With the exception of Jamie and Greg’s bodies to provide substantial evidence, their heads and their hearts were slowly adjusting to those facts. No matter what, it still didn’t make coming to see the two men’s names etched in stone any easier.
From where he still sat in the backseat, Kevin could see the woman who his brother had loved, standing in front of those stones that he was too afraid to see for himself. Two bunches of white roses laid on the ground at her feet. Her back was to them. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, if she was talking to the wind in hopes that it would find its way to Jamie’s ears in heaven, but his eyes remained trained on her. Charleigh was small and willowy, even with the tiny baby-bump. She looked as if she was about to be swept away by the wind any minute, yet she remained unmoved, planted in place like a strong oak tree.
He couldn’t help wondering what would have become of Charleigh if something had happened and she never found out about the pregnancy, or if she’d decided to go ahead with the abortion. Jamie’s death had hit her the hardest of them all. It had knocked her to her knees, and Kevin was certain the only reasons that she had pulled herself back up were the ones living inside of her. He didn’t want to consider any other possibility.
If she can do it, then so can we. Kevin was the first to make a move as he reached for the handle of the door and pushed it open. Startled by his actions, the car’s three other occupants turned and stared at him apprehensively. Remaining silent, he got out then turned back and held his hand out to Jenna.
“I don’t want to,” she told him, shaking her head.
“Jenn, I miss Jamie and Dad just as much as you do,” Kevin sighed, somewhat surprised by the agitation in his voice. With an apology in his eyes, he shook his head. “But no matter what we do, we can’t hide from the truth. I know that they aren’t here. Those stones are just a bunch of engraving, but it’s the closest thing we have right now.” He turned and pointed at something behind him. “Look out there and tell me what you see.”
The girl leaned forward in her seat to see what her brother was talking about. “Charleigh,” she answered in a whisper.
“Don’t you think it’s killing her to see our brother’s name on there?” Kevin asked. “Probably even more than we know, but she’s still there. Can’t you at least try?”
Mulling the situation over in her mind, Jenna looked from her grandmother to her aunt. They stared back, coming to a silent agreement. Kevin was right, and they all knew it. As the young woman scooted closer to her brother, the others reached for their own door handles.
***
“Charleigh.” Her name floated on the breeze like a whisper directly from the lips of an angel. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and wiped away the moisture from her cheeks.
The rustling sound of dry, brittle leaves came from behind, and she turned around and saw Kevin, Jenna, Madie, and Lenore slowly making their way toward her. Both of the old women, Charleigh saw, were carrying their own bouquets of flowers, like the ones she had brought. Hand in hand, Jenna and Kevin walked a few paces behind them.
“Been here long?” Madie asked, coming to put her arms around Charleigh.
Nodding against the old woman’s shoulder, she answered, “A little bit.”
After a long comforting moment, Charleigh pulled back, tugging her sweater and coat back down over her belly. She looked back at the headstones and took a few breaths while trying to get her thoughts in check.
Kevin and Jenna took the last few careful and deliberate steps toward the memorials. The young man’s eyes met with Charleigh’s, but his sister stared down hard at the object. Like if she concentrated hard enough, she could make them disappear.
It wasn’t possible, though, because, Charleigh thought, I’ve already tried.
“Hey,” Kevin said, reaching out for her hand. It felt like ice, he noticed as they came in contact.
“What am I supposed to say?” Jenna asked in a small voice. Her eyes stayed on the etched writing of her brother’s monument. ‘James Adam Matthews. Born: May 31, 1974. Died: September 11, 2001. Rest In Peace, My Love.’
She turned and read her father’s. ‘Gregory Paul Matthews. Born: February 22, 1946. Died: September 11, 2001. In Memory of Our Beloved Son, Father, Brother, Uncle, Nephew, and Friend.’
“Say whatever you feel, child,” Madie said. After placing the bouquets of orchids that she’d brought along on the ground beside Charleigh’s, she came to put a supportive hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder.
