For Better, for Worse, Forever

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “I’m sick of doctors. I don’t want to see another one ever again.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing. Don’t worry about me. I’m doing fine and I’m having a good time. I go to the beach every day.”

  “Do you think you’ll go back to NYU in the fall?” April had been attending New York University when she and Mark had decided to get married.

  “Probably … maybe … I don’t know, Kelli, I just don’t know what I want to do.”

  “How about the rest of you? Are you feeling better about Mark?”

  “I’ll always miss Mark. But I’ve met someone here, Brandon Benedict. He’s been pretty nice to me and it’s helped me sort out what happened to Mark and me.”

  “Why, that’s awesome!” Kelli’s delight crackled through the phone line. “Now I really feel bad about not coming. What’s he like?”

  April told Kelli as much as she could about Brandon. “I know he’s got some family problems, but I understand how it feels to lose someone you love. I mean, to have his mother die when he was a high-school senior was hard for him.”

  “Sounds as if you’re good for each other.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I do know I like being with him.”

  “April, I have to go. I have an exam in a half hour. Just promise me you’ll get home in August, same as me. I really want to see you.”

  “It’s a deal.” The lump rose again in her throat. “I miss you, Kelli.”

  “I miss you too.”

  April hung up and stared out to sea. New York and her other life seemed far away and almost dreamlike. Sometimes she could hardly recall what her house looked like. Or the faces of her old friends. Or even Mark. Quickly she went to her dresser and seized the framed photo of him. She studied Mark’s face, memorizing every detail until her heart stopped thudding. I won’t forget you. I won’t! She hugged the photo to herself until the cool glass warmed from the heat of her body.

  “Wow. You look beautiful.” Admiration danced in Brandon’s eyes. He sat across from her at a small table on the restaurant’s veranda, out under the stars.

  She smiled her thanks. Brandon looked good to her too. He wore a suit, the first she’d ever seen him in, and she liked the effect. “Nice place,” she told him.

  “Nice company,” he returned, giving her a look that made her heartbeat quicken. “We had a senior dance here last year. I didn’t go.”

  She didn’t ask why, and he didn’t volunteer. She asked, “Isn’t the school year about over?”

  “I’m taking exams now.”

  “What will you do this summer?”

  “Work until it’s time to go off to school.”

  “Have you picked a college yet?” She remembered his telling her about being accepted into several colleges in the States.

  “No. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to know how much longer you plan to be on the island.”

  “Maybe until August.”

  “Perfect,” he said, leaning forward. “Then we can leave together—you to go home, me to go off to college.”

  It didn’t seem like a bad idea to her. It would be fun to spend the summer with Brandon, and after so many months of unhappiness, she felt in the mood to have some fun. She was sure her parents wouldn’t object—

  “Hello, son.”

  The man who stood next to their table interrupted April’s train of thought. She saw Brandon stiffen and his expression harden. “Hi, Dad.” Brandon squirmed uncomfortably.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Brandon’s father stared down at April.

  She saw Brandon’s likeness in his face, but his coloring was darker. Saving Brandon the chore, she said, “Hi. I’m April Lancaster.”

  Brandon’s father smiled. “I suspected there was someone special taking up Brandon’s spare time. Since you’re having dinner, would you care to join us?” He gestured toward a table across the room, and a deeply tanned, pretty, dark-haired woman dressed in white waved. “If I’d known you were coming here—”

  “No thanks.” Brandon cut off his father. “We were just leaving.” He stood, and his napkin flopped onto the floor.

  April questioned him with her eyes. They hadn’t even ordered. What was so terrible about joining his father for dinner?

  “Come on, April.” Brandon held out his hand, and she took it hesitantly and stood.

  She saw color in his father’s cheeks and realized he’d been stung by Brandon’s rudeness. “Um—nice to meet you,” she called as Brandon hustled her out of the dining room.

  Outside, in the humid tropical night, he skidded to a stop and took a couple of deep breaths. She saw that he was trembling. “What’s going on?”

  “I didn’t expect my father to pop in on us.”

  “He just said hello,” she said, defending him. “Was it seeing him with another woman? I mean, if your mother’s been dead for more than a year—”

  “And it’s his fault!” Brandon blurted out hotly. “She’s dead and it’s all his fault.”

  8

  Shocked by Brandon’s accusation, April gasped. “What are you talking about?” He’d never openly discussed his mother’s death with her, nor had she asked him for details.

  “Let’s walk,” Brandon said. “Would you mind?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  He led her through well-lit paths to the garden area, where the accent lighting was noticeably dimmer and stars peeked through palm branches. He found an empty bench and sat, his forearms resting on his thighs, his head bowed. “I’m sorry,” Brandon said, sounding subdued. “I didn’t mean to sound off back there.”

  Sitting beside him, she asked, “Well, now that you have, tell me what you meant. How is your father responsible for your mother’s death?”

  “I’ve never told you how my mother died.”

  “No, you haven’t.” She imagined a car wreck with Brandon’s father driving.

  “My mother committed suicide.”

  Just the sound of the word made her stomach lurch. Suicide. It sounded violent, irrevocable. And she couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to die. “How?”

