A Happier Life

14. Becks Final Destination

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1976

Tip: Virginia, I hope you’ve seen this through example. But your dinner table is where you share your values. It’s the perfect place to prove that, at our core, we are all very much the same. Every time you host, you have the golden opportunity to bring someone in who might ordinarily be left out. It’s a simple thing, but it does change lives. I have seen it with my own eyes. I believe it with all my heart.

Becks’s favorite day of the month was book club day. She and her friends Patricia, Ellen, Sarah, and Laura met once a month to talk about great classics, new reads, and town happenings—obviously. They’d been doing it for the past fifteen years. Becks loved being immersed in a novel and today’s read, Ordinary People, was no exception. Laura had gotten early copies for them from her brother in publishing, making it all the more exciting. As Sarah was saying, “I just didn’t respect the dissolution of Beth and Calvin,” and Laura countered, “But, Sarah, they weren’t in love; this was a happy ending,” Becks’s mind wandered to her own love, to October 1935, when her life had suddenly, agonizingly changed.

After a whirlwind few months of dating, Townsend had broken up with her with no warning at all. Becks was not only heartbroken; she was mystified.

Becks knew she wasn’t the only woman in the world to ever be broken up with. Even still, she found it nearly impossible to get up and go teach every morning, to stand in front of a class of kindergarteners and draw letters and talk about a butterfly’s metamorphosis, to read fairy tales of love and redemption when, as she now believed, love did not exist. She was only twenty-two years old and, already, she felt like her life was over.

Every day after school, she went to her parents’ house and cried to her mother over the man she loved, who had discarded her like an out-of-fashion sports coat.

“I just don’t see how it can possibly work,” was all he had said after he unceremoniously told her he thought they should stop seeing each other. She was sitting on the back steps of the house she shared with three other single female teachers, getting some fresh air after an entire day in the classroom. Townsend was coming to take her to a new film that had just been released. She had been expecting a proposal any day. To say Becks felt blindsided was an understatement.

“Why?” she had asked, immediately on the defensive. In that moment, their love story flashed before her eyes. She could feel Townsend’s arms wrapped around her on the beach as they sat under an umbrella, only days after they had first met. He had kissed her for all the world to see, unafraid of the appraising looks of strangers, whispering, “All this time, Becks, I was only waiting for you.”

But he hadn’t been waiting. He had been—just like everyone warned—having a good time until he tired of her. Do you reallythink a twenty-nine-year-old man wouldn’t be married by now if he wanted to be? friends asked. But she had been so sure that he was her destiny, that he was the one her heart had been waiting for, she couldn’t even hear their warnings. She heard them loud and clear now.

“Becks, I’m sorry,” Townsend had said. “I think the differences in our religious beliefs will just be too big a hurdle for our families to cross. And I know this is my fault. I should have told you from the beginning I was Catholic. I kept it from you because I wanted you for myself, and that was selfish.”

Well, yes. Yes, it was. And, sure, when Townsend revealed this truth to Becks on their fourth date, she had been shocked and worried. How would she tell her Methodist minister father? But Townsend had been the one to convince her that it would be okay, that they could weather this storm. He had been the one to convince her to take a chance on them. And she had; she did. The truth of the matter was, it was too late now. Becks’s heart already belonged to Townsend. “Sure, maybe,” she agreed. “But, Townsend, none of that matters now because I love you.”

She stood so that she could be eye level with him, so that she could reassure him over whatever crisis of confidence he was having. She kissed him softly, not letting him pull away when he tried to. “This is me, Towns,” she said. “I can see in your face you don’t really want to do this.”

He looked her in the eye, finally. “I don’t want to do it,” he said. “But, Becks, it’s the only way you’ll be happy.”

“It is certainly not the only way!” she protested. “We tell our families the truth, and they can support us or not!” The idea of losing her family terrified her. But the idea of losing Townsend terrified her more. “I can only really be happy if I’m with you.”

