34 Seconds (38 page)

“But I don’t know what I would have, or could have done about it. Would you have stayed with me if I told you I would have, could have been the wife Rebecca was for you? Would you have stayed with me if I told you then I would be with you the day you are taken away from me and every day until then? Or did you need to live life alone? At least without me. Dammit, Will. What did you want from me? Why didn’t you make it clearer? Why didn’t you tell me you were sick, and you didn’t know how long you could be my love? Shit. None of us knew how long we’d be here. I could…” I fell to my knees on the hotel room floor and buried my head in the bed. I couldn’t get my last thought out. I could die myself before I got home to my babies. As true as it was, I couldn’t say it out loud.

“Dammit!” I yelled. I figured the hotel probably had no guests near my room since I got a decent room with almost no notice, but I decided then I needed to get back to bed, and with the help of a sleep aide, hopefully get a good night’s sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next morning, I woke with a clearer head. I showered, attempted some makeup so I wouldn’t scare my children when I finally got to see them, and hit the road. About thirty minutes into my drive, I called Chris to let him know I was on my way home.

Satellite radio kept me occupied for a few hours. I switched from comedy channels to 70s folk rock radio channels and just drove. I didn’t sing, I barely laughed. I just drove. My mission was to get home. I wasn’t processing. I wasn’t crying. I was ignoring any feelings surfacing. I drove for hours. Kansas passed by one field at a time. Cows watched me pass. Clouds moved toward me and then away from me. Cars and trucks passed me carrying drivers with problems of their own, lives they were living, loved ones they were going to or driving from. I just drove.

Hours into my drive, getting closer to Colorado, my hand moved up to the stereo without me evening thinking of whether I was going to switch to coffee house music or to another comedy channel. My fingers switched to the CD player. Will’s voice filled the air. The pressure changed inside the car. My breathing changed. I found myself sighing after holding my breath through much of the song. The next came on, and I listened, allowing emotion back into my world. Will’s songwriting always filled my arms with chills that ran down my spine and into my soul. A tear escaped my eye and ran down my cheek. I didn’t want to allow emotion or feeling into the car. My mission was to get home, the hundreds of miles, to my family.

The song ended, and Will spoke to me.

“Nikki. Nikki. I love you,” the stereo said to me.

I looked down at it as if to see a face smiling at me and spiral curls falling into blue eyes.

“I wish I could be with you right now,” the stereo continued in Will’s voice. “I wish I could sing to you in this very moment. But know this, my love. Know I am with you. I am always with you. When you hold your children, when you cry, when you love, I can feel your pain. I can feel your love. I can feel your anger. I am there…with you…always.”

The car slowed to a crawl on the interstate. Cars passed me by, maybe wondering if I’d had car trouble. After a moment, I pulled to the shoulder and continued to stare at the stereo. Will was still talking, but with a voice that cracked every few words.

“Nikki. I want to apologize. I need to apologize to you. I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me. I never should have let you leave. I shouldn’t have let you go. I pushed you away for so long, and I should have known it wouldn’t work. Not with us. We couldn’t be far from one another.”

Tears were streaming down my face. My breathing quickened, my chest heavier.

Will continued, “I think I failed most when I let you go, but then pulled you back in, over and over. I told myself not long ago, if I had let you go…I mean really go…not remained friends over the years, you’d have forgotten about me, forgotten how much you loved me, how I loved you, stopped caring for me. And you might not be hurting so much right now. I am sorry I couldn’t do that for you. I’m sorry I kept you close. I’m sorry I ever let you go to begin with. I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you, in us, in our love and how healing it was for me. I didn’t want you to face today, a life without me, so I was hurtful to you. I tore us apart. I walked away and kept pulling you back in. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

I wiped my cheeks and looked at the stereo with curiosity. Lied to me?

“I would have loved you to the end of my days – I did love you to the end of my days – I would have loved to have had children with you. I would have walked you down the aisle. I would have given you a family, if only I had been given time. I’m honored to have been here, in your life, for as long as I have, but I wasn’t meant to be here. I wasn’t meant to carry on. I want you to do something for me.”

