A Breath Until Forever (28 page)

“Dad come here.” Daniel demanded when he had found the box. It wasn't like his mother to keep such secrets, so it instantly hit Daniel as odd, and something that both he and his Dad needed to investigate further.

Benjamin came right over.

Daniel put the box on the bed. It was a beautiful box. It was wooden, carved with intricate details of birds and wildlife. It was walnut, and the latch was gold.

“Have you ever seen this before?” Asked Daniel to his Dad, who had just taken out his bifocal glasses out in order to take a better look.

Benjamin diligently shook his head. “No, no.” He answered. “I haven't.”

They wondered if they could open it. Then Benjamin, noticing that it had a latch and needed a key to spring it open, retrieved the keys to the Jeep. The Jeep had since retired to the garage, and was kept secretly hidden from time with a tarp. So many times Benjamin had wanted to sell it, but Meredith had been adamantly against it, and always refused to put it up for sale. “It's something sentimental.” She would often say. After years of trying to rid of it, Benjamin finally gave up and allowed her to store it in the garage for over twenty years. In 1974 the engine had blown up while Meredith was driving out towards Las Vegas, Nevada, and it was then that she purchased a brand new sleek black Cougar car and retired from being on the road anymore, rather settling into her own studio in Seattle. She had grown too tired of the open road, and disgruntled about the adventurous journeys, and decided it was time to give in to Benjamin's wishes and stay home, so she may please him, but also didn't have to think about Joshua. Something about being on the open road made her think about Joshua too much, and it was too much pain to bear.

Benjamin now had the keys. There seemed to be a key on it, much smaller then the other keys on the key chain. He pushed the key into the lock. Click click. Click. It unlocked. Inside, laid a large assortment of pictures and letters. He noticed a letter from Joshua. It was written on lined paper ripped off from a spiral notebook, a couple of small stains of whiskey on it. He started to read it, as Daniel took a picture. He saw a snapshot of a Kodak picture of Meredith and Joshua in front of an oak tree in Thunder Valley. Meredith was wearing an almost see through white dress accompanied by sandals, and Joshua was wearing a blue western shirt, tight fitting jeans held up by a leather belt with a large belt buckle. They were together not as friends, he noticed, more like lovers, as he had his arm wrapped around her, and he had her arm wrapped around him, and she lay her head on his shoulders with a smile on her face while looking up at him while  he was looking at the photographer behind the lens taking the picture, with also a smile. It had been taken with a Kodak camera, and was an instant shot of a time that they had been so happy in love, a stranger taking their picture after being asked to do so, all the while capturing something so special. 

His father hadn't seen it as he was reading a letter from Joshua and weeping. He always knew for years, that she hadn't always been faithful to him, that she was never really happy in their marriage, but to actually see the proof in his hands, was another thing. He often pushed it to the side, the back of his mind that she possibly could have cheated, and even then still thought she was a good wife and wasn't capable of running around on him. Benjamin was reading the lengthy letter that Joshua had written to her in 1972. His heart and his stomach felt nauseous. Tears stung his eyes. He put down his glasses for a moment so that he could wipe his eyes dry.

Daniel didn't want to show his dad the picture. He new it would hurt him too much, but he knew he had to do it.

“Dad.” Daniel beckoned for his attention.

His father looked over as Daniel gave him the picture. A lump stuck in his throat. There was an element of surprise that overtook him, mixed with a sense of overwhelming sadness. “I always knew, especially in the early summer of 1971. She had changed. She was so different when she came back from that trip.” He said. He looked at the back of the picture. In Joshua's handwriting it said, “We will always have Thunder Valley, then August 10, 1971.”

Benjamin had a series of tears in his eyes. “She was in love.” He said. He was unsteady of himself but felt like he had to say it. “She had the love she was always looking for, the love I couldn't give her.”

Daniel tried to comfort his father. “You loved her too Dad.”

“No.” He stubbornly said. “Not the way I should have. That is why she looked for it outside our marriage. And that's why she found it. She was a good woman. A good wife. But I couldn't love her in the same way that she wanted to be loved, the way she deserved to be loved.”

