The Beach House (20 page)

Chapter 8

An ocean breeze swept through the leaves of the eucalyptus as Joe and Maggie stood in the middle of the road and waved good-bye to Eric and Jason and Susie. Their week was up and they were going home. Jason's face was still pressed to the glass when their car rounded the corner and disappeared.

“He's going to miss you,” Joe said as he brought his arm down.

Maggie ran her hand across Joe's back in an affectionate, familiar gesture. “Eric talked to Shelly. She knows that Jason might need some extra attention when he gets home.”

“What would you like to do this evening?”

She looked at him. “It's time, Joe.”

He felt gut punched. “But we—”

“It has to be now,” she stated flatly, leaving him no room to maneuver.

God, how he wanted to challenge her, to demand she give them another week, at the very least another day; but all he had left to give her was the right to decide for herself. “Are you in pain?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Would you like to go for a walk on the beach first?”

She shook her head and touched her hand to the side of his face. “I have to do this now, Joe.”

He took her into his arms. “There are a hundred things I still want to say to you.”

“Pick one.”

In the end, the choice was obvious. “I love you,” he said simply.

They walked toward the house hand in hand. Before they went inside, Joe stopped to pick a perfectly formed, miniature red rose. When Julia and Ken were married and Julia took over the care of the garden, she'd selected the roses she planted around the house on the basis of fragrance over beauty. This one had both. Joe wove the stem into Maggie's hair and kissed her lightly on the lips.

Maggie took her stash of carefully hoarded pills with her into the bathroom, insisting Joe not be with her when she actually took them. She'd told him he would carry enough mental images of this day without adding one more. When she came out, he helped her to the bed, sat down beside her, and took her hand.

Touching his cheek, she said, “I want you to leave now.”

He smiled sadly and shook his head. “I'm overruling you on this one, Maggie, my love.”

She looked into his eyes, telling him silently of her love, letting him see how sorry she was to go, but that she wasn't afraid. “I love you, Joe Chapman,” were her last words as her gaze lost its focus, her eyes closed, and she gently drifted off to sleep.

He stayed until she drew her last shallow breath and her heart fluttered to a stop, then stood and brushed a kiss to her forehead. The rose in her hair filled his lungs with sweet memories of summers past.

“Wait for me, Maggie,” he whispered. “I won't be long.”

A half hour later the afternoon sun stole through the window and filled the bedroom with a soft orange light. Joe came in to retrieve the container of pills he'd hidden in the back of the closet. They were contraband, acquired during a fishing trip to Mexico that he'd gone on the month after Maggie told him about her plans. He'd known from the moment she was diagnosed that he had no desire to live in a world without her. She had been a part of him for sixty-five years. To go on alone would be simply a matter of consuming space. What they'd had, what they'd been, demanded a better ending.

When he returned from the kitchen, Joe settled into the bed next to Maggie. Gently he drew her into his arms. “Did you really think I could let you go without me?”

He closed his eyes and waited. Slowly the pills narrowed his consciousness to a small point of light. As he felt himself drifting free, he called to Maggie, telling her that he was coming. At his last breath the light flashed and surrounded him with prisms of color.

And then he was at peace.

And he was not alone.

Chapter 9

Eric arrived home late that night. He'd planned to stay in Sacramento and visit the friend who'd taken over his practice, but he was hit with such an empty feeling when he dropped the kids off that he knew he would be lousy company. He begged off, telling his friend that he was concerned about his summer neighbors and thought he should get back to check on them.

The lights were off at Joe and Maggie's, and the last thing he wanted to do was disturb their sleep. For the first time in days, the moon was visible, its light casting a silver sword across the water. Or was it a path for the dreamers who had stayed up late enough to catch the magic?

Instead of going inside immediately, Eric went for a walk.

All the way back he'd fought an unreasoning jealousy at Shelly's obvious happiness. Given the option, it was what he would have wished for her. Still, it was hard to see the contrast between how it had been for them in the end and how it was for her now.

How had he let himself become so self-centered that he'd failed to see what he was doing to her?

He wanted what she now had. The only thing saving him from complete depression was knowing that he no longer wanted it with Shelly. He'd let her go, physically before mentally, but the break had been complete for over a year now.

As hard as he tried, he couldn't keep Jason and Susie out of the mix. It had been a fist to his gut to see them standing on the porch waving good-bye, the four of them a complete family unit.

He walked to the far end of the cove and started back. Ahead of him, he spotted something white and round left behind by a retreating wave. He stopped to pick it up. It was a perfectly formed, unbroken sand dollar, the first he'd seen in over three weeks of searching with Jason. He checked to see that the resident creature was no longer alive before slipping the shell into his pocket.

He would call Jason in the morning to tell him about the find. Somehow the small connection made him feel better, and his footsteps were lighter as he headed back to the house. He actually smiled when he saw Susie had left her play shoes by the back door. She had staked her claim and left a gentle reminder that she would be back.

 

The next morning Eric got up from the computer every half hour to look outside, watching to see if Joe had picked up his newspaper. At nine-thirty he became concerned, at ten he decided he'd waited long enough.

He spotted the note on the front door from the walkway and pulled it up in midstride. For long seconds he stood and stared at the piece of paper that had his name printed in neat block letters. Instinctively he knew what was inside.

How could he have missed the clues? They were so goddamned obvious—in hindsight.

An overwhelming sadness filled his chest, squeezing out the air. Death was a part of living. It was one of the first things he'd learned in medical school. If you were going to feel sorrow, you saved it for the child who went without ever tasting the sweetness of life or the young mother who should have been saved to see her children grown. To want a career as a doctor and to let yourself feel more was a sure path to burnout down the line.

