Austen Box Set

by Hart, Staci

  I was left without words, so I curled into his chest, the father I'd always wished for, the man I admired so much, and I cried with his arm around me until I was empty.

  Wandering Voices

  So simple:

  Breathe in, breathe out,

  The motion never considered

  Until it's gone.

  -M. White

  Wade

  The lawyer's hand gripped mine the next morning, firm and solid and despondent as we shook in parting after several hours of signing papers. The final adjustments to his will. The deed to the house, which as of that moment was mine. The guardianship papers for Sadie, who wouldn't be eighteen for another year. The power of attorney for Dad. The Do Not Resuscitate.

  I was numb from the battering of emotions, past the point of being able to discern how I felt about anything, my soul burned to ash.

  The door closed with a click, the house quiet, everyone gone. I hadn't seen Elliot since I'd blown out of the house the day before; she was gone by the time I could bring myself to come back. I was thankful for her absence, thankful and sorrowful and full of regret.

  I would see her again tonight, and I had no idea how to handle it. The ground I'd gained, I'd lost just as quickly. And I was angry. Angry at her, at Jack, at myself, at life. At the universe for stripping me of the things I wanted most in the world.

  No one was home but me and Dad — everyone had gone to run errands for our Italy date, knowing he and I would need some time with the lawyers, with each other.

  As I walked back into the library, I saw him with fresh eyes — the slightness of his frame, the exhaustion written in the lines of his face, his eyes laden with the weight of the day, of the days before, of the sickness inside of him.

  I pulled his blanket up when I made it to his side. "Want to sleep for a bit?" I asked gently.

  "In a little while." He laid his hand over mine.

  I sat on the edge of his bed so I could be close to him.

  He cleared his throat and blinked slowly before turning his head to face me. "There are too many things to feel. I don't know how to sort through them all."

  "Neither do I." My words were rough, burning my throat.

  "Sadness and fear. Worry for you, for your sisters. Guilt for the burden I'll leave you with. Is it strange that I think more about you than I do myself? I think about what happens when I'm gone, and that hurts me more than the thought of not existing."

  "Don't worry about us, Dad. We'll be fine," I lied, my mask firmly in place for him. I would do anything for him.

  His smile told me he knew the truth. "I don't know how to make it all right. I don't know how to make it easier other than to tell you that I don't want you to hurt or suffer. Don't mourn me; celebrate me. Don't think of me with sadness, think of me with joy."

  I swallowed once, then again, but nothing could stop the feeling that he was saying goodbye. "I promise."

  "There's so much I want to tell you and not enough time. I don't know where to start." His eyes roamed my face. "Your sisters will look to you for everything, but don't let that weigh on you. Just let them breathe. Guide them. You all know what to do … my job was easy, raising you all." His gray eyes were just like mine, but his were filled with urgency and intention as he spoke. "I want you to know that I am proud of you, so proud. Your mother would have been too, and you've honored her memory with your life, with your heart, sacrificing yourself and what you want for the greater good. You are everything we hoped for, everything we imagined when we held you for the first time."

  I squeezed his hand, unable to speak, so he continued, taking a deep breath.

  "The day she died, when she called …"

  "Dad …"

  "No, it's okay. You need to know. I want you to know." He drew another breath. "It was chaos, people yelling and screaming, the sound of their footfalls as they ran down the stairs. But I could hear her smiling, smiling and crying when I answered, relieved to have reached me, I think. We both knew … we knew. And she told me goodbye. She told me … she asked me not to forget her, but told me not to hold on. She told me to let her go. I never understood why she said it, until now. I cursed her name for asking the impossible of me, to let her go, and I never did. But now where I sit where she sat, I wish I had. Not for me. For her."

  My breath hitched, tears slipping silently down my cheeks.

  "I need you to let me go, son."

  "I …" Can't. Never. Won't.

  "It sounds impossible, but this is what I'm asking of you. I can't leave this world without knowing you'll try."

  I nodded, unable to deny him anything. "I'll try."

  "Life is short, so short, so precious, every minute, every day. Don't let the people you love, the people who make you happy, the people who bring you joy — don't let them go. Hang on to them, even when it hurts. When it seems impossible. Hold on to the things that breathe life into you. Listen to your soul and honor what it tells you. Live. Fight for what you love. Because one day, you'll be where I am, and in that moment I want you to look back gladly, with no regrets."

  "Elliot," I whispered.

  He nodded. "You've been in the dark for so long, from the moment you lost her. But she's right here, right now, and she loves you. If you don't love her anymore, then let her go too, right along with me. But if you do, hold on to her. You don't know how long you'll have the chance."

  He looked down at our hands. "All I want for you and your sisters is your happiness. I want your dreams and your hopes, and I'd do anything to give them to you. But I'm out of time, so I can only tell you my wishes so you can remember them, so you can hear them when I'm gone. Live and live well." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry to put this on you, but I can feel it." His voice dropped. "I feel it pressing on me, feel the time pass."

  "Don't say that, Dad. There's still time."

