35. Tucker
Chapter Thirty-Five
TUCKER
The plane hangar was quiet after I did my final checks and closed the garage bay door.
I walked into the small office, if one could call it that, in the back corner.
It was a small square room with a bathroom and a desk.
It was entirely utilitarian. We had some shelving on the wall, where we kept odds and ends.
I sank into the chair at the desk and reached into my jacket pocket, pulling out the crumpled envelope. Claire’s handwriting was so familiar. My heart felt stung as if something ragged with sharp, hard edges had scraped across the surface of it.
It wasn’t a mortal wound, but it hurt like hell.
Dear Tucker,
It should have been fifteen years now. You’re 32, and I hope you’re happy.
I hope you’re not upset that I asked my parents to hold on to this and send it later.
I wanted to wait so that you had time to get past us.
Maybe I haven’t reached eighteen yet, but I’ve already figured out people are kind of confused.
We don’t know what we want, not really, when we’re young.
I think by now maybe you know what you want.
I hope you followed your dream into the Air Force and that you’re flying planes somehow.
I don’t know where. I know you’re good at it.
You’re so detail-oriented. I also hope you’ve fallen in love again.
You should be about to get married if you’re not already.
Mostly what I wanted to say was that I feel so lucky.
I got to love you and have you love me. I don’t feel like life is fair.
In this case, I feel like it’s more unfair to you than me.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m downright furious that I’m dying.
I’m writing this today before they think I’ll die.
I’m pretty weak, but I’m bored too, so I might as well write.
You love hard, and you’re so loyal, but I’m worried about one thing. I hope you didn’t let me getting sick and dying make you bitter. I already see some of that. You’re angry. Not at me, but at the universe. Don’t do that. Please. Please give love a chance. Do it for me.
Thank you for loving me as much as you did. Many people would have walked away from this, but you didn’t. That tells me what kind of man you are. You’re already one of the strongest people I know, and I hope it only makes you stronger.
I love you. I’m blowing you a kiss.
Claire
p.s. Please burn this. Don’t cling to a piece of paper.
My eyes blurred as I stared down at the letter, the teardrops falling just below her writing. The salty tears didn’t stain her words, but they marred the surface of the paper. This was written on lavender paper, her favorite color. It wasn’t lined, but Claire’s writing was tidy.
I took a shaky breath and glanced around, laughing through my tears when I realized there wasn’t a box of tissues here.
I set her letter on the desk and crossed into the bathroom, grabbing some toilet paper off the roll.
I blew my nose, wiped my eyes, and sat down, reading through the letter once again and wondering just what the fuck to do.
Claire had been right. I was bitter. She would have liked Skylar. I knew she would. Yet I couldn’t deal with facing Skylar right now.
Claire wanted me to burn this letter, this last piece of her. What the fuck? What. The. Fuck.
What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t burn this. It was all I had of Claire. Yet that love felt a million miles away right now. A corner of my heart was reserved for her. My heart was bigger for it, which was why I was afraid.
That night, I texted Skylar. She didn’t reply.
The following morning, I saw her at Red Truck Coffee. She smiled politely from where she stood ahead of me in line.
When I stopped by Ludie and Dan’s office that evening, Skylar said she had plans, which I suspected was a lie.
I texted her the next day, and she replied as vaguely as possible with: Busy. Hope you’re doing okay.
She even included a smiley emoticon, which was so not like her that I knew it was bullshit.
All the while, I missed her. I still hadn’t burned Claire’s letter. One night after staff dinner at the lodge, Daphne caught me lightly by the elbow as I was passing by the kitchen sinks.
“Yeah?” I prompted.
“Oh, I was just thinking you could help with the dishes,” she said.
I looked around, and Cat caught my eye right before she practically raced out the door into the hallway in the back. There was no one else left in the kitchen. I was pretty sure I’d been set up to help Daphne clean. I eyed her suspiciously but nodded.
She started rinsing dishes and handing them to me, directing me to put them in a large industrial-style dishwasher. After we worked quietly for a few minutes, Daphne said, “I wanted an excuse to talk to you.”
“Well, just say you want to talk to me,” I replied, uncertainty churning in my gut.
