes. To get the closure I know he needs as well.

  Beth waves at me excitedly, and I unlock my seat belt and slide toward the door, the car not yet stopped. I can feel happy tears in the back of my eyes.

  I grip the door handle and turn toward Nick, who’s laughing at me.

  “What? We’re basically twins. We’re very, very close!”

  Nick stops the Jeep, and I jump out, running to avoid the light rain, and hurl myself into my sister’s arms.

  “That was quite a scene back there,” Beth says a few minutes later as we sit at the bar of the Hana Ranch Restaurant, a few miles from the airport. “The three other people who were on my flight were staring at us like we were reuniting after years! It’s been, what? Five days?” She laughs.

  “I know. I bawled. But I think I needed to,” I say, and look over at Nick, who’s sipping from a mug of coffee. He seems unusually quiet, but then again, when Beth and I are together, it’s hard to get a word in. “Thanks for loaning me one of your shirts, by the way.” I say, pulling at the cotton fabric. “I was soaked to the bone,” I add.

  Beth smiles. “That’s Hawaii weather for you.”

  I glance at Nick, who’s wearing a T-shirt with a guy flashing a shaka sign that he got from a shop across the street from the restaurant.

  “So how are you doing?” Beth looks across me toward Nick.

  He takes a breath before responding. “Well, I’m finally dry. So there’s that.” He smiles and takes a sip of his coffee.

  Beth doesn’t respond, waiting for his real answer.

  “It’s been hard, harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Nick’s being modest—he’s been the strong one. My rock. I’ve been the hot mess.”

  “Did Jacks tell you I didn’t want her to come here to Maui?” Beth asks. Apparently ready to jump right in.

  Nick looks at me again. “She didn’t,” he says slowly. “But I get it. Getting on a plane to Hawaii with a complete stranger after her husband had just died. Seemed crazy, I’m sure.”

  “To put it mildly.” Beth offers a tight smile.

  “Is that why you’re here? To make sure I’m not a serial killer?” Nick laughs.

  “Maybe.” She smirks and takes a sip of her beer, eyeing him.

  “I don’t blame you! You’ve got to look out for your sister. But for what it’s worth, I’m not.”

  “Did I mention Nick’s a firefighter? If anything, he’s been making sure I don’t get hurt.”

  “Except for your little escapade in the ocean. I think maybe you fell asleep on the job that night, Nick,” Beth says, not unkindly. Beth’s words never spill menace. It may not be what you want to hear, but she always speaks the truth.

  But she’s off the mark this time. A very small part of me had wanted to keep going into that ocean. To let the water envelop all my pain. And he had pulled me back to reality—literally and figuratively. “Hey,” I interject before Nick can answer. “That’s not fair. He saved me.”

  “No, she’s right,” Nick says evenly. “I should have done a better job of keeping you safe—stopped you when you were running down the beach, before you went into the ocean. Especially after what you’d just discovered.”

  “You’re not my bodyguard. And you are going through the exact same thing I am. You’d just heard the same terrible news,” I say, and look pointedly at Beth. “He’s not here on vacation, you know; he lost someone important to him too.” I’m surprised by my forcefulness. By how protective I feel toward Nick. But this thing we’re doing out here—it’s ours, and no one from the outside could possibly understand it.

  Beth’s face relaxes slightly. “I don’t mean to be insensitive. And I’m truly sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine. It’s just that—”

  “You want to protect your sister.” Nick finishes her sentence.

  “Always,” she says.

  “I get it. I do,” Nick says, and I can tell he’s sincere. “But for the record, I want to protect her too.” I notice his shoulders stiffen.

  Beth nods, but I’m not sure she believes him. “It just seems like this trip has created more problems than it’s solved.”

  “Maybe,” Nick says, but doesn’t elaborate.

  “I feel like every time Jacks calls me, she’s in tears about some new piece of horrible information you guys have found out. Information that serves no purpose but to hurt her.”

  “I never said it was going to be easy,” Nick says, a slight edge to his voice.

  I jump in. “Beth, this decision was mine and only mine. And it’s been hard, but I was prepared for that.”

  I can read Beth’s mind. But if Nick had never showed up on my doorstep, I wouldn’t be here dealing with all of this hard stuff. She blames him.

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt any more,” she says to me, giving Nick a look.

  “And neither do I,” he says.

  I look at Nick. “Is that why you want to turn back? To protect me?”

  “What do you mean?” Beth asks before he can answer.

