Текст книги "For All You Have Left"

Автор книги: Laura Miller

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter Thirty-Three
The Nightmare

“Your helmet, Wife.” He hands me the pink helmet.

“Thank you, Husband.”

I take the helmet and squeeze it over my head.

“Husband,” I say again, just to feel it on my tongue.

I hear the click of the helmet’s strap under my chin and watch as Andrew slides the marriage license and the camera inside the backpack and zips it closed.

“Guard this with your life,” he says, angling back toward me.

I force my arms through the bag until it’s resting on my back.

“Oh, and I put my sweatshirt in there too just in case you get cold on the way back,” he says. “Let me know if we need to stop, so you can put it on.”

I nod my head, and the big, pink helmet moves with it.

“I love you, Logan Amsel. Forever and a day.” He reaches back and squeezes my leg.

I adjust the backpack, then tighten my arms around his waist. “I love you too, Andrew Amsel.”

There’s a moment, and then suddenly, the purr of the bike’s engine fills the air around us. The sound grows louder and louder as the bike leaves the curb in one swift motion, forcing my body backward. I squeeze my arms tighter around Andrew’s waist.

“Forever and a day,” I whisper, pressing my cheek against his shoulder.

It’s early afternoon. Wednesday. June 10. The sun is shining. There are cotton-ball clouds in the sky, and I can see the open road ahead of us. The warm air is hitting my arms and brushing past my bare shoulders. It feels good against my skin. We take a turn, and I hold on to Andrew tighter and move with his body. I have so much love for the boy I’m holding. I caress the ring on my left hand with my thumb and think about the perfect life we’re going to have together. I’m thinking about our little house in the country, our three, little scraggly children we’re going to raise together and all the places we’re going to go when something happens and the dreams all shatter.

My weight shifts forward, and the bike turns sharply. There’s something big with fur running to the side – maybe a deer. I hold on to Andrew as tightly as I can. Then I see the pole, and I brace myself for the impact.

It feels as if it’s only been a matter of seconds and I’m waking up in a ditch on the side of the road. I’m on my back, and all I can see is blue sky. I tilt my head to the side, and my head aches. There are wildflowers growing up everywhere all around me. And there’s a smell of burnt rubber in the air. It gets stuck in my throat and makes me cough. I swallow hard and try to take shallower breaths.

“Andrew,” I whisper.

I’m terrified. I want to find him, but I don’t want to say his name loud enough and he not answer me back.

“Andrew,” I whisper again.

I hear the sirens of police or ambulances or something.

I turn on my side and sit up. The backpack is still on my back. I pull its straps across my chest until they’re touching, remembering Andrew’s warning. And then my head starts spinning. I force my eyes closed for a second. And when I open them, I notice that there’s a gash on my leg. It’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look too bad. I look toward the highway. The sirens are getting closer.

“Andrew,” I say a little louder.

I unsnap my helmet and pull it off. It falls to the ground, and I quickly push up onto my feet. But suddenly, my head spins out of control and just as quickly, the earth is pulling me back down again. I fight it, though, and manage to get back to my feet. And in the next moment, my eyes frantically go to searching the tall weeds around me.

“Andrew,” I yell this time.

I spot him several yards away. He’s on his back. He’s not moving. He’s not moving! I panic and lose the moments. Somehow, the next thing I remember is shaking Andrew’s shoulders and calling out his name, while someone else is pulling me off of him. I hold onto Andrew’s shirt as tightly as I can. I don’t want to let him go.

“Please,” I scream. “No.”

There are more of them now, pulling on me. I try to fight them off, but I lose.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I wake up on a stretcher in an ambulance, and the first thing I notice is that the backpack is gone. Where did it go? I take a deep breath and exhale every piece of joy in my soul. And immediately, the tears start streaming down my cheeks. And I cry, and I cry, until I just stop. I just stop crying.

“What is your name?” I hear the man beside me ask.