He kissed her hand. “I will always love you,” he said. “In fact, I love you enough to let you go. I know it hurts now, but it’s for the best, before we can’t turn back. You’ll see.”

Looking into his face, Becks felt that this wasn’t Townsend at all, that this wasn’t coming from him. As he turned, she wanted to call after him, but she felt too weak, like her voice had simply disappeared, just like the Little Mermaid her students loved so much.

Months of love had all boiled down to this one sad, unexpected moment. Lying on the couch the next night, her head in her mother’s lap, she said, for what felt like the millionth time, “I know something happened, Mother. I know it did. Townsend didn’t just change his mind. Someone or something made him change his mind.”

“There, there,” her mother had said. “The reason doesn’t matter, darling. What matters is that it’s better you know now. If he wasn’t serious about marriage, he wasn’t the one for you. He did you a favor.”

“This does not feel like a favor,” Becks said, tears soaking her mother’s skirt.

“I know it hurts now, sweetheart, but every day will get a little better. And then you’ll meet someone new, have a new love in your life. And you’ll look back and realize that this was all meant to be, that Townsend Saint James was merely a stop on your journey, not your final destination.”

Becks wanted to argue that she didn’t want another man, that Townsend was her one and only. Her friends came over to try to cheer her up; her mother made all her favorite foods in an attempt to rekindle her appetite. And while she was grateful, none of it particularly helped.

In fact, she was surprised that it was her father who finally gave her some clarity on the situation. Almost a month after the breakup, Becks, who was convinced that time would never heal this wound, was helping her mother dry the dinner dishes. She knew she needed to go back to her own house tomorrow—to school, to her job—but she was tired, and driving all the way back to her house seemed too hard. Plus, staying in her childhood room was such a balm to her aching soul. She wasn’t so alone here.

Her father came back from his after-dinner walk, kissed her mother, who was going up for her bath, and said, “Rebecca, why don’t you sit on the porch with me.”

Her father had been tight-lipped about her breakup, but she had only assumed that fathers weren’t really made for soothing their daughters’ heartbreak.

She followed him outside, and he sat down in one of their rocking chairs and lit his pipe. She sat beside him, taking in the warm scent of tobacco that would always remind her of home, of him. “Daddy,” she scolded, “you aren’t supposed to be smoking with your heart.”

He waved his hand. “Do you think if smoking were bad for you so many doctors would do it?”

Becks did suppose that was true. But still. Her father had been having heart trouble, and she wanted him to take any and all precautions.

“Becks, Townsend came to see me.”

She gasped and sat up straighter, turning her body toward him. “When? Today?”

He shook his head, fiddling with his pipe. “No, sweetheart. About a month ago.”

Becks felt light-headed. She knew instantly her father was the cause of their breakup. She could already feel the anger rising in her. But this was her father, her minister, too, and she must be respectful at all costs. “What did he say, Daddy?” she whispered.

He turned to look at his daughter and put his large, worn hand over her much smoother, smaller one. “Becks, sweetheart, did you know he’s a Catholic?”

Her face reddened. She had been raised not to date a Catholic, and certainly not to marry one. Theological texts—and even a popular novel, Mixed Marriage—had warned of the dangers. But then, she began to think: Why was that the rule? She understood bedtimes and vegetables at dinner. But why couldn’t she love a Catholic man? Or speak her mind? Or stand up for herself, for heaven’s sake? What kind of rules were those? “Well, I do now, Daddy. I didn’t at first. But now I love him. I want to marry him.”

Her father chewed on the end of his pipe. “Becks, honey, I know you think that now. He’s a handsome doctor, and he’s tricked you into thinking he can give you some sort of life that you want.”

Now she was furious again. Tricked her? Like she was a child who didn’t know the difference between true love and a silly game?

“But you don’t understand how life would be for the two of you in a mixed marriage,” he continued. “You’d have to raise your children in the Catholic church and your marriage would be a civil one, never blessed in the eyes of God. Not to mention what people would say.”