To that day, the young woman still had never seen a real dead body. As for her father and brother’s, well… “But it’s just a stone. How do I tell an empty grave how much I miss him?”
“Well, Jenn,” Charleigh spoke as calmly as she could because she’d been feeling the exact same way as she’d stood there alone only a matter of minutes before. “I guess, you just say whatever comes to mind and hope that they can hear you. It’s the thought that really counts, anyway.”
Jenna nodded as tears filled her eyes. There were so many things that she wanted to say. So many things that she wished she had said to her dad and to Jamie while they had been alive. Many times over the last couple months, she had screamed out in rage, so angry for all of the missed opportunities. She’d wanted to throw something, hit someone to make them feel as much pain as she was. Usually, it ended up being Kevin who she hit, pounding her fists against his chest as he tried to comfort her.
Life had never been boring with her big brother around. Sometimes it was terrifying and hysterical, but never boring. It was so hard for her to believe that two of the most important men in her world were really gone, and that she’d never get to see them again. She’d never be able to sweet talk her dad into giving her his platinum card for the occasional shopping-spree, or laugh at her older brother’s idiotic jokes. She’d never again be able to kiss their cheeks or give them hugs.
Jenna was so glad that Jamie had found someone like Charleigh to love him before it was too late. To be able to show him what real, unconditional love was all about. She was just so sorry that he never knew that he were going to be a dad.
I give you my word that I’ll always be around to give Charleigh a hand, though. Jenna pressed a kiss to her hand and then to the stone. She turned back and buried her face in her grandmother’s shoulder.
“You know,” Charleigh began, running a hand over the young girl’s back. “I was thinking before y’all got here about everything that Jamie and I had done together, and I realized that today is the one year anniversary of the first time I met him. Can you believe that?”
“Is that all?” Lenore asked and Charleigh nodded. “It feels like ages since he came to town and turned all of our lives upside-down.” Her comment was met by an unpleasant look from her sister. “In a good way, I meant. He brought about a change in all of us, I think.”
“So many life-altering moments were crammed into the last year. That’s what makes it seem so drawn out,” Charleigh clarified so that the old woman’s words didn’t seem so harsh. She sighed, “I just feel blessed to have had Jamie in my life for even that long.”
A comforting silence settled over the group as they continued to stand in front of the cenotaphs. The wind whipped around them, and yet they were warmed by the knowledge that the ones they loved were in a better place.
Though she couldn’t speak for the rest of them, Charleigh felt the lives Greg and Jamie had lived weren’t entirely over. The love that she had felt for her fiancé, the father of her children, kept him alive and well in her heart and mind. As long as she was willing to remember the good things and not ponder the unpleasant memories or the ‘what-ifs’.
We said that we’d never make promises, Jamie, but I can’t keep myself from making just one. As long I am alive, you are alive. As long as my heart is beating then so is yours. And I’ll always make sure your memory lives on through our children.
Madie took one of Charleigh’s hands in her own. Immediately, she felt shivers run down he
r spine. The girl’s hand was like ice. Who knew how long she’d been standing out there before they showed up, not to mention the half-hour that they’d stayed in the car.
“Charleigh, honey, are you cold?” she asked, bringing the hand she held up to one of her cheeks.
“I’m a little chilly, but it’s fine,” the young woman answered. “Just a few more minutes.”
Charleigh pulled her hand away and took a step closer to Jamie’s stone to touch the top of the smooth surface. She placed another hand on her stomach. In that moment, she was touching her past, her present, and her future. Without one, there never would have been the other.
Without Jamie, Charleigh would never have known what was really possible in love and in life. She probably would have continued to drift, feeling lonely and angry at herself for what she could never be. The time they had spent together gave her the strength to heal, and the resolve to put the past where it belonged. Charleigh had learned to forgive and to forget all of the misconceptions she’d had about herself and about a few others.