  “She took the sailboat out one afternoon. She wrote a note to us, swallowed some pills, and died. The coast guard found the boat drifting and went on board and found her. She loved that boat. She turned it into her coffin.”

  And April knew that Brandon had loved the boat too. He’d learned to sail on it, and now it held bad memories. “Is that why it’s in dry dock?”

  “Yeah. Dad hauled it out of the water after Mom’s funeral and it hasn’t been wet since.”

  “Would you want to be on it again?”

  “Yes.” His answer was so soft, she had to lean forward to hear it. “It was the only place I remember her being happy. We spent a lot of time on it together when I was a kid. We sailed for hours and … and … I miss it.”

  “Maybe if you talk to your father—”

  “Forget it. He didn’t care when Mom was alive. He doesn’t care now.”

  “Are you sure?” She remembered when she’d thought her parents were against her union with Mark and how she had attempted to plan her wedding on her own. She’d needed her mother, but believed that her mother was ignoring her by staying uninvolved. It hadn’t been true, but the rift between them had turned into a gulf in no time. “I mean, how do you know?”

  “I know because he’s never home. His business”—he fairly spat the word—“is much more important to him than we ever were. She was so lonely. And it got worse and worse as I grew up.”

  “Maybe you just noticed it more and more.”

  He snapped his head up to glare at her. “I know how things were at the house. My mother didn’t have any friends except for my father, and he ignored her. She started drinking just to get his attention, she told me. But that didn’t work either. Suicide became her only way to get noticed.” Brandon shook his head. “It was his fault, all right. He could have stopped her if he’d only paid at
tention to her. If he’d only seen how much she was hurting.”

  April didn’t agree with his reasoning. “But don’t you think she had a choice, Brandon? Don’t you think she could have gotten help if she’d really wanted it?”

  “My mom wasn’t like that. She didn’t want the whole world to know her problems. No, my father should have been more sensitive to her.”

  “You were sensitive to her, and that didn’t stop her,” April said before she realized how her words would hurt him.

  He pulled back in horror. “Don’t you think I tried? I wanted to help; I skipped school some days when she was really low just to keep her company. But other days I got caught up in the things I wanted to do—seeing my friends, dating, having fun. In the end, I let her down too.”

  “But you were a kid. You should have been busy with those things.”

  He grunted his disapproval at her willingness to let him off the hook.

  April’s heart went out to him. He was tortured by thoughts and feelings that didn’t seem valid to her. She’d talked to Mark enough to know that some things people can change and some things they can never change, and that it did no good to beat yourself up over the things you couldn’t control. “It’s like hating yourself because you have blue eyes,” he’d told her during one of their discussions about their illnesses. “I was hurt by the way people treated me because I had CF, but while I couldn’t control their feelings, I could control mine. I learned to live with it and to be friends with the kids who did overlook my disease.”

  She knew illness wasn’t an easy burden to carry. She hadn’t wanted to be pitied or to be made to feel like a freak by kids she knew, but when the truth had come out about her tumor, her real friends stuck by her. Others, like her onetime boyfriend Chris Albright, had dropped her. His loss. She said, “Brandon, don’t blame yourself. And don’t blame your father.”

  He jumped to his feet. “I didn’t expect you to take his side.”

  “I’m not taking anybody’s side,” she insisted, grabbing hold of his hand. “Except for you, I never knew anybody in your family. How can I take sides? I’m just wondering if either you or your father could have stopped your mother no matter what you did. She made the choice to die, Brandon. She took the pills all by herself.”

  “He should have figured out what she planned to do,” he insisted stubbornly. “He was married to her.”

  “Being married can’t stop something bad from happening to a person, no matter how hard you try.”

  “How can you understand? I’m sorry I told you. Just forget it.”

  April could have told him plenty. She could have told him she was no stranger to the pain of feeling helpless and powerless. She could have told him about her brain tumor. But he didn’t need the added shock right now, and she didn’t need to become too embroiled in a relationship with him. She wanted to be around him as long as they could be friends and have fun. At the end of the summer, they would go their separate ways. “You’re right,” she told him quietly. “I don’t understand, but please don’t be sorry we talked about it. I’m not. It helps me to understand you better. And you’re the one I care about. I’ll never bring it up again, if that’s what you want.”

  He stared at her. “I—I didn’t mean to yell at you. I know you were just trying to help.” He dropped beside her on the bench and took her shoulders in his hands. “I’ve never met anybody like you, April. It’s like you can sometimes see inside me, and that makes me scared because I’m afraid you’ll see all this bad stuff and hate me.”

  “We all have bad stuff inside us. I could never hate you, Brandon.”

  “I’m not used to talking about … about what happened to my mother. I miss her.”

  “I miss Mark.”

  His eyes, only inches from her face, looked moist. “He was very lucky to have you to love him.” She felt her heart thudding and heard her pulse roaring in her ears. “I know I could never take his place, and I’m not trying to, but April, I really like you. I … would … like … to kiss you.”