In that particular moment, Becks very much did not care what people said.

“No, sweetheart,” he went on, “you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. These marriages, the few of them I’ve been privy to, have been doomed from the start. Marriage is hard under the right circumstances. Why would you want to make it any harder?”

Rebecca Bonner had never talked back to her father in twenty-two years. This was the moment when all that changed. “Daddy,” she said, “you stand in that pulpit every week and preach that we should love our neighbor, that we should love our enemies, that we should try to bring others over into the right ways of the Lord. You stand there and tell us to be kind and inclusive, to invite the poor to dinner and minister to the sick, the imprisoned, the widows, the orphans. And now you’re telling me that the man I love isn’t suitable for me because he’s Catholic? Is that the real message here, Daddy? Love everyone but the Catholics?”

He looked stunned. But also disappointed. “Rebecca, I am not getting into a theological discussion that will be over your head. But I will tell you that if you think it’s bad on our side, it’s a million times worse on the other. Protestants aren’t wild about intermarrying, but Catholics prevent it at all costs. Do you think Townsend’s parents would ever approve of this?”

She presumed they would not.

“Sweetheart, I don’t want to strain your relationship with your mother, so I’ll let this be our secret. She would be very disappointed.”

Becks stood. She couldn’t continue this conversation. It already felt like the whole world was against her and Townsend, but that felt like nothing compared to the disapproval of her father. Her view of her father, who had always been the pinnacle of wisdom and kindness, understanding and trust, had changed in this moment. She knew that society looked down on mixed marriages. But what about real, true love that you knew you couldn’t live without? That made you both better people? Isn’t that what God really wanted?

Becks drove home that night feeling a mixture of sadness, anger, and relief. Townsend wanted to marry her. It was her father who had stopped it. She wanted to go to him, or, at least, call him. But it was terribly improper for a woman to call a man. And she couldn’t very well just show up at his house. But then Becks had an idea.

The next morning, she called in sick to school. She put on her favorite blue polka dot dress with the white collar, which had three buttons down the center, and a belt that cinched her waist. She applied her makeup just so, fixed her hair, and spritzed perfume on her neck. She buckled the Mary Janes with the little bow and the kitten heel she had purchased with her first real paycheck.

She sat in a small waiting room and was then led into a room where, even though she wasn’t sick, she still sat on the table. When Townsend walked in, handsome and confident in his doctor’s jacket, he stopped in his tracks. Then he ran to her.

“Becks!” he exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

He was close enough that she could hold the end of his stethoscope, place it on her chest. “Do you have anything for a broken heart?” she asked.

He looked at her sadly. “If I did,” he whispered, emotion lacing his voice, “I would already have given it to myself.”

“My father told me about your visit,” she said. “And I’m here because I don’t know if you still love me—”

“I do, Becks!” he interrupted. “I love you with all my heart.”

She smiled. “Well, in that case, I’m here to tell you that I choose you.”

“What?”

“I choose you. Over my family. Over my church. Over any other life I might have had. Because I don’t want to be in a world that you are not in. I want to be with you and that is that.”

It was the bravest thing she had ever said, and certainly the most forward. Women weren’t supposed to speak their minds, announce their feelings. They were to wait coyly while the man said what he wanted. But the last eighteen hours or so had changed Becks’s mind about pretty much everything she had ever known.

“Becks,” Townsend said, breathless, “I can’t ask you to choose me over your family. I would never make you do that.”

“You didn’t ask me,” she said. Plus, no matter what her daddy had said, Becks believed her family loved her enough that this would be forgiven.

Townsend shook his head. “Becks, you don’t understand what you’re getting into, not really. I broke up with you to protect you. Nothing has changed.”

“The thing that has changed,” Becks said, resolutely, gathering all her courage, “is that the month we’ve spent apart has given me time to realize that I don’t want to live without you. That’s the bottom line. The rest we’ll figure out.” When he didn’t say anything she whispered, “That is, of course, if you still want to be with me.”