“All those years of being married, she never cheated. Not once. Not ever. Even though I'm sure she had plenty of opportunities. She was a beautiful woman with needs. ” He lingered on. “You know sometimes we take those good things for granted, like people. Like your mom. I always knew that she was a very kind and giving woman but I just couldn't come to loving her. I never had it in my heart to love her to love any woman. I'm just not that type of man. But that man, Joshua Aspen. He was capable of it. Could give her the love that she always wanted. Craved for. It was a gift.”

Daniel was strangely confused. Here his Dad was looking at a box full of memories of a stranger, a man he did not know, yet accepted it, and not only accept it, but welcome it with an open heart. “Your not mad?”

“Not at all.” He said. “She never asked much of me. The least I could do is to have her to have been loved the way she wanted to be loved. Life is a very short ride, to go on living without never ever being loved the way that one should.”

Daniel pressed on. “Who was he?”
 

Benjamin always had his suspicions, but it wasn't until now, that his suspicions had been confirmed. “He was that guy who published about the greenhouses. Remember I built it? I bought the book and built it for your mother and never even new he was the same guy.” He continued on, confessing to a memory that had long ago and passed. “I went to the bookstore. Didn't know who he was. Asked him to sign the book. I told him who it was for. I remember him giving me a strange look, then a scared look, and he didn't sign for awhile, raising his pen up to the air, like he had been stunned by a stun gun. Then as he relaxed, pressing his ink to sign, he asked me about your mother, said that he had meant me while driving through Thunder Valley Ranch, and that she was a very lovely lady.” Benjamin continued. “I hadn't thought about it much. I just answered by saying thank you, then going off on my way, then to the lumber yard to go buy everything. I knew your mom was so sad and unhappy for such a long time and I wanted to make her happy, build a greenhouse. Then I remembered when we had passed on the street and I had seen her look at him, and how quiet she had gotten. It made me think. Think real hard, and that maybe, possibly, she had gotten together with this rancher who built greenhouses, and that maybe, there was something more that she wasn't telling me.”

Benjamin loosened up his constricting tie. Earlier he had felt like he had made a fashion statement, and now, with everything coming together, being hard to breathe, he felt it as a noose.

Daniel grew angry. “I can't believe this! Dad, .. please .. tell me it's not true!”

It seemed so surreal. Everything coming together in a complete circle. Everything making sense now.

Benjamin and Daniel continued reading the letters until they were finished. There was ten of them in entirety all the last one Joshua wrote was very lengthy when he told Meredith about his new wife and how they were expecting a baby. Inside the box, was a smaller chestnut box. It was ornate and hand carved. Inside was a small envelope that said “To both Benjamin and Daniel, with love” and a seashell that Joshua had painted for her. And a single rose, which was the first rose that grew in the greenhouse for her.

“
What do I do with this?”

“Read it.” He said. “We have already read everything else. I'm sure it's not going to be any more painful.

He took the letter into his hands, and began reading. His hands trembled from the emotional monsoon of it. Could he handle any more? Could he take any more heartbreak? Could he read something from a wife who was now dead, but more alive than ever with the pooling of hurtful memories?

February 23, 1992

Dear Benjamin and Daniel, the men in my life that I love.

I have not been feeling too well lately so thought I would write this letter just in case something fatal has happened to me. I didn't want to alarm you or make you think I needed to be taken care of. You know how stubborn I can get and I didn't want you to worry. I'm a mother and wife, it is my job to worry about the both of you. I have been seeing a doctor lately, and he told me that I have some kind of heart disease. I was born with it, and has gotten worse over the years. That is why I retire to my bedroom so early anymore, because I am so tired, and am fed up hearing that I have something that I can not fix. I never thought it was important enough for you to to know about or thought you needed to know as you know m e, a woman full of secrets and mysteries that you will never be able to solve. I like being a sort of enigma, even to my own family. I am writing you this now to let you know why my burial instructions seemed rather confusing to you. If you have gotten to this particular box you should have come across Joshua's letters by now.