  Her mouth went dry and she wanted to tell him, “No, don’t,” but couldn’t force her lips to say the words. She had kissed no one except Mark in more than a year, but suddenly, with all her heart, she wanted to kiss Brandon. She raised her chin in acceptance. He pulled her closer and tenderly kissed her parted lips.

  So, this is what it feels like to fall in love, Brandon thought as he sat on the sofa in the great room of his house, mindlessly flipping through TV channels with a remote control. His best friend, Kenny, had tried to describe the emotion when Kenny had fallen for his latest girl. “It’s a rocket ride, man. You feel like Superman and you want to walk on the clouds.”

  Well, Brandon agreed. Ever since the night before with April, he’d wanted to fly. She was everything he’d ever dreamed about having in a girlfriend—beauty, brains, sensitivity. He loved her, but he was afraid to tell her. She was still entangled with the memory of her dead fiancé, and Brandon wasn’t certain how to untie her from her past love and get her to see him as a new one. His attraction, his attachment to her, had been happening for months, but it had all come to a head when he’d opened his heart concerning his mother. A pang shot through him as he realized the two of them would never meet.

  His father’s bedroom door opened, and his dad wandered sleepily down the hall. He stopped when he saw Brandon. “I didn’t know if you’d be home.”

  Brandon flipped off the TV and looked at his father. “I have exams next week.”

  “You, um, doing okay with them?”

  “If you’re asking if I’m going to pass this year, the answer’s yes.”

  His father went into the kitchen area that adjoined the great room. “You want some coffee?”

  “I’ve had some, but there’s more in the pot.”

  His father sat down at the breakfast bar that separated the two rooms and sipped his coffee. “It’s good. Thanks for making it.”

  Brandon shrugged. Suddenly a thought occurred to him as he remembered the pretty woman having dinner with his father last night. He stiffened and glanced down the hall toward his father’s bedroom. “You are alone, aren’t you?”

  “I’m alone. Elaine’s a nice woman and I’m sorry you and your girl didn’t join us for dinner. Can you tell me a little about April?”

  Brandon told his father about their meeting, her family, the plans the two of them had made for the summer. “I want to show her a great time before she leaves in August.”

  His father set down his cup. “She’s a beautiful girl, son. And you looked as if you were having a good time with her. That’s good. You should be having a good time. Maybe I could take the two of you to lunch sometime.”

  The offer surprised Brandon because the two of them rarely did things together, mostly because Brandon hadn’t wanted to be around his father. “Maybe,” he said.

  “No one can show April a better time than you. You know this island like the back of your hand.” His father sounded downright buoyant.

  “I took her sailing. She liked that.”

  A heartbeat of silence; then his father said, “Sailing’s a lot of fun, and you’re a good sailor.”

  But not fun for us, Brandon thought. He stood. “Well, maybe I’d better go cram for today’s test. Graduation ceremony is next Saturday,” he added. “In case you want to come.”

  “Of course I want to come. You’re my son and graduation is a big day. We’ll do something afterward—lunch at the club. Oh, and be thinking about what you want as a gift. If there’s anything special. If not, you’ll have to take potluck.”

  I want my mother back. “I’ll let you know.” Brandon left the room without saying another word.

  9

  Brandon invited April and her parents to his graduation ceremony, and his father extended an invitation to all of them for dinner at the yacht club. Although the graduating class was small, the ceremony in the school’s auditorium was well attended. Brandon ripped off his cap and gown as soon a
s his father finished taking pictures outside in front of the school seal. “This thing is suffocating me,” he grumbled.

  “I hated mine too,” April assured him. “My friend Kelli said we looked as if we were wearing waffles on our heads.”

  She looked gorgeous to him, dressed in a summery cotton dress. Her long coppery hair caught the sun and shimmered. He saw her take several pills at the water fountain and asked, “You all right?”

  “Fine. Just a slight headache. It’ll pass.”

  At the yacht club, Brandon’s father had reserved a table overlooking the sparkling blue waters of the ocean, where sailboats glided in a stiff westerly breeze. Brandon’s father and April’s parents seemed to have plenty to talk about, which gave Brandon the opportunity to concentrate on April. He told her, “I know my summer work schedule at the golf course—mornings from six until noon. I cut back on my hours—no weekends. That way I’ll have every afternoon and evening free. I want to spend as much time as I can with you.”

  She rubbed her temples. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Why not? You do want to do stuff together, don’t you? You haven’t changed your mind?”

  “What about your other friends? Don’t you want to be with them? I shouldn’t hog all your free time.”

  “I was sort of a loner this year, April, and so I don’t fit in too good anymore. Most of my friends are going away, and my friend Kenny is stuck on his girlfriend still, so I wouldn’t see much of him anyway.”

  “This might be your last chance to be with your friends. Once high school is over, everyone goes their separate ways.”

  “I should care? Until I leave for the States in August, I want to spend all my time with you.” Suddenly embarrassed, he added, “I mean, that is, if you want to spend the time with me.”

  A slow smile lit her face. “Of course I do. It’ll be a super summer. But it’s okay if you change your mind at any time and want to include others in your life.”

  He nodded but knew that she was the only person in the world he wanted to be with. There was no one else. And perhaps there never would be anyone as special as April in his life again.