It’s not the first time he has asked me, but it is the first time I have actually heard it as a question.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asks again.

My eyes lift and I notice the bright shade of blue in the man’s eyes. Then, my gaze falls onto a silver pin the man is wearing on his shirt. I focus on it. It’s shiny. So shiny. I watch the man take the pin from near his collar and put it into my bloody hand. There’s so much blood. I don’t even know if it’s all mine.

“Your name,” he says again.

“Mrs. Amsel,” I whisper, still staring at the pin, now in my hand.

The warm liquid floods my eyes again, and I quickly force my eyelids shut. I caress the metal pin’s edges with my fingers inside the palm of my hand. I’m starting to feel numb. My whole body is starting to feel numb. I press one of the pin’s edges into my hand until I feel a sharp pain. Then, I take a deep breath and slowly force the air back through my lips.

* * *

My alarm is blaring some song from the top hits station on the radio. It’s so loud, it sounds like it’s right next to me. I lift my head and notice I’m still on the couch. Then immediately, I feel the sting of a night full of my lingering memories.

I force myself to sit up. The light is on above me, and the blinds are wide open, but on the other side of the patio doors, it’s dark. I take a second to rub my eyes before I slowly push myself up and stagger toward the song playing in my bedroom. When I get close enough, I throw my hand on top of the alarm, and instantly, the room grows silent again. I glance at the clock. There’s a big, bright green six on it. The little, mesmerizing glow in the dark room captures my full attention for a few seconds, until I snap out of it and fall onto the edge of my bed. Moments pass, and I just sit there and stare at the beige wall in front of me, trying to convince myself that someday the nightmare won’t haunt me. And then, suddenly, I remember Jorgen.

Chapter Thirty-Four
Name

I don’t even bother changing out of the clothes I wore yesterday – the same clothes I fell asleep in. I charge to my door, push past it and plant my feet on Jorgen’s welcome mat.

I take a second to rally my courage. Then, I knock three times on the hard wood. A few moments disappear before I hear rustling on the other side. And all of a sudden, the knob turns and the door opens. He’s still wearing his jeans from yesterday, but his shirt is gone. I notice his abs and the muscles in his chest right before I charge into his apartment.

“What time is it?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “We’re talking about this.”

I hear him suck in a breath.

“Okay,” he concedes softly, turning away.

I watch him close the door and take a seat on one of his barstools, but I don’t sit down. I just stand.

“Jorgen.”

I wait until his eyes meet mine. And when they do, I continue.

“I was married. I was eighteen. It was right after graduation.”

I stop and try to gather some more courage to say the words that I’ve needed to say for a long time now.

“We had known each other since we were kids,” I go on. “He asked, and I said yes. I had dreamed about it since I was nine. I didn’t even have to think about it. Our parents didn’t know – until they found the marriage license after…”

Jorgen’s voice stops me.

“Ada, why don’t you go by your first name?”

I think my eyebrows instinctively collide. He sounds so calm now – as if he’s not mad anymore. But I don’t understand his question or maybe I just don’t understand why he’s asking it.

There’s dead silence for a long, agonizing minute. Then, I look into his eyes.

“I couldn’t…,” I start. “The last thing he – Andrew, my husband – said to me was my name and the words: I love you and forever. I couldn’t hear my name and not think of those words anymore.”

I try my hardest to fight back the tears.

“See,” I go on slowly, “we were on his bike, on our way home from getting married, and we didn’t make it home…he didn’t make it home.”

I watch Jorgen’s face grow pale, and it breaks my heart. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

“But Jorgen, that was a long time ago, and I…”

“Ada,” he says softly, stopping me again.

There’s a word on his lips, but nothing comes out. He finds my eyes, stays in them only a moment and then quickly sends his gaze to the floor.

“Ada, I was there that day.”

I think I stop breathing for a second.