Becks held her breath, waiting for his response. Townsend just stood there, looking at her, searching her face as though searching for an answer. Just as she’d resolved that it was all over, he reached for her hand. “Becks,” he said, “the day we broke up, I took all my savings and bought the best, most beautiful diamond that I thought you would love. It was my sign of faith in us, my good luck charm. I’ve kept it with me every minute since in the hopes that you would come back to me. And if you didn’t, I knew I’d be alone forever.”

She smiled, so overcome that she wasn’t the only one who felt this deep, poignant love. “So what are you saying?” she whispered.

“What I’m saying is that I have kept that ring in my pocket just in case.” He got down on one knee. “What I’m saying is that the last few weeks have shown me that I don’t ever want to live without you, Rebecca Bonner. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that there was something about you that completed something in me, and you have proven that every second since. I want to take care of you. I want to love you. I want to have children with you, and I don’t give a damn what church pew they sit in on Sunday mornings. All I care about is that you’re their mother, that we make a life together, that I get to be by your side until my dying breath.”

He pulled the ring out of his pocket and Becks had to cover her mouth. It was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen—and certainly the biggest. A large, sparkling center stone set in a filigree setting with diamonds inside it, and a small row of rubies lined the top and bottom.

“I didn’t know diamonds like that existed.”

“I didn’t know women like you existed,” he said. “Becks, until I met you, I was content to be alone forever. But now that I know you, I have to be with you. So please, please, Becks Bonner, be my wife. Will you marry me?”

How concerned he looked about her answer made her smile. “Yes!” she practically squealed. “Yes, I will marry you! I cannot wait to marry you!”

Townsend slipped the ring on her finger, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he stood. He lifted her into the air and spun her around, kissing her before setting her down. “I love you, Becks,” he said. “I wanted so badly to fight for you, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been right. I knew this had to be your decision. I prayed every night you would come back to me.”

“I love you, too,” she said. “And I prayed the whole way here that you would still choose me.”

They kissed again, and, while Becks knew she wouldn’t get her dream wedding in her hometown church, that she wouldn’t dance with her father or cry with her mother if she made this choice, none of that was as important to her as being with Townsend. And it struck her that God didn’t seem to care that she was a Methodist and he was a Catholic. She and Townsend had prayed for the same thing, and He had answered them. If that wasn’t a sign that their marriage was meant to be, Becks didn’t know what was.

Forty-one years later, it was still the best decision she’d ever made. And that was why, now that she knew the end was coming, she also knew she had to do everything she could to make sure Townsend was taken care of after she was gone. Townsend, and the community they both loved, the place that had loved them and become their family when she had lost hers. This town was part of Townsend’s family’s history, for generations and generations, and, once they had married, it had become part of hers too. She took her commitment very seriously.

Surrounded by women and cigarette smoke, Pink Squirrels in hand, Becks was trying not to listen too intently as her book club discussed Ordinary People’s themes of overcoming loss—and the desperate toll such a thing can take on families. That was hitting just a little too close to home. So close, in fact, that she reached over and took a cigarette out of Patricia’s pack, lighting it with the mother-of-pearl lighter on the end table.

Patricia raised her eyebrows at her friend, but didn’t say anything. Becks hadn’t smoked for a dozen years, quitting in 1964 when the surgeon general released a statement that smoking caused lung cancer. But she was dying anyway. Why not enjoy every moment?

Becks shrugged at her best friend as Ellen, the optometrist’s wife and Becks’s first friend in Beaufort, said, “Okay, well, I don’t have anything else to say about the book. Anyone else?”

“I think we’ve covered it,” Laura said.

Sarah nodded. “Well, then, on that note…” She leaned in closer. “Has anyone heard that the Historic Site might be selling off one of its houses? I hear they’re in financial straits.”