Joe and Maggie had lived a long and glorious life, blessed by a love that was as rare as the black bear that had once roamed freely throughout the Santa Cruz mountains. It was right that they should die as they'd lived—together.

His hand as heavy as his heart, he removed the note and looked inside. Unexpectedly, tears pooled in his eyes and he was unable to read the carefully scripted words.

Damn it, he didn't want them to be gone.

He wiped the tears from his eyes with the backs of his hands. What made him so sure the note was what he thought? An instant spark of hope ignited and flared like one of the sparklers of his childhood. Maggie could have experienced trouble with her medication again. Maybe they were still at the hospital, both of them traveling in the ambulance. Maybe they wanted him to go there and pick them up.

His hopes lasted as long as it took him to read the opening line in Joe's note.

Dear Eric,

I'm sorry to involve you in this, but I couldn't figure what else to do. Maggie made the decision months ago to end her life on her own terms. I know I don't have to explain why I would choose to go with her or to tell you that she wasn't aware of my decision. I thought I had everything taken care of, that all I would have to ask you to do was call the coroner.

But that was when I planned to take Josi with us. I honestly believed she'd be happier that way, but Jason and Susie made me see how wrong I was. The old gal still has a lot of good years ahead of her. I just couldn't bring myself to take them away. Besides, I know Maggie would never forgive me.

Which brings me to the favor. Could you find a new home for Josi? It's hard as hell not to give you a long list of things to look for in her new owner. At the very least she'll need someone willing to put up with her belief that she's the best thing that could have happened to them. I guess as long as you can find someone who believes it, too, that's enough.

It's hard to say good-bye, even in a letter. Love is a word used so freely that it's lost a lot of its meaning, but it's the only one I know to tell you how Maggie and I came to feel about you and Jason and Susie.

I'm sorry we'll miss the party when your book sells to the movies. Raise a glass to us, would you? Somewhere we'll be doing the same.

Joe

Eric slowly folded the paper and put it in his breast pocket. He would trade everything he had—hell, he would trade everything he could ever hope to have—to experience the kind of love that Joe and Maggie had known.

Pausing to run his hand through his hair and take a deep breath, he went inside.

Josi came running out to meet him, a soft meowing sound marking her steps. She circled once, wrapping herself tightly around his legs, and then headed back to the bedroom, stopping to look over her shoulder several times, checking to see that he was following. She jumped up on the bed at Joe's and Maggie's feet, looked at Eric, and let out a long, plaintive cry.

“Me too, Josi,” he whispered as he took in the sight. “Me too.”

 

Eric spent the rest of the morning answering a police officer's questions. When all the spaces on the forms were completed, the woman officer handed Eric the picture they'd found clasped in Joe's hand and asked what he knew about it. Eric stared at the drawing Jason had made the day after they'd come back from the hospital. It was a picture of him and Jason and Susie standing in front of their house. He was in the middle, Jason and Susie on either side. He and Susie were smiling, Jason had marks on his face that Eric first mistook for freckles and then saw were tears. Jason's hand was raised as if he were waving good-bye.

“Can I have this?” Eric asked.

She thought a minute. “Sure, I don't see why not.”

Jason's private expression of grief tipped the emotional balance for Eric. He had to get away. “Do you need me here or is it all right if I go home for a while?” When she hesitated, he added, “I just live across the pathway. The green-and-white house.”

“As long as you don't go anywhere else. At least not while we're still here. Just in case I have more questions.”

“I'm not planning on going anywhere.”

Josi was at the door to greet Eric when he arrived home. She circled his legs so tightly, he couldn't walk. Finally, frustrated, he bent and picked her up, surprised at how readily she settled into his arms.

Taking her with him, he went into the kitchen to make coffee. When he tried to put her down, she planted her paws on his shoulder and held on. Rubbing the side of her head against his chin, she pushed hard enough to move his head sideways. It was obvious she wanted something, but he had no idea what. The food and water he'd put down earlier appeared untouched.

Finally, as if realizing she wasn't getting through to him, she changed her approach, jumped down, ran to the front door, and howled.

Understanding at last, he said in a choked voice, “They're gone, Josi. I know how you feel, but I don't know what to do about it any more than you do.”

Later, when the coroner arrived to take Joe and Maggie, Eric went back to the house. He didn't need to be there, but he couldn't stay away. Several neighbors had stopped by, but they stayed only long enough to learn there was nothing to be done and then returned to their own homes. A collective sorrow seemed to fill the air, silencing all but a few oblivious beach visitors.

When everyone was finally gone, a profound silence settled over the house. Eric purposely listened, but not even the sounds of waves or gulls or birds at the feeders broke through the dark curtain that had descended. It was almost as if the house itself had gone into mourning.

As the policewoman left she'd shown Eric the list of people Joe had left to be contacted, asking him if he wanted to take care of it or whether he'd prefer they did. Needing something to do, he told her he would do the calling.

The list included a lawyer for the will, an accountant who would act as executor, a doctor in San Jose who had been as much friend as physician, and a neighbor who would simply want to know. Last was the number for the Neptune Society with a note explaining that arrangements had been made for their cremation, for their ashes to be mixed, and for them to be scattered at sea.

As Eric wandered through the house, he realized Joe had thought of everything. The house had been cleaned, their belongings packed and placed by the front door, the cupboards cleared of food with a note asking that everything be donated to a homeless shelter.

Joe and Maggie had died as they had lived—giving whatever they could to others.