Namely Andrea and Gavin. Some time ago, she’d also stopped being so angry at them. That was all ancient history, to Charleigh’s way of thinking. Gavin. She was starting to think that maybe she understood a little of what he’d felt when Andrea told him that she was pregnant now that she was expecting her own little ones. Brea was his little girl. Nothing could ever change that.
He’d wanted to be a part of his daughter’s life, but Charleigh had been standing in the way. She realized Gavin’s reasons for concealing his true connection to Brea wasn’t so much that he was afraid to cut the purse strings as it was that he didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already had.
Charleigh figured that she and Gavin would probably never be friends again, but at least she was finally able to admit that she didn’t blame him anymore. Knowing Jamie, loving him, she had found clarity to do that. The last year had been full of ups and downs. Still, if she hadn’t experienced them, she never would have figured that out. She was learning more and more, as the days continued to slowly pass by without him in her life, that she’d found the strength to stand alone, with her head held high.
“Charleigh, are you ready?” Madie asked, brushing a hand along her shoulder.
Stepping away from the stones, she looked up into the old woman’s clear bye eyes and nodded. “Yes.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Something was continually changing about Charleigh’s body or her state of mind. As much as she missed Jamie, a sort of peacefulness had settled in her heart since that day at the cemetery. The man who had given her so much of himself and his love always was and would be in the front of her mind. Despite the pain she still felt from losing him only a few short months before, her main focus was having a healthy pregnancy. Charleigh transformed those sad feelings into the energy to keep going for the sake of her tiny miracles.
Madie was constantly mentioning the ‘mommy glow.’
The most dramatic change of all was Charleigh’s eating habits. Anything that she’d liked before getting pregnant took on the blandish, dull taste of cardboard, or it simply didn’t fill her up anymore. Cravings in the middle of the night had her driving all the way to the EZ Mart in Bokchito for junk food like great-big bags of hot fries, and Gatorade. Hot fries? Before, Charleigh would have never gone near them, because spicy foods had wreaked havoc on her stomach. Now it seemed that she couldn’t get enough. If it was tangy, sweet, sour, spicy or salty, Charleigh had to have it. And she loved cranberry juice.
Still, Charleigh tried to eat as many healthy foods as she could stomach. What she wanted more than anything was to give birth to two happy and healthy babies.
As she sat on the couch, completely engrossed in a marathon of The Munsters reruns on TV Land, only bits and pieces of the Chicken Cacciatore, Caesar salad, and broccoli and cheese casserole that she’d devoured remained on the plate that was balanced on her lap. If nothing else, Charleigh could never deny that she had a healthy appetite; it was a good thing that she was a good cook. Her swollen feet were propped up on the edge of the coffee table, and Corey laid on the floor below. Amos lay on his back on the love seat a few feet away. The dog’s mouth formed a satisfied smile as, Charleigh imagined, he chased a rabbit through the tall, green grasses of dreamland.
After one episode had ended and another was about to begin, Charleigh got up, stepping gingerly around a sleeping Corey, and took her empty plate into the kitchen. She rinsed it and the fork she had used and placed both in the dishwasher.
Coming back into the living room with a lime Popsicle sticking out of her mouth, she saw the humorous sight on the small couch and went over to sit down beside Amos. Charleigh began scratching the dog’s belly and cooing to him. His tail began to thump against the cushion. One eye popped open, focused on her, and then the other.
With a light and playful bark, Amos turned over and then around until he was sitting beside his owner, with his snout resting on her shoulder.
“Aren’t you a good boy?” Charleigh spoke lightly, tilting her head towards him until her cheek touched his wet nose. She ran her fingers through the white patch of fur on his chest.
“Oh,” Charleigh said, after a little while, on a yawn. “Tired. Come on boys. Let’s go to bed.”
She got up, arching her back and stretching her arms high over her head. Amos stayed where he was, watching with intent as his owner moved around the living room. His eyes stayed trained on Charleigh as she picked the remote up from the coffee table and pointed it at the television to turn it off. And then, she reached down to brush her hand along the soft blond fur of Corey’s long body.
