34 Seconds (18 page)

“Will…,” I started and then stopped. I tried to cover a sob by covering my mouth with my hands. He didn’t say anything.

Rebecca came back into the room. I felt some sense of relief to have company again. “Okay, Will, it’s time for your meds, open up. I have some ginger ale here to wash it down.” She handed him a syringe filled with a blue liquid, and I watched him put it in his mouth, push the syringe handle down, and make a sour face. He dropped the syringe to the floor and let Rebecca place the straw for the ginger ale into his mouth. “That’s a good boy,” Rebecca said. She was still speaking to him like I do with my small children. She pulled me aside and asked to speak to me in private. I turned and looked at Will. He was facing the wall next to his bed, seemingly avoiding me. I followed Rebecca out of the house and to the boathouse, where I saw a large armchair and a side table. Both looked out of place for a boathouse, but this was no ordinary boathouse for housing boats. It was a wooden structure connected to the dock, but it was more like what I would think of as a pool house. It had a small living area, open showers, and a mini kitchen with a large cooler for wines and a liquor cabinet. The boats were always at the end of the dock, never inside the boathouse, but everyone always called it the boathouse. On the table sat a box of tissues and an envelope.

“The letter is for you. Take as much time as you need,” said Rebecca calmly and quietly, with a quick embrace, before walking out of the boathouse.

I hadn’t had time to process anything I’d seen in his house or anything from the phone calls when I learned of Will’s condition. Will was lying in a hospital bed. I knew he was sick, and I knew they had asked me out there to help out, but I never expected a hospital bed. I never expected a house stuck in a time from years before. When I had pulled into my father’s driveway, his own house seemed to have aged another five years just in the year since I’d been home last.

I walked around the boathouse, smelling mothballs and memories. The scent of freshly lit fireworks came to my mind. On the Fourth of July during our first summer together, Will sent Brian out in the river with a boatload of fireworks, then set up a blanket on the dock. He’d gotten a hold of a four pack of wine coolers, and we sat there on the dock that led from this boathouse and watched Brian light each and every firework. We laughed a few times when we heard a yelp come from the water. Brian came back with a few new burns on his hands after a ‘dud’ chased him down the hill bringing us both to tears. Will rolled on the dock laughing.

***

Before I knew it, I was sitting in the chair, my mind walking down memory lane, but my hands held an open envelope. I flipped the flap open and closed with my thumb.

I pulled out the letter and looked at Will’s beautiful handwriting. I paused for a moment, thinking about how my own handwriting has taken a dive over the years because I was always typing things out. I didn’t have to hand write much anymore. Then I read.

My Dearest Nikki Jackson Ford,

Today is my wedding day, and I wish I was seeing you at the other end of the aisle. I have always loved you. I have always wanted this day. I have always wanted to meet you at the end of this journey. I just never expected this journey to take so many twists and turns. I never thought my journey would end without you. I couldn’t bear it ending without you. If you are reading this letter, there is hope it won’t end without you. If you are reading this letter, then it’s because my wife gave it to you.

I paused, looked out the window and let a tear roll down my cheek. What did he mean by, “I wish I was seeing you at the other end of the aisle?” I wondered if I could I handle reading more. Grabbing a tissue from the box on the table, I continued reading.

You might have a lot of questions, and I hope you can understand why I may not have all the answers, but I will try my best to answer what is most important, what matters most at this point in our lives. At the end of mine. You have a beautiful family, a loving husband, and good life. I’m not sure I could have given all of that to you, but I have wondered over the years if I’ve failed you or even myself by not allowing us to move forward, by not giving you a legacy, by not having children, by not allowing you to simply love me and live this journey with me. But these are decisions I have to accept, with a gracious but heavy heart. With that same heart, I let you go. I got your letter when Chris proposed to you; I got your wedding announcement in the mail, and smiled for you, with a tear in my eye. I got (and saved) every baby picture you sent of the girls. They sure were beautiful babies, and I can see your eyes in Emily, your passion in Bella, and I know Chris is a lucky man. I can only hope he knows just how lucky he is. I guess I could spend pages telling you how much I love you, how much I adore you, and how sorry I am that you are not going to say those two magic words I know you so longed to say to me so many years ago. I have found someone to say ‘I do’ to me this afternoon. She is special. But she is not you. And this is something she knows. Sure, we love one another. I don’t think a woman could agree to go through this particular journey without some kind of love for me. She might even love me in ways I cannot reciprocate. But she understands what this journey is about, and what she will lose in the end. And she’s still willing to say those two little words. Those vows, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health just might bite her in the end. She may have regrets, and she may need you to lean on when that time comes, but for now at least, she has agreed to say those important words and to take those vows.