It's very hard for me to write this to you, but feels like I have to so that the both of you can go on living your lives. I never said I was perfect, nor have I ever said I was. I think I have been a good mother, a good wife, but I was still negligent. I need to share with you something that you may find hard to believe. It's very hard to write this. Before I go on, please do not cry any tears for me. And control yourselves from losing it, be strong, and please, even anything, do not shed any tears. I have shed enough of them for all of us. I don’t' want to make you any more sad,I want you to be happy. I hope that you can find through this letter, that it's one of happiness, of joy of celebration. Something that was so beautiful that words can not describe. As you probably already know, I met a man by the name of Joshua. He was a rancher, a machine operator, and bull rider in the North Carolina and I was there painting his ranch for a client who owned hotels.

You can probably remember how excited I was to receive that assignment. For Mr. Cambria to have an interest in my artwork was absolutely wonderful! Following afterwords there was a reception in the gallery and from starting selling my landscape scenarios.

Please understand why I fell in love with him, because I wasn't in love with you Benjamin. Although you were a good husband, and the best father , you didn’t give me what I really wanted or need and that was unconditional love. Sure, you loved me, but no in the way a husband should love a wife, and I soon embraced the fact that I was more of a friend than lover, and more of an acquaintance very much like the people you met at the law firm and hardly had any contact with. You have always been good to me, especially financially and have always been the support I wanted and counted on. You were a good provider, and always gave me a good home. And as for you? I will always cherish you and hold you so very dear, for you are my one and only son and you always made me smile even on my cloudiest of days. You always gave me something I never had before, and perhaps that is why I tried to hold you so tight. I thought if I left your Dad, then I would lose you, and I never wanted to lose you. Never. I lived in fear, thinking that if I left, then I would be the guilty one to have broken up the marriage and for ? That you would hate me forever. So I stayed with your dad, for you, for us, for all three of us to be a family and live in this fairytale dream, sacrificing my own happiness, for you.

But when I met Joshua, he was so different then your father. He was unlike anybody I had ever met in my life and I embraced that fact wholeheartedly. He was a breath of fresh air. When I was choking  and couldn't breathe, I felt like I was suffocating in my marriage, although nobody ever knew it. He was the oxygen that I so desperately needed. You may never understand why I did what I did. And that was to fall in love with a much younger man. You may think that I am some sick and twisted old woman who preyed on a younger man. That could clearly be the furthest from the truth. Joshua pursued me first, but even he, over time knew that it was best to be with a woman of his own age. He wanted a family, and I already had one. I was unable to give him that because I had already done it. He was at his first stage of life when I was at my second. No future love can come out of something like that. But this is not true at all. He fell in love with me, before I fell in love with him and we equally came into love that was higher than any height ever mathematically constructed by man. You have never met Joshua, so it would be hard to describe who he was without meeting or talking with him so I will do my best to describe him. I don't know what you think about the letters. Especially you, Benjamin. They are so full of love and with words I was never able to express to you. Not even at night, when intimate and we had made love. These kinds of words could never be captured and brought to you, because I never felt them for you. It is tough for me to write that, and admit it, and tears are streaming down my face as I write this. I don't think love is ever enough for a relationship to thrive. There are so many more elements, and factors and essentials. And one doesn't stay in a marriage because of love alone, but for so many other things. And so I pushed love to the side, and highlighted all those other things, to stay with you so we could all be a family and be together. Was this a wrong thing to do? Sometimes I think so because I feel like I have failed you dear Benjamin and that I never gave you what a wife to give and wonder if I even ever could, if you could have ever accepted it. I don't think so. I don't think even if I lied those loving words it could have helped to save our marriage for our marriage was doomed before it ever even began. We had been together for such a long time that we just thought it was the right thing to do by staying together, and by having a baby it would make us stronger and may be then it could work. But something can never work if both people don't really ever really want to work on it, but just live it and hope that maybe someday one day that love will come to be, without even trying. But that's not how love is. Love is love, Benjamin, and we both denied ourselves happiness because we didn't know any other way to live.