  "I know," he said with a sad smile, tinged with placation. "We'll have a little bit longer. Italy tonight?"

  "Italy tonight."

  "Promise me gelato."

  I chuckled. "Promise."

  "Will you read to me?" he asked after a pause.

  "Of course. Any requests?"

  "Emerson," he said sleepily, settling into his pillows. "'My Garden.'"

  I reclined his bed just a bit and found the hardbound book of Emerson poems, flipping to the one he asked for and read as he closed his eyes to rest.

  Wandering voices in the air

  And murmurs in the wold

  Speak what I cannot declare,

  Yet cannot all withhold.

  When the shadow fell on the lake,

  The whirlwind in ripples wrote

  Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,

  And omens above thought.

  But the meanings cleave to the lake,

  Cannot be carried in book or urn;

  Go thy ways now, come later back,

  On waves and hedges still they burn.

  These the fates of men forecast,

  Of better men than live to-day;

  If who can read them comes at last

  He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay.'

  I kept reading, knowing he was asleep, not interested in silence, wishing the words would tether him to the world forever.

  All he had to do was speak and his words hit my heart, hung over me, illuminating me. I had to let Elliot go or I had to hold on to her. When the choice stood before me that plainly, I knew there was only one answer. I'd tried to let her go for seven years, and last night was proof that I hadn't. I couldn't.

  It was time I stopped trying. My only hope was we could finally sit down and have the conversation we should have had years ago when we were young and afraid. The conversation I couldn't give her when I was in the thick of war. The one I didn't think she ever wanted to hear.

  Now I believed she did, and I hoped she would forgive me. I would honor my father and honor myself. I would put my fears aside, and I would do whatever it took to get her back.


  An hour later, I was still reading, my voice rough. The nurse had let herself in and sat next to me, checking the machines and working on paperwork while he slept — neither of us wanted to wake him — and the only sounds in the room were my voice and the ticking of the clock, the ever present marker of seconds and breaths and heartbeats.

  When his arm jerked in his sleep, I stopped reading, lowering the book. When his body stiffened and jolted off the bed, I leapt to his side, my heart stopping, my breath freezing, blood cold in my veins. And as he seized, body shaking, chin pointed at the ceiling, I held his face, cried his name. And my mask, my heart, the fabric of my soul shredded as I watched over him, weeping and lost forever as he breathed his last.

  Vanished

  Like boiling water,

  Scalding, churning,

  Steam slipping silently

  Up and up,

  And when it vanishes

  I watch, wondrous,

  Disbelieving

  That it had ever been real.

  M. White

  Elliot

  "He's gone."

  Wade's voice was a thousand miles away, quiet and numb and small.

  I slipped to the ground in my room, hands trembling and numb and whispered, "No."

  "Please, come. We need you."

  My cold hand cupped my mouth and I nodded, realizing after a moment that he couldn't see me. "Okay," was the only word to leave me.

  The line disconnected.

  I pulled myself up and gathered my things, stunned from shock, muttering blindly to my family that I had to go, unable to say where or why, unable to utter the words.

  At first I walked, my mind tripping and skittering over the impossibility, over the inevitability, and then I ran, tears streaking my face. And then I was walking in the door of the house, the loss overwhelming me.

  His absence was tangible, as if his spark lit the house, and now it was too still, too quiet. Sophie rushed me when I entered the library, and we fell to the ground in each other's arms. I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't move, but my eyes found him where he lay in bed. He looked peaceful, as if he were sleeping as the nurse by his side solemnly disconnected him from the machines. Ben and Sadie sat on the couch, Sadie sobbing, Ben's face colored with the things I felt as he held her up. And Wade was nowhere, gone.

  The light caught glimmering glass scattered all over the floor, and I saw the gears, the casing — a clock, smashed and broken, and we sat among the wreckage.

  The day crept past us in a strange warp where hours were minutes and minutes, hours. We stood by his side and held his hands and cried. We said our goodbyes and kissed his skin as it cooled.

  The funeral home came and took him away. A van from hospice came and collected the equipment. The nurse gave us condolences and left us there with an empty room and empty hearts.

  Wade never came home.

  Ben called with no answer, and we waited in vain as the daylight slipped away, crawling across the room imperceptibly until it was gone. And we sat in silence in the dark, no one possessing the energy to turn on a light, the twilight sifting through the glass from the clock on the ground, still chronicling the time without the need of its gears.

  Sadie fell asleep first, and Ben carried her to her room in the dark. I took Sophie to hers, putting her into her bed, sharing a final burst of tears, trying to hold each other together for a moment longer before she fell asleep too.

  Ben was downstairs, standing in the living room with his eyes trained on the sidewalk beyond the glass, and I stood next to him in silence. I couldn't stay, I told him — I needed out. And he promised he would be fine there without me, that he'd call if that changed. That he'd wait for Wade. It was my only solace as I pulled on my coat and stepped out into the bleak night.

  The cold pressed down on me, the air charged as I walked home, and the snow began to fall in slow, lazy swirls, gathering quickly, a blanket of white against the dark of the night.