You know, I’m going to back up and start this over. I wish I could change so much over the years. I wish I was mature enough to be who you wanted me to be, but I wasn’t, and I knew I lost you when you got married. I also knew we had such a strong friendship and everlasting love for one another, we’d never really be apart. I sensed you weren’t okay with our friendship all the time. I knew it was hard for you to talk to me at times, and I knew I pushed you away at times. I often did it to protect my own heart. When I felt we were getting close again, when we were laughing too comfortably, listening too intently, sighing too much over the phone, I would back away. I did these things on purpose. When we talked about getting back together years ago, I would have jumped at the chance. I was on my knees on the beach that day silently begging you to move back to Virginia, to move into my grandfather’s house in The Hills with me. I wanted to wrap you up in a soft blanket, lay you down on the white couch and hold you there forever. You went back to Colorado and met Chris. I couldn’t keep you from living life any longer. I wonder at times if we’d had those few years together, would they have been good years? Would we have married? Would we have children together? But I watched you walk away, get on a plane to Denver, and I let you go away and grow up into the beautiful woman you are today. And stunning you are. Looking at you the other night at the pool…I have no words. I wanted to stop time, pretend you didn’t leave a husband and children at your father’s house just a few miles away, and wrap my arms around you, make love to you, and beg you to be mine forever. Even if our forever wouldn’t be long, I wanted to accept your hugs and kisses. I wanted to accept the present and ask you to run away from it all for a bit and be with me as long as you could be. You even laughed at me, questioning my intentions, right before my wedding. Rebecca knows if you ever knocked on my door and made the commitments I needed, I would walk away from her in an instant. I know it sounds cold and heartless, but it’s true. And because I knew you wouldn’t do it, it’s easy for me to say how cowardly I’d become. I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to be in love with you again. Even if for just a short time. I wanted to hold you, wipe away the tears that are to come, and to live eternity knowing you love me back.

Look, I was stupid when I let you go all those years ago, and I was even more stupid letting you go back to Colorado where you would eventually start your life, create a family, and let your roots settle and grow. I was stupid not holding on to you when you were so young, pure, and beautiful. I can’t change any of that today. Today I can tell you I love you more than life. You create the music within my soul. You are the one person, the one thing holding me together. Even with your own life separate from mine, you hold my heart. Without, it would fall into a million pieces, I would cry a million tears and would stop breathing. Loving you from afar has kept me alive. Knowing you are okay, well loved, and cared for will allow me to die.

I wanted to stop reading. I wanted to stop crying. I wanted to go back home to my family in Colorado, and pretend I never walked into this house of pain. I wanted to keep reading. I wanted to understand where Will was going with his words. I wanted to let him hold me forever. I wanted to walk back into the house, grab a blanket, and lay on the white couch and wait for him to climb out of his hospital bed and wrap his arms around me. But I read on.