Becks snapped to attention at that. “No!” she said. “That can’t be!” The Historic Site was her favorite spot in town—and Townsend’s. They had raised their children running through the boxwood maze, and she couldn’t count the hours she had spent volunteering when school groups came through. “We have to do something!” she said, inhaling from her cigarette with more passion.

“I love the Historic Site as much as the next person. But I don’t see a way to raise the money to keep it up year after year. Everything in this town counts on the same handful of us to donate. We can’t save absolutely everything.”

Becks loved Ellen, but the woman was a bit of a pessimist—and, well, perhaps she shouldn’t be on the board with her and the rest of the book club if that was the way she felt. “Well,” Becks piped up, “we’ll just have to find a way to broaden our fundraising reach, get tourists involved in an event that will knock their socks off. Something that will make them want to come back year after year.”

“Are you going to host a party for tourists, Becks?” Sarah asked.

Becks shrugged. “Who said anything about a party?”

“Well, how else does one raise money?” Laura chimed in, swaying slightly. Patricia got up to refill Laura’s glass even though, in Becks’s opinion, Laura had had quite enough to drink already.

“I would open my home to tourists if it would help,” Patricia said. “I think we all have to do our part.”

It made Becks think of the war. She looked around Patricia’s beautiful, cozy home that, only two doors down from her own, had existed on this street since the mid-1700s. Becks and Patricia often discussed that one could never really own a home like this. No, they were simply its caretakers until the next generation came along. Maybe it was the Pink Squirrel, maybe it was the cigarette, or maybe it was that thought. But, whatever the inspiration, Becks was struck with an idea. She sat up straighter and snapped her fingers.

“Rebecca Saint James has an idea,” Ellen said.

“Look out, world!” Sarah added.

Becks smiled and said, “I do indeed. Ladies, vacationers, and locals alike would certainly pay a hefty ticket price for the chance to explore inside these pieces of history.”

“What pieces of history?” Sarah asked.

“Our houses,” Becks clarified. “The old homes that make Beaufort, well… Beaufort.”

“I don’t like it,” Ellen interrupted.

“Oh, Ellen,” Laura scoffed. “You don’t like anything. Let the woman talk.”

Patricia laughed, lighting another cigarette and sharing her light with Ellen as well.

“We could band together,” Becks continued. “Open up our homes for a tour of sorts. Sell tickets to view them. That way, we wouldn’t be asking locals for more donations. Instead, we would be selling tickets to anyone who wanted them, and the money could go to the Historic Site.”

Patricia gasped. “I love it! I absolutely love it!”

“Strangers traipsing around our homes?” Ellen said. “You can’t be serious, Becks. Think about our children. You want a bunch of potential criminals in the rooms where Virginia, Lon, Suzanne, Arlene, and Betty sleep? Milton would never stand for that.”

Patricia and Becks shared a look. “Ellen,” Patricia said with that Mississippi drawl Becks loved so much, “Milton will do positively anything you want. You can’t play that card with us. Plus, I believe our children would survive.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’ll do it, Becks,” Sarah said. “If you’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

“I’ll do it!” Patricia chimed in.

All these new-age psychiatrists were writing and talking about peer pressure and how to keep your children from experiencing it. But, Becks was realizing, it could still strike at any age. And, if you asked her, it could be quite useful under certain circumstances.

“Well, you know I can’t be left out,” Laura said.

Ellen mashed her cigarette in a silver-rimmed crystal ashtray. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. What’s next, taking in boarders?”

Becks smiled. She could tell by Ellen’s tone that she was relenting. That was five houses right there. With any luck, she could arrange five more. “This might not take off, you know,” Ellen warned.

But Becks just smiled. Because she knew in the very marrow of her bones that it would. Who didn’t want a chance to try on someone else’s life, just for a few minutes? As Becks put out her cigarette, she remembered her plight. She remembered that, even if she pulled this off, even if it became an annual tradition, this would be the only Old Homes Tour she would ever see. And it made her wish that, just for a moment, she could try on someone else’s life too.