  “Well, Nick—we weren’t sure we should keep driving the road to Hana.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “I had a freak-out while we were driving. After that storm came out of nowhere . . .” I
think about his lips on mine, his hot breath, his hands in my hair. Obviously, I can’t tell her this part. Not right now, anyway.

  “What?” Beth gives me a look.

  “Nick suggested we go home.”

  He hadn’t actually said those words, but I want to find out if that’s what he meant.

  “It sounds like Nick and I finally agree on something,” Beth says, and looks at him for a reaction.

  “I just didn’t want to push Jacks any more than I already had,” he says, and I feel my heart sink. I guess he’s ready to give up on the whole thing. “I’m worried about her.” He runs his finger around the rim of his mug. “When I convinced her to come here, it sounded like such a good idea. Like we could finally get the closure we’re both desperate for. But now,” he says, locking eyes with me for a split second, “now I think it will send us tumbling backward to see where they—”

  “I understand.” Beth holds her hand up before he can finish. “So then it’s settled? We’re all going back home?” Beth looks at us.

  And suddenly I realize this is exactly why she came here. Not just to protect me, but to talk me into leaving—and now she thinks Nick has done her job for her. I can tell she doesn’t like Nick. She probably made up her mind about him the day I first told her he’d come to my house. And once Beth has something in her head, it’s hard to change it. Her dislike is subtle. But I can tell by the way she chews on her lower lip when he talks, not really listening but observing, by how she’s holding her shoulders as if on guard, by the way she’s held her gaze firmly on him. She’s definitely not a fan.

  Nick nods. “Yes, I think it’s the right thing to do.”

  I suck in a deep breath just as Beth lets out a sigh of relief. Her shoulders relax. At least they can agree on this, she’s thinking. Maybe he’s not so bad, she concedes.

  It blows my mind that Nick would give up now. I know he told me back in California that he’d decide once we were here, that he’d let his heart guide him. That he’d let Dylan show the way. But we’re so close to seeing everything. To discovering the secrets this highway holds about the people we loved. He pushed me to come here, pushed me to face both James’s demons and my own. It has to be the kiss. It’s changed everything.

  “Okay then,” Beth says, standing up. “Mine could be the shortest trip anyone has ever taken to Maui.” Her eyes light up as she watches me. She thinks she’s getting exactly what she wants. She believes I’m going home.

  “No. Wait,” I say. “I want to stay. I’ll call Officer Keoloha and tell him I’m ready to see where it happened. I emailed him when I arrived, so he already knows I’m here and that this is a possibility. He offered to escort me if I decided to go through with it.” Even if I had decided not to go to the crash site, I’d planned to say thank you in person for all he’d done for me. “The police station is just down that way.” I point toward the road we’d driven to the restaurant. “I’ve come this far. And I can’t turn back now. And I hope you both will go with me.”

  I wait, hoping Nick will change his mind. Hoping Beth will support me. But even if they both say no, I’m going. I can do this. I can stand on the edge of the cliff where my husband died, and I can say good-bye. I owe that much to him, and to myself.

  “Oh, Jacks, you don’t have to put yourself through that. Nick is right: it could set you both back,” Beth says gently.

  “Look, Beth, I love you. I don’t expect you to understand this. But, Nick, I have to say, I’m really surprised. It was your idea to come all the way here.”

  Nick looks down.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute—in private?” It’s a question, but Beth’s not really asking.

  I nod and she grabs my hand, then looks at Nick. “Sorry, I just need to have a sister-to-sister chat for a second.” And he nods, but locks eyes with me, giving me an apologetic smile.

  “I don’t like him,” she says as soon as we get out front.

  “I know, Beth, but you never like anyone. It took you almost a year to warm up to James.”

  “True,” she says.

  “You don’t know him, Beth.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “Yes, I do,” I say, looking toward the restaurant. “We’ve talked a lot on this trip. He’s shared things with me and I with him. Just give him a chance.”

  “Fine. I’ll give him a chance, but I’ll do it back in California. I’ll invite him over for dinner. I’ll make risotto. Sound good?” She folds her arms across her chest.

  I roll my eyes at her. “I’m not leaving. Not yet. I need to say good-bye to James.”

  Beth is quiet for several seconds. “Okay. If this is really what you need to do, I’ll go with you. But I think you should let Nick off the hook. If he doesn’t want to go, then he doesn’t want to go.”

  “You just don’t want him to go.”