I told myself this was just Daphne, and she was my friend. Except Daphne had this weird radar where she knew, like seriously knew, when something was up with you. We all joked about it. Flynn didn’t worry about it because he loved her.
I kept putting the dishes in the dishwasher until it was full. I slid the rack in and tapped the button to start it before turning and resting my hips against the counter. “Just get to it. What’s up?”
Daphne dried her hands on a towel before facing me. “You seem sad, and you haven’t been seeing Skylar.”
I leaned my head back, looking at the ceiling as I took a deep breath. Leveling my eyes with hers, I said, “How do you know I haven’t been seeing Skylar?”
“Because I asked Harley and Grant, and you’ve been at the staff house every night.” Daphne was unabashed in her nosiness.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I burst out. “Are you guys talking about me?”
“Yeah, we’re worried.”
“We?”
“Okay, me,” she said. “Just me. Everybody else says you’ll figure it out at your own pace, but I think I’m the only one you talked to about what happened to your high school girlfriend.”
I eyed the floor, tracing the toe of my boot along the edges of a square tile. “They know.”
“They say you don’t talk about it.”
“I talked to you about it,” I offered when I looked at her again.
Daphne let out a soft sigh. She took a step closer and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a warm hug.
Even though she was only maybe five feet tall, if I was being generous, it felt like being hugged by my mother.
Her embrace contained nothing but comfort.
She stepped back, squeezing my shoulders lightly before her arms dropped away.
“Do you want some hot chocolate with peppermint liqueur?”
I chuckled. Then of course, I thought of Skylar. She made me hot chocolate on that rainy night. “Sure, I don’t have to drive anywhere. When you make spiked hot chocolate, you do not mess around.”
“Of course not,” Daphne said, clucking as she turned away. “So what’s going on?”
“I got a letter from Claire.”
Daphne glanced back at me, her eyes wide. “I thought?—”
“She wrote it before she died when she was in the hospital. She asked the family attorney to hold it and give it to me after fifteen years, so they sent it to me.”
“What did it say?”
I quickly summarized it for Daphne as she prepped hot chocolate. She handed me a mug after she poured a liberal helping of peppermint liqueur in it.
“It seems like she knew you very well,” Daphne said, her words pointed but her eyes warm.
Just then, the door to the back hallway opened, and Flynn came walking through. He took us in, his lips curling in a slow smile.
“Are you telling Tucker what to do?” he asked as he approached Daphne, stopping beside her and leaning down to drop a kiss on the side of her neck. Pink bloomed on her cheeks, and she smiled. “I’m not telling him what to do.”
“She’s worried about you,” Flynn said dryly as he caught my eyes.
I chuckled. “I know. I’m fine.”
“She’s usually right, you know.”
“How do you even know what she’s talking about?”
Flynn shrugged nonchalantly. “That was a blanket statement. I don’t have to know what Daphne’s talking about to know she’s usually right.”
I rolled my eyes, but I knew he had a point. Daphne had been through some shit in her life. As a result, she tended to hone in quickly on what mattered.
“Hey, do I get some hot chocolate?” Flynn glanced at the saucepan on the stove.
There was no such thing as packaged hot chocolate in this kitchen. Daphne kept batches she made cool in the refrigerator and reheated them.
“Of course, I knew you were going to show up any minute,” she teased with a smile.
Flynn filled a mug after she handed him one from a cabinet. He leaned his hips against the counter beside her before he looked over at me. “For what it’s worth, you were in a better mood for a little while there.”
“I’m not that bad,” I protested.
“No, but you were kind of cheerful. I like Skylar.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. How do you even know what we’re talking about?”
“Actually, I don’t. Just a good guess, but you proved my point.”
Flynn was one of my best friends and the very reason I was here, doing a job I loved with people I loved.
“Your sister called. I forgot to tell you,” Daphne added.
“She did? When?”
“She says you don’t call her back, but that if she leaves me a message, you usually do,” Daphne replied, cocking her head to the side with a sly grin.
I sighed. “I don’t mean to not call her back. I just get busy, and it slips my mind. I promise, I’ll call her.”
