Chapter 22 – Beck #2
I shuffle down the hallway and when I step into the kitchen, Rosie is sitting at the table with photos and albums scattered all around her.
Charlie is pressed to Rosie’s side, and her arm is draped around her.
Charlie holds up her stuffed sea lion and talks a mile a minute.
My chest expands, her excitement about the day easing my worries if she had a good time or not.
“And now a stuffed sea lion.” Rosie’s green eyes sparkle.
“What?” I shrug and pull a seat out at the table, dropping onto it.
“You’re spoiling her,” she says, but she’s smiling.
“One time won’t hurt the girl.” I could turn this into an argument. Remind her how I haven’t had the chance to spoil her for six years. But she already knows that, so it’s pointless.
“Sounds like you had a good time.”
“It was the best day ever!” Charlie does a little jump. “After the sea lions, we went to a gift shop and got saltwater taffy and I got to watch how they make it. Oh! Mama, did you see the pictures of me with the sea lions?”
“I did. I’m so glad you had fun.”
“Daddy, where’s my backpack? I need to get my mermaid and introduce my new stuffies to their friends.”
“It’s by the back door.” I pat the top of her head before she zooms down the hall, my attention flickering to the photos scattered around the table. Charlie’s footsteps bound up the stairs. But I’m distracted by the familiar faces haunting me.
A young Rosie and a young Beck, dressed up for prom.
Rosie in that spectacular sexy green dress and me in my stupid penguin suit and cheesy grin.
Little did that idiot know he was about to get laid for the first time.
There’s another photo of us on the porch swing out front.
Too many moments spent on that damn porch swing. Too many memories.
I pinch the corner of a photo of Dottie with Rosie on one side of her and me on the other after she won first prize at the quilt show in Ojai.
We’d driven up for one night and Rosie and I snuck out of our rooms with a hotel comforter and a complimentary bottle of wine the sponsors of the show had gifted Dottie.
We’d lain on the grass beneath a dark sky full of shining stars.
We whispered promises to one another about our future.
Promises I’d forgotten about until this moment.
“What happened to those kids?” I ask before thinking, studying the younger versions of us.
“They grew up.”
I glance at her and see my life flash by. “Did we? Because how come we’re still having the same arguments?”
“What arguments would those be?”
Her expression is tired. She’s probably having another flare day and I’m making it worse by pressing these conversations. But if not now, when?
“If two people love each other, is that enough?” I ask, holding eye contact even as emotions and questions glaze over hers. “What happened to those promises we made each other?”
“Again, we were kids.” She finally tears her eyes away from mine and shuffles the photos into a stack. “What did we know about love?”
“A lot,” I mumble, and her fingers still for a moment.
“What did we know about the real world? About life?”
She has a point there. Maybe we’d been na?ve to promise we’d stay together forever. We were eighteen. But we did stay together for a few years. Made it through some difficult times together. Got married at twenty. Even when she left three years later, I never doubted that she was the one.
“That’s fair.” I toss the photo back onto the table while she continues stacking them. “That was a fun trip though.”
She glances at me and her lips pull up, her green eyes sparkling. “It was. Especially when Dottie searched for that bottle of wine then asked the organizers to give her another one, all the while knowing full well we’d been the ones who drank it.”
I smirk. “Yeah, she was a cool lady.”
“She was.” She taps a finger against her chin. “Speaking of…” Her voice trails and when I glance up to meet her gaze again, she gestures her chin in the direction of what looks to be an urn on the edge of the kitchen counter.
I swing my attention back to Rosie. “Is that…?”
“It is.” She presses her lips together.
“When did you get those?”
“At the reading of the will when I was here last. I knew most of Dottie’s wishes after she died, so I had to do a lot of the decision-making from Seattle before I came. I knew she wanted to be cremated but I didn’t know until then that she wanted me to spread her ashes in the ocean.”
There’s a silence between us. Charlie’s soft voice is muffled from upstairs while she talks to her stuffed animals.
“You haven’t done it yet?”
She shakes her head and puts a stack of albums into a box.
“Did you want some company? While you do it, I mean?”
She gives me a smile despite her eyes glistening. “No, I should do this on my own. I’m gonna spread them Saturday morning.”
“Do you want me to stay with Charlie? I was going to go fishing with my dad, but I can reschedule.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ve already asked Stella.”
“It’s no problem, I can go fishing with my dad anytime.”
“Beck, it’s okay. Besides, Stella and Max want to see Charlie too.”
I glance down at my fidgeting hands in my lap, my breathing quickening. The desperation to help her but the inability to do so is paralyzing me.
“Hey,” she hedges, forcing me to focus on her calming eyes. “You can’t fix everything.” Her smile is forced, but more importantly it’s pained.
All of this is painful.