  “Maybe.” She smirks.

  I hug her. “Thank you.”

  We walk back inside. “I’m going to stay,” I say, and look at him, wondering if he is too.

  He simply shakes his head.

  “What about Dylan?”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick says softly. “I can’t.”

  “Well, I’m sorry too. But now isn’t the time to be weak,” I say as I walk back out the door, Beth following like always, watching my back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  DYLAN—BEFORE

  “There is no way I’m jumping off here.” Dylan inched toward the side of the bridge, feeling woozy just staring at the freshwater pool at least fifty feet below.

  “If you guys aren’t going to jump, do you mind?” A young man, maybe eighteen, with deep-brown skin and a shark tooth necklace, motioned toward the edge, giving them a look that said, What are you doing up here anyway? Aren’t you too old to be jumping off this bridge?

  Yes, we are, or at least he is, Dylan thought, looking at James, taking in the occasional silver thread that wove its way through his light brown hair.

  “You live here?” James asked the boy.

  “Born and raised.”

  “How deep is it?”

  “That one, it’s maybe twenty feet, but you have to hit it just right because it’s shallower on the sides. You really thinking about doing it?” He widened his big brown eyes at James. “We get a lot of people who chicken out once they stand up on the edge.”

  “Not me. I’m doing it. I want to jump and then swim in the seven pools. Like they say you should.”

  “Hey, brah, this ‘they’ you’re talking about is some dude who made it up to help with tourism. There are way more than seven pools, and I’m not sure how much closer to heaven you’ll be if you get your skin wet in all of them.”

  James looked over the edge. “Doesn’t matter to me—the jump is what I really want anyway. That feeling. That rush!”

  “It’s like nothing else. But you’d better be quick. The park rangers will get pissed if they see you. You guys aren’t even supposed to have parked your Jeep over there.” The boy looked up the road to a curve where they’d stopped. “That’s yours, right?”

  Dylan and James nodded.

  “After you,” James said, and he and Dylan silently stepped aside and watched as the boy got up on the edge and jumped, grabbing his knees to his chest and letting out a high-pitched scream all the way down. He plunged under the water, and when he came up, a group of his friends whistled and clapped. And Dylan released the breath she’d been holding. She didn’t even know the boy and she’d been worried about him.

  “I’m going for it,” James said, taking his shirt off. “Will you hold this? Just take the Jeep after I jump and enter the park, which should be another quarter-mile or so down the road. I’ll meet you down at the water.”

  “James—” Dylan thought of what the boy had said. That he had to hit it just right. What if he wasn’t as lucky as the boy they’d just watched? She looked over the bridge again, five of the pools separated by small waterfalls stretched out before her. In the distance, she could
see people on the rocks surrounding the pools or swimming in them. But they’d probably arrived there the right way. Through the park. Not by jumping off this bridge.

  James tossed the black T-shirt he’d purchased yesterday—with Maui Locos printed on the front in big white block letters—onto the ground when Dylan wouldn’t take it. “What?” he said as he stood up on the bridge and put his arms out to the sides like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.

  Two days ago, she’d been swimming with a two-hundred-pound sea turtle named Bob Marley in open water, and now that her pregnancy suspicions had been confirmed, she was frightened to put one foot in front of the other. When James had first brought up jumping off the bridge after he’d convinced her to consider driving the back side of the mountain, she hadn’t said anything to him, but just the thought of him doing it scared the shit out of her. He kept piling on the risks, and she wondered why. She’d tried to push away the idea of him getting hurt—or worse—but it kept chipping away at her insides. And now it was pounding inside her head.

  “Don’t do it.” She grabbed James’s hand and pulled him back down to the ground. “Let’s go have that picnic you talked about. A little salami, a little cheese. I’ll even take a sip of that wine.” She nuzzled against his bare chest, surprised by how fast his heart was beating.

  James pulled back. “You know I can’t wait to feed you banana bread and drink that pinot noir. But first I jump. It’s perfectly safe. If he can do it, so can I.” He pointed to the boy sitting with his friends on the rocks below. They were all yelling for James to jump.

  Dylan was reminded of when she was a teenager, begging to do the same things her friends were. Their parents let them stay out past midnight. Their parents give them money for the movies. Their parents don’t rag on them. Her mom would fixate her deep-blue eyes on Dylan and say what she always did: If so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

  Apparently James would.

  Dylan felt her arms prick with goose bumps even though it was at least eighty degrees. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”