  The house was quiet when I walked through the door, and I headed downstairs, numb from the cold and my loss. My room was warm and familiar, and I stripped down in the dark, unthinking, automatically, leaving my clothes where they fell. I shook as the cold seeped from my bones, kneeling naked by my fireplace to light it, not knowing why it was important, but it was. A fire had gone out and a new one was lit, a spot of warmth in the cold, a light in the dark. And then I slipped into my bed and lay beneath the blankets shaking, with my eyes on the flickering flames, a ward against the black of night.

  Time moved, though I didn't, not as the shadows deepened or the temperature fell. Not until the window opened, and he slipped inside.

  He was lit half in flames, half in shadow, his eyes sharp with pain and soft with sorrow. Snow dusted his dark hair and the shoulders of his jacket, and I sat slowly, holding the blanket to my breasts, dreaming with my eyes wide open.

  Broken. Broken and sorry. He'd flung away the no, the why, stripped his soul bare, and what he was, what was left was the truth: he was broken, maybe irreparably. But I could be what healed him, mended him. It was why he came here, I knew, and selflessly, this was what I wanted, for him to be whole again. Selfishly, I wanted nothing but him, only him, broken or whole. Anything was better than nothing at all.

  He begged me to understand without speaking, and I did. I understood when he moved to my side, the cold wafting off of him, touching my skin in tendrils. I knew when he touched my face, his hands warming the moment our skin touched. And when he breathed, I wished to be his air.

  My eyes never closed for fear if they did, I'd open them to find him gone.

  I felt his lips a second before they closed over mine, agony and hope, a fire burning in the empty space left by death. But around the edges was the solace in submission, after seven years of wanting, of waiting and loss, of loving without return. Our bodies came together, winding around one another with the memory of home and pain and love in our hearts.

  His hands were around my back, my arms around his neck, our lips laced with relief and regret, with apology and forgiveness, deepening with every heartbeat until he tipped his head, pressing his forehead to mine, our breaths ragged and eyes closed.

  "I need you," he whispered. "I love you," he breathed. "I'm sorry," he begged.

  "I'm yours," I sighed, and he kissed me again, his heart broken and singing and flying into the sun.

  He stood next to my bed, watching me as he pulled off his coat in the firelight, undressing as I sat with the sheets pooled around my waist, breath shallow, body on fire.

  His body was strong, no longer that of a boy, but a man, hardened and chiseled by his work, scarred from the war with cuts and burns. I reached for him, tears falling as he sat next to me, my fingers tracing the ruts and tight skin. His fingers circled my wrist, and he brought my palm to his lips, eyes closed, reverent and solemn. And when his eyes found mine again, they were alive with regret, with intention.

  He held my face in his big hands, eyes searching mine, and he tilted me gently, laying me down, kissing me with lips that knew me, knew my soul. Lips that had burned their imprint on me so many years before, a brand I'd never been able to wipe away, a brand that ignited again under his touch.

  His fingers trailed down my body, pulling my hips into his like they'd never forgotten me, like they knew they owned me. It was his skin against mine, his lips and my own. Our legs scissored, bodies flush, hands roaming, touching, reveling in exploring every familiar curve.

  His chest was warm and hard, his heart thumping wildly under my palm as it passed over, moving down, down to him, needing him, wrapping my fingers around his length. He gasped against my lips at the contact, his hand flexing on my hip, fingers digging into my skin before sliding down the back of my thigh to hitch it over his waist. And I stroked him gently, our lips and tongues moving in time as his hand kept moving until his fingers found my warm center. It was my turn to gasp, thighs flexing at the contact, relaxing as his lips moved down my neck.

  Wh
en I found composure, I flexed my hand, and he did the same, slipping the tip of his finger into me, and I sighed, heart pounding with his face buried in the curve of my neck.

  I could heal him, but he would ruin me. I would make that sacrifice without question, simply because he needed me, and I loved him.

  He shifted at the sound of my sigh, a noise escaping him from deep in his throat that hit me deep in my belly. He broke away and hovered over me, his legs between mine shifting to open them more, his eyes on mine, noses only inches apart for a moment that stretched out. And then, he kissed me.

  He kissed me with abandon, pressing me into the bed with his body as I felt the tip of him against the edge of me. With a gentle thrust, he slipped into me, the feeling taking over every sense, the moment too much, and I broke away, arms circling his neck, breath gone. He filled me, holding still when our bodies were connected, caging me in his arms, pinning me with his chest and hips, his face in the curve of my shoulder, my hands in his hair and cheek pressed against his head. We were as close as we could get, and we lay shuddering, breathing once, twice, three times before he moved.

  His hips flexed as his head rose, his lips finding mine, our bodies moving together. Time seemed to speed up and slow down, my heart racing as my hips slowed and his moved faster, rocking against me, the rhythm of our bodies and hearts matching pace until they sped, until we were overcome. And our bodies broke free with a gasp and a whispered name.

  The unspoken words were of no consequence for a long, singular moment.

  But that moment was all we had.