“I couldn’t find an ID on you. You said your name was Mrs. Amsel.” His eyes lock in mine. “And you were looking at my pin of St. Michael, so I took it off, and I gave it to you. You still have the pin. It’s on your shelf.”

My heart is racing now. I’m trying with everything in me to calm it and to think – to just think, to put it all in order.

He looks down at the floor and then back up at me.

I don’t believe it. It can’t be. I would have known. I would have remembered. I would have remembered…

His eyes…

I look into Jorgen’s blue eyes, and then it hits me. Why didn’t I see it before?

Tears start to blurry my vision. I’m shaking my head. Images from that day, images of Andrew, images of the paramedic – Jorgen – are racing through my mind, and I feel as if I can’t breathe again. I feel as if my two lives are colliding and they shouldn’t be.

“I started to put it all together last night.” He shakes his head. “I mean I should have figured it all out before. Hell, I might have known it all along and just didn’t want to believe it – didn’t want to believe that you had suffered that much or that I had seen you suffer that much. I don’t know.”

There’s silence then. He doesn’t break it and neither do I for long, sad moments. I’m aware of every heartbeat in my chest. I’m conscious of every breath that passes over my lips and every blink of my eye. I’m consumed by the acts of purely living. I barely notice him get up and walk toward me. And suddenly, I feel his arms surrounding me, drawing me closer to him.

“Ada,” I hear him say, “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you yesterday.”

The tears are flooding my cheeks now. I try to respond, but the words just come out only as sobby resemblances of words instead.

“Ada, it’s okay,” he says, gently stroking my hair.

He was there. He was there. I repeat the little sentence over and over in my mind.

“Ada, I remembered your face, but I couldn’t, didn’t want to place it,” he whispers in a shaky voice.

I feel a gasp instinctively escape my lips.

He was there. He knows everything. He knew everything this whole time. Only until now, I guess, everything he had known was connected to some other life – some other face that wasn’t mine.

“Kevin was working with me that afternoon,” he continues, as if he’s remembering it all for the first time.

I take a second and swallow the lump in my throat.

“He remembered me,” I say, through my tears.

I feel his head nod above me.

“I never talked to him about it, but that must have been what he wanted to tell me,” he says.

I try to control the sobs and wipe away the tears.

“Jorgen,” I manage to get out. I pull away from him and find his eyes. “You have to know that I love you. I don’t want to live in my past anymore. I want to live in my present – with you. I don’t want to lose you.”

I lay my head against his chest again, and then I feel his arms squeeze tightly around me.

“I love you too, Ada,” I hear him whisper. “I’m yours. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. At his last word, the world falls away, and I feel my heart exploding – exploding with not only love for this man but appreciation for giving this tortured soul a second chance – a second life.

“I love you,” I say again, with everything I have left in me. “I love you so much.”

Chapter Thirty-Five
The Grave

I go to the spot that’s etched into my memory – at the end, near the corner. There’s a big oak tree that sits on the other side of the fence. It shades the spot, and it seems only fitting. But when I see the piece of stone jetting up from the earth, I stop cold and just stare at it. I don’t know what else to do. Of anything I’ve ever done in my life, even more so than starting over in a tomorrow without him, this makes me the most terrified. That stone might as well be a ghost.

I stare at it a little longer. I don’t want to look at it, but I force myself to. It still doesn’t seem right that his name should be there, etched in rock under the words, Loving husband, son and brother. And it doesn’t seem right that there’s not much time between those two numbers. Eighteen years. Only eighteen, short, beautiful years. And I think about that little dash that separates those two years, and it’s hard to believe that our life fit into that little space – that all our moments, all our dreams, all our joys, all our laughter, all our tears and all our smiles are held within that little dash. I push back the warm tears as I try to rationalize it. It’s just not possible.