Nikki, I am dying. I’ve been dying slowly for years. After therapies, after doctors and surgeons and minimal hair loss, my body has decided it’s done here. It’s breaking down, piece by piece. I’ve talked to my doctors and told them I am not open to any more treatments, and it’s time to let go. They tell me I may live another year without treatments. These treatments take a lot out of me. I remember you asking me why I missed the Austin Music Festival last fall. I gave you some lame excuse about work I knew you didn’t accept. But it was a time when I was pushing you away. I didn’t want you to know what I was going through. For months I went through treatments, I went to Georgetown University for experimental treatments. I let them poke and prod until I was too weak to even know of my own existence. My heart stopped twice during one treatment, and they kept bringing me back, fighting the good fight. Or maybe they were just making medical journals, and they needed their pin cushion to have a heartbeat for the tests to count. I don’t know. But I do know I don’t have any more fight left. It’s not in me. It wasn’t meant to be. I have been fighting this for almost five years now. Not counting the three times before. I know. I’m sorry. I know I never told you. Nik, I need you to forgive me. I need you to understand why I never told you. I needed you to be whole. I couldn’t stand breaking any piece of you. I’m not a stupid man. I’ve done some stupid things, like letting you go. But now I know why I had to. It had to be fate. We weren’t meant to be together. We weren’t meant to have a family who I’d have to say goodbye to within a few years. Could you imagine what your girls would go through if Chris were going through this? What our children would be going through if you had the chance to say those two magic words you wanted to vow to me years ago. I think I was meant to not be with you because you can’t be broken. You are here, and you are meant to be here for a long time to come. With your family, with your children. I am not meant to go any further.

I know you are angry. I know you all too well. Go take a walk. Go to the beach if the weather is nice. Go sit in my boat. I’ve asked for there to always be sunflowers on the dash for you. I know it’s where you’ll want to be with your thoughts. My guitar should be there too. Today is the last day I plan to play it unless I have a chance to play for you once more. Rebecca knows it belongs to you, but she has also promised to keep it out of the weather, and depending on the time of year you are reading this letter, she has promised to have it out there waiting for you. Go, take some time. Then come back, because I have more to say…

The rest of the page was blank, but there was another page with Will’s writing behind it. I couldn’t move. I also couldn’t believe I wanted to obey something written in a letter over a year ago. He was right though, after reading all I had read, I needed to take a break. Will knew me so well. He knew I compartmentalized things, and when my main box was too full, I needed to walk away and put all the little pieces into their own little boxes. I needed to process several things. I needed to hide away any disappointment I had over lost love. I had just learned all I had to do was say the word and Will and I would have been together all those years. It was useless to even allow myself to feel anything about those facts. I was married, happily; we had two children, and there was no going back. After knowing of the life I had with Chris and my two amazing babies, I didn’t even think I’d want to change the past to make the present anything but what it was. I had to box those things up and let them go. Will had always loved me. I’d always loved Will. I was okay with those things, and I couldn’t think about what would have or could have been if I had not gone back to Colorado and met Chris. I just couldn’t.

Before I knew it, I had boxed those things neatly up, with pretty little ribbons wrapped around ones I didn’t need to mentally open for many years to come, if ever. And before I knew, I was standing on the sand in front of a boat. This boat was different than the one Will had years ago. And it wasn’t in the boathouse, it was sitting on the beach, leaning slightly away from the water. I climbed aboard, finding footing along the backside. Inside I did find fresh sunflowers soaking in a yellow vase, and Will’s Takamine G Series red guitar. It wasn’t the guitar I was expecting to see. Will had played a Taylor for the past several years. I had expected to see the Taylor. But then the memory of him playing this guitar the year before for me and Chris crept into my mind. I had given him this very guitar for his twenty-first birthday. He was giving it back to me. I dropped to my knees and cried, burying my head into the neck of the guitar.

I sat there, my knees on the floor of Will’s boat, my mind and my heart in the same boathouse so many years ago laughing with Liza and Will and Brian. Will’s grandfather was setting the table in the dining room of the main house while Will explored the liquor cabinet in the boathouse. He’d said he had waited a long time to legally take his grandfather’s liquor, and he’d let everyone know he was going to try it all. It didn’t take long for me to follow him, and then for Liza and Brian to follow me. I walked up behind Will as he was standing in front of the liquor cabinet looking like a kid standing in front of a Christmas tree after Santa had paid a visit.