Flynn wisely shifted the topic away from Skylar, and we chatted about a few plane issues we were dealing with and the ever-present stress. We were facing the good problem of having too many bookings. We were already booked for the entire summer with tourist flights.
A short while later, I slipped my phone out of my pocket as I walked out into the darkness to call my sister back. She answered on the first ring.
“Oh, good. Daphne passed on my message.”
“Of course, she did. Sorry I haven’t called sooner, Tori. I don’t mean to blow you off when you leave me messages, but I forget.”
“I know, but you have guilt. I’ve discovered that when it comes to Daphne, I get results.”
I chuckled. “How’s it going?”
“Good, how are you?” my sister asked.
I thought about Skylar and the letter from Claire. “Pretty good.”
As far as the basics—food, clothing, shelter, and living—I was pretty good. I didn’t need a love life, or so I’d told myself for years.
“Did you get the letter? Claire’s parents mentioned they sent it to you.”
My sister had been friendly with Claire. I should have known she knew about the letter.
I silently groaned. Just then, I heard a loud rustling sound and came to a quick stop, glancing around. Moonlight fell through the canopy of trees, casting the landscape with a pearly glow. I saw the shadow of a moose lumbering away from me, already a safe distance away.
I resumed walking. “How do you know about the letter?”
“I ran into Claire’s mom at the doctor’s office, of all places. She mentioned that they didn’t even know about the letter either. It was left with the attorney who handled everything. The attorney was instructed to keep it private. You’re not the only one who got a letter.”
“You got one?”
“Her parents did. I did.”
“What was yours about?”
Tori sighed softly. “Not getting cynical, not letting what happened in high school screw up my life.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“No,” she said quickly enough that I knew her old friend had hit a sore spot.
My sister had her own baggage. We didn’t talk about it much, almost never.
“What was yours about?” she pressed.
“Not getting bitter. Oh, and I’m supposed to burn the letter. Are you supposed to burn yours?”
“Uh, no.”
“Why am I supposed to burn mine?” I muttered.
“Because you and Claire were in love. It was the real thing, and it was freaking high school. She knew you well enough to know that if you keep it, you’ll still be holding on to her, and she’s dead.” Tori didn’t shy away from being blunt, but I heard the pain in her voice.
“I know.”
“You need to honor her wishes,” she added firmly.
“I will.”
“Do you think she’s right?” my sister asked softly.
I bit back a sigh. “Probably. I met someone.”
“You did? Who? Tell me about her.”
The clearing in front of the staff house opened through the trees. A soft glow cast in a circle from the porch light. I crossed over and sank my hips onto the stairs.
I told her about Skylar. And after I finished, Tori said, “Tucker, I think you’re already in love.”
“What?” My heart lunged, kicking hard, as if about to break down a locked door.
“I’m just saying, it’s the way you talk about her.”
“Aw, fuck,” I muttered.
“She sounds nice,” my sister protested.
“I don’t think relationships come easy to her after what she went through.” As if my guardedness didn’t have anything to do with my reaction.
“Tucker, relationships don’t come easy to anyone.
Everybody has baggage and gets banged up by life.
What you had in high school with Claire probably came easy just because you were so young.
Falling in love after you’ve been through some shit is different, and in a way, it’s more powerful.
I’m not saying falling in love again will ever take away from what you had with Claire, but you have the chance to have so much more now.
Loving someone else doesn’t make another love grow smaller.
It only makes it bigger. Love isn’t finite. ”
I stayed silent, absorbing her words.
“I think you know you’re in love with Skylar,” she insisted.
I wanted to protest, but I didn’t.
She shifted the conversation to lighter topics, and a few minutes later, we ended the call. I sat on the stairs, looking up into the sky scattered with stars dazzling in the darkness. I knew I loved Skylar. I just didn’t know what to do with the feeling.
A full six days passed before I saw Skylar again. If I’d been doubting whether or not I loved her, I didn’t doubt it anymore. I missed her like crazy. I wanted to see her and hold her. Sure, I missed the sex, which was fiery hot, but that wasn’t what kept my heart aching.
I had texted her only twice, and her replies were vague enough that I gave her space. Even though I wanted to press for more, I’d come to understand her and knew any pressure from me would only chase her away.