I force myself to walk closer to the stone. It feels like the frost-covered ground is more like wet concrete as my feet, little by little, struggle to take each step. But finally, I reach it, and I slowly kneel down so that I’m at eye level with the carved words. I glance at the dark gray indentions, then quickly turn away and stare at the frozen grass instead as my heart slams hard against my chest. Half of me is saying I can’t do this; I’m not strong enough. The other half says I must. So after a moment, I force my eyes back, and suddenly, I feel my hand moving toward the stone, and soon, my fingers are pressing against the indented letters that make up the word husband.

I’ve been here once – the day I said goodbye to him for the last time. But I’ve never seen the gray stone that bears his name. I finish moving my fingertips over the word, and then I follow the letters in his name, until my eyes fall to a spot below the dates where there’s an inscription. I had requested it be there, but I hadn’t thought about it since then until now. In small letters is the little quote that he might not have gone a day without saying: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. I wanted it there because the quote is Andrew, because it says what he would say if he could. It says: Don’t cry for me. And now, everyone who passes by here – everyone who never had the chance to meet him – will know who he was.

The quote makes me smile, but it also forces another tear down my cheek. I wipe it away with the back of my hand and focus on another inscription below the quote. I run my fingertips over each letter in the words: Forever and a day. And when I get to the last letter, my head falls to my knees, and I try to control my heart as it grows ever heavy in my chest. He wrote the words in a tree; I had to make sure they were written in stone. And I had said those words that day – that last day with him – but I had whispered them, and I don’t think he could have heard me over the bike’s engine. I have replayed that moment in my head probably a million times now, but each time now, when I say the words, I shout them. I make sure he hears them.

I feel like sobbing, but I don’t. Instead, I sniffle, swallow the hurt in my throat and wipe my eyes again.

“Andrew,” I whisper.

I watch my breath freeze in the air, and I try to force back the flood of tears that I soon realize I can’t possibly stop from streaming down my cheeks. It’s been years since I’ve said his name out loud – as if he were right in front of me.

“You weren’t supposed to leave me,” I whisper.

I pause and force my lips up, but the smile quickly fades away.

“If I would have known that day was going to be our last day together, I would have held you tighter. I would have kissed you longer.”

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and just sit there in silence for a moment. I stare at the last inscription. I try not to look at the name above it.

“I’ve met someone,” I whisper, at last. “He’s not as crazy as you.”

I laugh to myself and sniffle some more.

“But he’s just as amazing,” I say, and then I try to smile again through my tears. “You would have liked him.”

I swallow hard, and I just sit there in silence for a while – thinking, letting the hum of the quiet carry me away. I think about our first kiss behind that big hay bale in that dusty hayloft. I think about the way his muscles moved in his arm as he carved our love into that old oak tree. And I think about the way my name looked as if it belonged etched in that black ink onto his heart. And then I remember the look in his eyes when he told me he liked my sundress on our wedding day, and I replay that last, perfect smile that he ever gave me. Then, I take a rock out of one coat pocket and a piece of torn paper from the other. And I allow my eyes to follow over the words on the little page one final time:

September 2, 2000

Dear Diary,

I really hate being the new girl. I hope Daddy never gets another promotion. I never want to move again. I miss my old school, and I miss my friends. But I guess it’s not all bad. Sara Thomas showed me how to do a backflip on the monkey bars today, and she pretty much never left my side. I’m pretty sure she’s going to be my new best friend. And don’t tell anyone, but there’s also this boy in my class, and he lives just up the road, and he’s so, so cute. He acts like he doesn’t like me, but I don’t think he’s a very good actor. I’m going to marry him one day.

I hold the page torn right out of my old diary tightly in my hand. Then, I place it on the ground near the base of the stone, and on top of it, I gently set the rock that, once upon a time, penned our love into eternity.

“I love you, Andrew,” I whisper. “I’ll love you forever…and a day.”

I softly kiss the inside of my fingers and then press them to the hard, cold stone. Then, I take another second and wipe the tears from my eyes before I slowly stand up, inhale a breath of cool air and walk away.