The puppy turned his head to look up at her. With a smile, Charleigh looked down at him, noting the twinkle in his big, brown eyes.
“Come on, puppy,” she coaxed, “bedtime.”
Both Amos and Corey were her confidants. Charleigh told them her thoughts and what she was feeling inside, and, even though they couldn’t answer her, she knew they understood. She spoke to them the entire way up to the bedroom.
In the bedroom, she stripped off all her clothes, except for a pair of white cotton panties, and in the pale lamplight that floated across the room from the bedside table, gave herself a once-over in the full-length mirror. Bluish veins turned the skin of Charleigh’s plump belly into a geographical map. She studied her reflected image, skimming her fingertips over the soft, smooth surface. A heaviness in her breasts was becoming more and more evident; they’d grown to the point that she was falling out of the cups in every possible direction. Her hair had grown at least six inches over the last few months. Large curlicues cascaded down her back and shoulders, almost to her butt. And her skin had taken on this rosy luster.
Charleigh was no longer a little girl. As much as she had insisted on it in the past, demanding other’s to acknowledge the fact that she was an adult and to treat her as one, she’d never really felt it inside. That had all changed some time ago, and as her eyes met with those of the woman in the mirror, Charleigh knew that there was no going back. Under whatever circumstances, she was going to persevere.
“We’re gonna be ok, my little ones. I promise,” Charleigh spoke softly, placing both hands on her belly, and turned away from the mirror to find something to wear to bed.
She had looked through a drawer that was filled with sexy nightgowns and pajamas, but nothing seemed to fit anymore. Lately, she’d taken to sleeping in the nude. But this night, instead of turning toward the welcoming comfort of her bed, Charleigh went over to the dresser where she still kept Jamie’s clothes.
In the bottom drawer, there were more than two dozen, perfectly-folded white t-shirts that hadn’t been touched since the last day Jamie had spent in the house. Without a second thought, she took one out and tugged it over her head. It went on easily and fit comfortably across her bump. The sleeves came down just below her elbows, and the hem stopped at her knees. Charleigh swept her long hair out through the neck of the shirt and over on
e shoulder.
Just as Charleigh was about to push the drawer shut with her foot, something caught her eye and she stopped. Bending over, she pulled out one of the large, leather-bound books. They were the journals that had belonged to Amanda Douglass-Randall, her mother. The ones Jamie had put in this drawer for her, saying that she should read them when she felt she was ready.
This book in particular had a pasture scene with a sorrel mare and foal painted on it. Sitting down cross-legged on the floor, Charleigh opened it up. One the first page the date April 25, 1978 was written in perfect penmanship. She took her time to read the first few lines carefully. I just got some of the best news of my life, Amanda wrote, and I can’t wait until I can share it with Mike. He’ll be absolutely tickled pink—or blue. I’m pregnant!
She had just found out about me? Charleigh skimmed through the rest of the journal. The rest of the pages were filled with details of Amanda’s pregnancy. About everything from the kinds of foods she craved— I love strawberry Jell-O and pickles! Just not together! Charleigh had to laugh at that because she was having cravings for the same exact things—to how much weight she was gaining and how her body was changing. Of Charleigh’s birth; all thirty-nine excruciatingly painful hours of labor, and finally having her pink and perfectly healthy baby girl placed in her arms. Of almost every smile and tear; every tiny detail of Charleigh’s first year of life. It gave Charleigh a glimpse at the kind of love her mother had felt for her, and the kind of love she anticipated for the children she carried inside her own body.
Pulling one journal after another out of the drawer, she decided to do the same thing for her babies. One day, they might want to know certain things about the time their mother was carrying them. They would have questions about their father as well, and Charleigh came to the conclusion that a journal would be the response when she might not be able to give with a simple verbal explanation.
You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) Page 24