I stared at the stereo. Will’s voice cleared, paused, and continued. “Look around you, princess. Look at the biggest thing you can see. Go ahead. Look.” His voice got quiet.

I looked around the car, my body shaking, my face and neck wet from tears. Then something outside the car got my attention. Looking outside, I was awed. All around me were wind mills. A wind farm. Steel wind mills stood in every direction, surrounding me as if showing power, wisdom, and strength. They stood hundreds of feet up into the warm air, with blades spanning over a hundred feet. I had missed them while driving. I looked in awe. The farm spread out along both sides of the interstate.

Will had been talking again. His words caught my attention again, “…don’t let the obstacles in life stand in your path. Go around them, above them or through them, but don’t let them control you.” I got out of the car and stood alongside, staring up and out across the land. Hundreds of wind mills looked back at me. A few spun their blades slowly as if waving to me.

Will’s voice continued from the stereo, “Please go, Nikki. Go live your life to the fullest. Love hard and fierce. Don’t fear. Talk it out with those you care for, and don’t let anyone into your life who cannot offer you something. In turn, don’t offer anyone something you cannot give, but don’t let time scare you into not living. Time is borrowed. Time is never certain as much as we think it might be. Time will not be controlled. Make choices that empower you. Never think about leaving this world wondering what may have been different if…”

His voice paused. I stared across I70 in the middle of Kansas, with a wet face, matted hair, tears, and sweat running down my chest, wondering if I could do any of what he asked of me. I could forgive him. I had to. Could l walk around obstacles? Could I live and love fiercely without fear? I was so scared. In that moment, I was terrified.

“I love you, Nikki Jackson. I will always love you. And I will be there with you. Always.

Thank you for always loving me back.”

Guitar chords filled the space. The air became lighter as the strumming grew faster. Will’s voice came back in song.

Stranded in my life

Wanting to bring you home

Could you slip inside

My suitcase

And will I ever see you again

On that sunny Saturday

When I looked into your eyes

That’s when I knew

I would wake up

Next to you

And can you tell me

Do you believe

In destiny

Do you believe in fate

I do believe I could have had you

But instead I chose to wait

You take care of yourself

And the world watches over you

Never had the nerve now

To dance with you

That day in the rain

Wanting to play

Where you just stood

How could I wane

And can you tell me

Do you believe

In destiny

Do you believe in fate

I do believe I could have had you

But instead I chose to wait

Then it happened again

Flight 267

Chicago to Denver

I pulled you back in

Sleeping while I stare

Give me one reason

For this

Change of season

Let me tell you

I believe

In destiny

I believe in fate

Do you know you could have had me

But instead

I chose to wait

Stranded in my life

On that sunny Saturday

Your eyes pierced my skin

And I only wish

To stay

The rocks along the side of the road dug into my knees. Gravity had pulled me down during the song. I didn’t have the strength to get up, to carry on, to drive home. My own will had escaped. The hurt in my chest was brutal. My body hurt. My cheeks itched from the tears drying in the Kansas sun. I grabbed the bottom of the door frame and pulled myself up to the driver’s seat. The stereo was quiet. Will was gone. He wasn’t coming back. His voice wasn’t going to say anything different than it had said before. I couldn’t bring his voice back to answer questions, to get him to say something different. He was just gone.

I sat in the car, on the side of I70 West in Kansas next to an enormous wind farm and cried until my body couldn’t produce anymore tears. Until my head ached. My heart ached. My soul felt empty. Slowly something awakened in my body. My heart filled with love. Joy almost seeped in. I began to feel content. I was comfortable, in my own body, with my emotions. Sitting on the side of the road with enormous stalks of steel looking down on me, I began to feel again. I sensed excitement coming to the surface over seeing my girls and my husband who all awaited me at home. I had a life to live, people to love. And Will had asked me to go do it. It dawned on me, he’d asked me years ago to go do it. He blamed himself for not letting me go, but I was holding on to him all those years. I treasured our years together, the friendship we’d created after hurtful breakups. It took us years to regain trust, set boundaries, and exude happiness for one another as we moved in different directions. But we’d remained close, not just because of Will, but because I was wanting to hold on to any chance I could have with him again. It hit me sitting on the side of the interstate with the huge powerful machines lurking at me. I had lived my life with a just in case, just in case things didn’t work out with Chris. Just in case something happened to him, or to our marriage. I would always have Will. I had been living my life very similar to the way Will had lived his. But instead of letting someone go because I couldn’t live life to the fullest for long, I was holding on to someone in case I didn’t live life to the fullest. I owed Chris a better marriage. I owed him more. I owed our family a chance to live and grow together. I knew I would go back to Colorado then and live my life filled with love, passion, and a better understanding of who I used to be.