Chapter Thirty-Six
Six Months Later

Once the words were said, somehow, it had made it all real. And I can’t help but notice that Jorgen had been the only one who had made me want to make it all real – to pull off the Band-Aid and start to heal. I wanted to heal for him.

I take the marriage license from Hannah and lay it into the cardboard box. Then, she hands me Andrew’s championship ring, and I catch its blue jewel sparkling in the light from the open window. My something blue. I always kept it in a little shoebox tucked away inside my closet. I take the championship ring now and the little diamond wedding ring, and I put them together into a small ring box and then lay the little box next to the marriage license.

“Here, this too,” Hannah says, handing me a little, metal pin.

I shake my head and take the pin. “No, that can stay out,” I say. “That’s actually my fiancé’s.”

Hannah just smiles back at me.

“Well, then, I think we’ve got everything,” she announces.

“Hey,” I hear a familiar voice call out from the other room.

“We’re in here,” I say.

I stretch a piece of packing tape over the top of the box.

“What about your name?” Hannah asks.

I stop running my hand over the tape and look up at her.

“I’ve been Ada for so long now. I don’t even know what it’s like to be Logan anymore.”

I think the truth is that I feel more alive being Ada and maybe also that Logan is in some way my last piece of Andrew. And there’s still a tiny piece of me that wants to leave him something.

Jorgen is standing in the doorway now. I meet his eyes, and I think he reads my mind.

“I’ve only known you as Ada,” Jorgen says. “I’ve always loved Ada.”

I slowly let go of a smile before I look back at my sister. “I’m Ada, Hannah.”

Hannah seems to understand because she gives me her look of approval.

Amsel comes in then and Jorgen pats him on the shoulder.

“Ada,” another voice calls out from the other room. “I’ve brought a lot of hands to help you move.”

The voice comes from a petite, very pregnant brunette who squeezes into the room and plants her feet in front of Amsel. Amsel puts his arm around her and kisses her on the lips.

“Thanks, Erin,” I say.

“We’ll have you all moved out and in your new home in no time,” she says, eyeing up Jorgen.

Jorgen finds my eyes, and a crooked smile dances to life on his face.

God, I love him.

* * *

“Red?”

I open my mouth, and he sets an M&M onto my tongue.

“Mmm,” I say. “Red tastes good.”

He laughs and pours more of the candies into his hand.

“Green.”

“Put it back,” I say.

I stretch my leg to where the metal links of the porch swing connect, and with my bare toes, I play with the delicate, little chains. The house is quiet now. Everyone’s gone home. Boxes are scattered in every room. There are even a few, which didn’t quite make it into the house, stacked up next to us. I turn my head in Jorgen’s lap and look out onto the field in front of us. There’s a summer breeze gently pushing the wildflowers and the tall grasses back and forth. It almost looks as if the grass is waving. I smile and turn onto my side and nuzzle back into Jorgen’s lap.

Off to the left, there’s a narrow, white-graveled driveway. It starts close and meanders to a line of apple trees, then disappears. The sky is a beautiful mix of blue and pink watercolors fading into each other at the base of the tree line. It looks more like a painting than real life. That’s my view from this porch swing – simple, untouched, exactly how I always saw it. There’s a lot to do to make this little patch of earth a home, but I can’t wait to make it a home with Jorgen.

I feel his hand come down and gently brush a piece of my hair back from my face.

“What are you thinking about, Ada Bear?”

His voice is soft and thoughtful.

“About our little house in the country,” I say.

I turn onto my back again and stare up into his beautiful sky-blue eyes.

“You know, I always saw it this way,” I go on. “I saw the tall grass and the apple trees and the long, gravel driveway. I saw it all from this porch swing. And when I looked up into the eyes of the man I was resting in…”

I stop and start to smile.

“I saw your face,” I say. “I know now it was you all along.”