Page 75 of More With You

“This was found a short distance from the wreck.” The male officer trudges up the stairs and sets down a book, before withdrawing as if my shocked grief is contagious. “Lou said it should go to you, and you don’t argue with Lou.”

I can’t see the book properly through the blurry, stinging veil of my eyes. It’s familiar, though. I’ve seen it around the cottage whenever Ben is here, though he always tucks it away if he catches me looking. It’s dark red and leatherbound.

“Should I speak to Grace?” the female officer presses, but I shake my head as I reach for the book.

“She’s asleep,” I croak. “Let her sleep.”

The officer nods. “Of course, Mrs. DuCate.”

“Do you want us to stay?” The man looks like he can’t get out of here fast enough, so I throw him a lifeline and shake my head again.

“No, thank you. Go and do… whatever it is you have to do,” I say, clutching the book to my chest. I should ask where Ben is and if I can see him, but my mind can’t process it. Not tonight. For one more night, I’m going to pretend. I’m going to sit here until the sun comes up, and I’m going to pretend.

The officers shower me with a few more commiserations, before they hurry back to their car. I don’t bother to look as they struggle to reverse, though I hear the creak of wood as they graze the fence. It doesn’t matter. It’s not my cottage anyway. Vasily is taking it away from me, which seems appropriate. Nothing good in my life stays. I was never allowed nice things, and I’m still not. Why did I think this house and my husband would be any different?

Trembling and hiccuping, as the tears fall in force and guttural sobs wrench my chest until it feels bruised, I drag myself to the lip of the top step. Letting the next step take the weight from my feet, I lay the book gently down on my lap. Shaky fingertips trace caresses, echoes of my touch against Ben’s skin, across the soft surface. There’s a word embossed in gold on the front: Journal.

Smudging my eyes with my cardigan sleeve, letting each tide of sobs come as it may, I open the cover. His writing curls and spikes, speaking to me without his voice to warm the sound.

In the fuzzy glow of a hurricane lamp, I read. What else can I do? Reading is how I survive, how I’ve always survived. Does it matter that this book will tear me apart? I’m not sure anything matters anymore.

* * *

“Come back,” I murmur to the still mist of pre-dawn, rolling up like ghostly fingers from the water.

I’m on the last written page of his journal. I can’t bring myself to read it. If I do, it’ll feel like his last words, and I won’t be able to pretend anymore. My heart is a wreckage, crushed and diced and fractured in so many pieces I’m surprised it’s still daring to beat. The rest of me is numb, for now. All my tears are on these pages, splashing and streaking the ink. If I read it again, there’d be parts that are indecipherable, forever skewed by my grief.

“Come back,” I whisper more urgently. “I don’t care what I have to do, just come back. Please… Ben, please.”

I don’t know if the officers should’ve left this journal with me. Inside the most precious book I’ve ever had in my possession, I feel him. His love for me is pressed into the paper. His voice is trapped in ink. All of his innermost thoughts and secrets are here, and I know them now, and… I can’t change what I know. The strength of his love, the beauty of his way of thinking, the picture he’s painted in my mind, the view he has of the world, the scenes he’s described in so much detail that I can feel them, down to the grains of sand rubbing against my legs and the breathy gasp of his ecstasy. All gone. All done. Worst of all, I now know the torment he went through when I wasted so much time. Days I could’ve spent with him, loving him, cherishing him, and I hid away where he couldn’t reach me. I hate myself for that. I want to reach into the universe and twist back the hands of time, to give us those days again. I’ll realize it’s a gift, this time, I swear.

“Ben?” My head sags, my chin digging into my chest as I beg. “Ben, please. I love you. I love you. Don’t run from me, not now. I’m sorry. Ben… I’m so sorry.”

As the numbness ebbs, the cycle of grief begins again. A great hand plunges into my chest, gripping icy fingers into a fist of raw pain. The sobs follow, the salty tears parching my skin and cracking my lips, my stomach heaving even though there’s nothing left to throw up.

Slowly, through the blur, I drag my palm away from the page, revealing the last thing he ever wrote. I know his last spoken words to me were, “Not possible,” sealed with a kiss, but this feels like the end. After all, aren’t those the last two words in every book: The End? This isn’t an exception.

My eyes savor the small sentence, and his voice whispers it in my ear, carried on the breath of morning wind that cools the fever of my face. I bring my knees up to my chest and curl my arms around myself, enveloping all I am in a cocoon of bitter sorrow. It’s not daylight yet, and there’s one soul, touched by Ben’s love, who doesn’t yet know that her world has crumbled to dust. I envy her that. She’s too young for this. Two decades from now, when she’s my age, she’ll be sitting in a therapist’s office, talking about the dad she barely got to know. It breaks my heart all over again.

Maybe, I’ll find the strength to shoulder her grief for her, but not yet. Not until the sun comes up.

I hug myself, imagining its him, and hear his voice in my head, like a spell: “This is where I’ll end this chapter. On fresh white pages, I’ll start anew, to tell the never-ending tale of the greatest love of my life. My Summer. My endless Summer.”

EPILOGUE

THE BEGINNING

“Lyndsey is here,” Ms. T tells me. I hear her, but my head is underwater. All of me is, but I’m not scared of sharks anymore. I’m scared of tomorrow, the day after, next week, next month, next year… without him. Not long ago, my future was crystal clear and warm like the shallows. Now, it’s the pitch black of the deepest fathoms of the ocean, and the unknown is snagging at my legs, stealthily sneaking up for attack after attack.

I’m still on the porch where the officers left me. The journal is still in my arms, struggling to take the place of the man whose words are locked inside. It’s not nearly enough.

“Summer?” Ms. T’s voice hitches. “Did you hear me?”

I stare listlessly out at the water, reflecting the mauve of dawn. Inside, I’m desperately searching for the good memories, willing them to rise up like flotsam, but they sink out of my reach.

A car rumbles down the dirt track, making the same mistake as the police. For a moment, I see that pulse of red and blue light again, but it’s just my imagination. There’s a black Audi now, and it comes to a slow standstill.

“You keep right on sittin’ there, sugar,” Ms. T says quietly. “I’m here, honey. You let Ms. T deal with everythin’.”

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