Chapter 54 #2
The wind picks up and lifts strands of my hair. They get stuck in the silent tears wetting my face, and I brush them away, inadvertently smearing streaks of dirt across my cheek. I don’t care.
“Where are Freda and Mitch?”
“Back at the house with everyone else,” Julien replies.
“Why didn’t she come?” Julien tried to get Bethany to come to the funeral. Hell, I even tried, but she hung up on me. Jayson was her father, regardless of the state of their relationship.
Julien’s chest falls with his melancholic exhalation. “I don’t know.”
My head finds its resting place in the crook of his arm, our fight earlier this week a forgotten memory as we kneel on the sodden earth and grieve together.
“I want Elizabeth Ann here.”
Daniel had asked me once after Ryder died if I wanted to have Elizabeth Ann brought here so I wouldn’t have to travel to Seattle all the time to see her.
I told him no. Seattle was where she was born.
It’s where Jayson and I would go every year and read her stories and sing her songs.
But she needs to be here with her dad. I’ll ask Fallon what we need to do to make that happen.
Something small and rectangular gets placed in my hand. “First video,” Julien says and kisses my temple, then stands up, brushes the detritus from his pants legs, and slowly makes his way back up the hill toward the house.
My fingers tightly curl around the phone he put in my hand, and I peer up at the cloudless blue sky.
Butterflies flit around me, searching for nectar among the wildflowers.
A bright red male cardinal sings his love song to his mate sitting on the branch beside him.
How can the world be so bright and look so beautiful on such an awful day?
Adjusting the hem of my black sundress so I can sit cross-legged, I unlock the screen of Julien’s phone and tap on the camera icon, then select the first video in the queue.
A blue shirt fills the screen, the person wearing it backing away.
Jayson sits down on the floor, the sunlight coming through his bedroom window bringing out the golden highlights in his dark mahogany hair.
He wipes his hands down his thighs and smiles.
He’s wearing the same clothes he wore the day we flew to Seattle.
“Hey, Princess.”
I lovingly trace a fingertip over the screen. “Hey, you.”
He rests his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together in his lap.
“I don’t know why I felt compelled to make this video.
Maybe because the headaches are getting worse.
Maybe because I’m afraid to tell you because I don’t want you to worry.
Maybe because I’m scared, and talking to you, even if you’re not here, makes me feel better.
You don’t even want to know how many one-sided conversations I’ve had with you over the years,” he says with a lopsided grin.
He glances behind him at the window. How many times did I look out my window to see him waiting on the other side?
I climb out of bed and go to the window. The moonlight bathes the yard in a soft glow, and across the way, past the oak tree that grows between our two houses, Jayson and Julien’s faces peek out from their second-story window. The moment they see me, they lift the glass. I do the same.
“Good night, Princess!” Jayson calls out.
Jayson’s silver gaze returns to the screen.
“My life has been shaped by three things: meeting you, loving you, and losing you. Everything else in between was just noise…until that noise got too loud and was impossible to ignore any longer. I never thought much about the headaches until my AA sponsor insisted I see a doctor. Just like with alcohol, fighting had become an outlet for the pain. I guess I got hit in the head too many times. CTE.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but my hand flies over my mouth in a gasp.
CTE is chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It’s a degenerative brain disease that’s common in boxers, which is why it’s called dementia pugilistica or punch-drunk syndrome.
His laugh is hollow when he says, “The MRI also found the aneurysm. Funny how one thing can lead to another. The neuro said it would be an easy fix. A simple microvascular clipping. So I came home. I needed to fix things with you and Julien before I had the surgery. I needed to fix things with Ry.” He roughs a hand over his tired face.
“Just in case something happened. There’s always risk with any surgery, and…
well, just in case…” He sighs loudly and looks away.
“I couldn’t leave this life without seeing you one last time. ”
I thought there were no more tears left to shed after days of crying, but more come.
“I know, I know. I’m worrying over nothing.
You’re a doctor. You could probably give me all the stats and reassure me that everything is going to be just fine.
But I didn’t want to take that chance. Honestly, the CTE, the likelihood that I’ll get dementia as I get older, scares me more than the aneurysm.
I saw how much you struggled when you lost your memories.
I don’t want to forget you. I don’t want to become a different person who doesn’t recognize the people he loves. ”
I grip the phone harder. “You should have told me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I know I’ve failed you in every way possible, just like I failed our daughter and Bethany.
Thank you for forgiving me. For giving me a second chance.
This last week has meant the world to me.
More than you’ll ever know. I hope you never see this video.
I hope when I tell you tomorrow night about the surgery, you won’t be too mad.
I’d really like for you to be the first person I see when I wake up in the hospital.
But if Fate decides that’s not going to happen, I just want you to know”—he leans in, his ruggedly handsome face taking up most of the screen—“the part of my heart that I gave you is forever yours. Be happy, Princess. Know how much you are loved. By Ryder, by Julien. By Fallon. By me. I love you, and I always will.” Jayson kisses the tips of his fingers and touches the screen.
“Your once-upon-a-time prince.” The video cuts off.
It’s the same thing he wrote to me in the letter, the one I read the day I married Ryder, and my heart breaks yet again when I hear him speak the words aloud.
I slip the crushed, folded paper from my dress pocket and gently place the origami star on top of the dirt of Jayson’s grave. Inside, scribbled in his messy cursive, is one of the love notes he wrote to me. You aren’t just a star to me, you’re my whole damn sky.
“Whenever I look up at the night sky filled with our stars, I’ll always see a reflection of you,” I tell him. Bending over, I kiss the ground he’s buried under. “Until our next time.”
“Kitten.” I feel his voice just as real as if he touched me.
I knew Fallon was standing there. I always can sense when he’s near, his presence as electrifying as a bolt of lightning splitting the molecules of air as it streaks down to the ground.
Getting to my feet, I walk straight into the arms of the man who is always there to catch me when I fall.
Through the heartbreak and suffering of everything life has hurled at me, love has always guided my path.
And I was so damn lucky to have three incredible men who I got to love and who loved me in return.
My first love with Jayson, my forever love with Ryder—I gaze up into Fallon’s exquisite aquamarine eyes—and a love that challenges me, makes me stronger, and has shaped me into the woman I am now.
I look at the gorgeous diamond ring adorning my finger. Life with this man is going to be nothing short of spectacular.
“I love you, Fallon Parker Montgomery. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”
His smile is my sunshine. His arms around me are my home.
He takes my breath away with the most gorgeous kiss, then fills my heart when he says, “It’s going to be a beautiful life.”