I wiped my cheeks, swallowed water, nodded a goodbye to the machines I’d bonded with during my time there, wiped away the rocks embedded into my skin, and pulled back out onto the interstate.

I was ready to go home. I was ready to see my children. I was ready to face life. To live and to love with everything I had. Will would always be with me, but I carried new found confidence that I would continue in the world, my world, with him in my heart. I had a good man to go home to, a man who loved me, and just wanted me to love him back.

Epilogue

May 2015

“Mommy, let’s go! Daddy and Emily are already inside!”

I waddled into the art gallery in Downtown Boulder. There was a big sign with my face plastered on it staring down at me. I read the small bio next to the sign.

Nikki Ford, Boulder, Colorado

Nikki considers herself a ‘small town’ artist, focusing on

landscapes and still life. Nikki works in Acrylics.

When not painting, Nikki teaches weekly art classes at

Small Hands Preschool in Boulder.

She and her husband have two children

And are expecting their third in early June

Thirty Four pieces are

For sale tonight.

Background music was composed

And written by Will Westerly

“Does it read well?” I asked Chris as I walked up next to him. “The bio? Does it read well?”

“It’s fine, Nik, it’s fine. It’ll be a little outdated soon though,” he said as he rubbed my swollen belly. “That little guy may just make a May appearance, you know.”

“I sure hope so!” I said as I rubbed my lower back.

“Mommy, did you say Willy Woo is coming now?” Emily asked. She’d been calling the baby Willy Woo since we decided we’d name him after Will. I smiled down at her.

“Maybe, Baby Girl, maybe. Soon enough.” I placed my hand over Chris’ as he rubbed my belly. Bella stood on her tip toes while she and Emily rubbed my belly too. I smiled thinking of Baby Will’s namesake. He would always be with me. With all of us. And we would go on.

“I can’t wait to see Will for the first time,” Bella said, as we all felt a kick.

~The End~

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my family. My husband, Jeff, and my children. You are each a beautiful gift I treasure each day. It may have taken me time to get through this process, but I couldn’t have written this novel without your love and support. To my children, I hope as you grow, you’ll find you enjoy writing as much as we all enjoy reading together. I love you all so very much. Thank you for always being you.

I have had countless support in friends and other family members. I could never begin to repay you, but I can thank at least some of you here. May it be enough to bring a smile to your faces. Michelle Croxton, Lisa Schulist, Susan Teabeault, Laura Miller, Diana Buscher, Elaine Haislip, and Christina Martinez, and Anne Mellichampe. As Beta readers, you’ve given me support, found errors, and offered me more hugs, coffee, and wine than one writer should need. Thank you all for your continued support and help.
Melanie Glenn, you picked this up in the eleventh hour, and gave it new life. Knowing my bad writing habits and my patterns, you were able to see things I couldn’t see. Every word you touched mad
e
34 Seconds
be
tter. I hope to continue to learn from you for many years to come. Thank you for your support from the beginning of this process as well as the rescue near the end of this process.
John Harman, Melanie Glenn, Charles Cooper, Kristy Webb, Laura Hirsch, Anne Mellichampe, and Robin Atwood, I would like to thank you all for your help, opinions, ideas, and creative energy. Each of you has offered support, advice, thoughts, and opinions at varying points in this process. They were all invaluable for me, and you are amazing for supporting me every day. Thank you.