Survivor
Page 34
He paused for a moment, eyes dosed. The late afternoon sun was warm, and the breeze that blew in from the ocean was tinged with salt spray. Brad sighed, feeling in touch with himself again. Ready to go on. "You know, the past year I've never felt better," he said. "I mean, I'll always miss you, and Elizabeth knows that you'll always remain special in my heart. In fact, it was her idea for me to come out here and tell you this, so… well, I better get to telling you."
He paused; he had been rehearsing what he wanted to say all day, and now that he was here he felt awkward. In a way, he felt the same as he did in the months after meeting Elizabeth on a stop in New Mexico and falling in love with her. He felt a slight edge of betrayal that he was stepping out behind Lisa's back. But he also felt that Lisa was smiling down on him, was telling him ft's all right, Brad. She's wonderful, and you deserve her. Be good to her. Be good to each other. And hearing her voice whisper those words in his mind brought a smile to Brad's face. The two years he had taken off of work after Lisa's death had been dark years, and many times he wondered why he even bothered to continue living. But it was his travels, meeting new people, keeping in touch with Billy and his mom, and Danielle Kwong and George Brooks and the rest of their friends, that had kept Brad going. In their own way, they had helped Brad find beauty and wonder in life again, and when he and Elizabeth Robles fell in love two months after meeting at a dinner party given by an old college friend, Brad finally felt he could end his solitary rambles and try to appreciate life again.
That had made it easier to uproot from California to New Mexico. Orange County held too many memories of Lisa, and the trips he made back to visit his mother and Billy became less painful as the months flew by. When he and Elizabeth wed in September of 2002, their wedding was held in the foothills that surrounded Santa Fe, the city he now called home.
"You know, I understand now why you did what you did," he said, fingering the note. "Checking out, I mean. It's taken me the past five years to come to peace with that, and I suppose that if I'd been put in the same situation I would've done the same thing. I would've checked out too.
"Because life's worth living. You don't forfeit others' lives for your own. You fight for life. For your own, for others. You made a horrible mistake, and you regretted it and…" The tears came again. "I still wish there were some way you could take it back, but you can't. You can't take it back, and I can't take it back, and life has to go on, you know? So I'm going on and it's been hard. But as you know.. " He sighed. 'The past year or so has been great, considering all that's happened. I've gone on with my life. I have a new life, a new home. I'm working for a small firm in Santa Fe now, and Elizabeth is a journalist for the local paper. We do pretty well, you know?"
He took a deep breath, looked down at Lisa's suicide note, then at her grave. "Elizabeth's pregnant " he said, sobbing as he spoke those words. He was sobbing out of a mixture of pride and regret that it wasn't Lisa who was going to bear his child. "We're already past our first trimester, the hardest part. When we found out, I was so scared. I mean, I couldn't believe that it could happen, and it did, and I didn't want anything bad to happen, you know? So we kept quiet about it and hoped and prayed everything would be all right, and we're past the first hurdle. The last two ultrasounds we've heard a nice strong heartbeat." Tears blurred his vision. "We're gonna be okay."
The breeze died down. The sun felt warm on his face. Brad wiped the tears from his cheeks and thrust the suicide note into his pocket. He'd thought about destroying the note for the past few months; it was the only thing he had that represented that horrible time in his life. He had gotten rid of other personal things that brought the memories back to that fateful weekend, and even now he tended to avoid the news and he no longer enjoyed psychological thrillers the way he used to. He'd kept the note because he felt he still needed that connection with that part of his life, despite how awful it had been. He never wanted to forget it despite wanting to. He didn't want to forget it because he didn't ever want to forget Lisa.
Brad shuffled to his feet, brushed the grass off his jeans. He looked down at the grave sites, reflecting on Amanda and Alicia briefly, wishing them well and hoping they were at peace, hoping they knew that he loved them and would always love them. He straightened himself up and turned to Lisa's headstone, swallowing a dry lump. "I know I'll be back soon. My mom's still in Orange County and… well… she'll want to see her grandchild. Maybe someday… if it's okay… we can come up? If it's okay?"
A light breeze rustled the leaves of the oak trees and whispered over his hair, caressing him. Brad closed his eyes, feeling comforted in what he knew was her positive answer.
"I'll never forget you, Lisa," he said. "And I'll always love you. I love Elizabeth… I never thought I could love another woman, but you helped me to love her. You… helped me to see the beauty in life again. If it weren't for you, I never would have made it this far. This baby is as much yours as it is Elizabeth's and mine."
Brad smiled down at the headstone, feeling strong, feeling more pure and good than he had felt in years. "I'll be seeing you soon, honey. Be good to yourself, okay?"
Then he turned and walked back to his car and drove off to his new life.
* * *
J. F. GONZALEZ is the critically acclaimed author of several novels of horror and dark suspense, including Bully, The Beloved, Fetish, and Clickers (co-authored with Mark Williams). His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines including Dark Arts, Shivers II, Shivers III, Hot Blood 12: Strange Bedfellows, The Asylum, and Black October Magazine, just to name a few, and some others are collected in the interlocking volumes Maternal Instinct and Old Ghosts and Other Revenants. He is currently working on his next novel. To learn more about his work, or to contact him, visit his Web site at www.jfgonzalez.com.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 3f0443e2-bb57-4d6e-b492-4a612a7ec658
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 7.12.2011
Created using: calibre 0.8.4, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
F. (XtraVert)
Source URLs :
http://lib.rus.ec/
Document history:
v.1.0 — XtraVert
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/