Authors: Linda Schmalz
“I’m so sorry, Dee,” Spencer said, and guided her to a chair.
“It’s too soon,” she cried. “Too soon.”
“I know, my love, I know.” Spencer’s tears fell as he held his wife. “Sam is coming home.”
Julia drove through the night, anxious to return home and escape the steamy rain that pounded against the black highway, occasionally blocking her vision. She knew she probably shouldn’t have gone out in this weather, but John insisted a night out with Kim would do her good. She knew differently. Nothing in ten years had helped her feel right after Sam’s death. Nothing. Not being with the children, not the time she spent making a happy home for John, not her involvement in community theater or volunteer activities. And, she was tired of trying.
Prior to Sam’s death, happiness existed because hope existed. Hope that she might be with Sam again. But when he died, all that remained was the life she created because of him, and memories. She wondered fruitlessly if she had made the right choice, so many years ago, in that New York hotel room, when she chose not to be with him. At that time, she felt she had a long future with him that somehow it would work out later that she could be with him and not hurt John. But then, Sam died, and left a void inside her. Try as she might, she could not help missing what might have been. Nothing erased the emptiness she felt without Sam in the world.
No one could understand her heartache, no one. John sensed the change in her when Sam died, but she couldn’t regain whatever strength she used to possess to find joy in her daily life. She simply pretended to find excitement in the mundane her world presented. And John knew. He tried everything to help her feel better without ever acknowledging the reason for her pain. She felt bad for him, knowing that when she lost Sam, John lost the wife he once knew. Long talks in which she offered John an out to their marriage only resulted in him swearing his unconditional love and commitment to her. He promised he would always be there for her. John’s love drowned her further beneath a sea of guilt.
The humdrum sound of the windshield wipers lulled Julia into a drowsy state. She turned up the radio, hoping for a distraction and maybe, a weather report. But only music played. Songs brought back so many memories. Driving alone in the car provided the only solitude where she felt free to relive them without guilt.
She remembered after Sam died. She helped return his body to England and then suffered silently through the huge media blitz that surrounded the unexpected news of his death. To the world, Sam’s death seemed sudden and a shock. It became the focus of world attention. Julia could not escape hearing about it on the television, radio, or reading about it in newspapers and magazines. For months, people on the streets talked about the famous movie star. Not until the tragic death of Princess Diana of Wales, the following August, would Sam’s death fade into the background. While the world mourned their beloved Princess, Julia kept to herself and mourned Sam.
She tried counseling to help her find the joy again. But she couldn’t be open in her sessions about the real death that befell her, for who would believe she was the love of Sam Lyons’s life? No one. Even talking things out with Kim didn’t help. It didn’t bring him back.
The music played on and the rain fell harder. She thought of all the people out there who lived as she did, alone in their private sadness. One therapist suggested medication might help. But pills didn’t stop memories, they just masked feelings, and Julia needed her feelings. They were proof that Sam once loved her.
Turning onto the last exit toward her suburb, Julia thought of her children. Elizabeth was so beautiful and talented. At twenty-six she unwittingly followed in Sam’s career footsteps, majoring in theater in college and traveling between Los Angeles and New York for auditions. Julia knew one day she’d receive a call that Elizabeth’s lucky break arrived.
Tommy, now fifteen and a spitting image of his father, set his sights on computer programming. He had big plans to graduate college and move to the Silicon Valley where his computer expertise would earn him at least a seven-digit income. Julia knew if he stayed the course, and pulled the excellent grades as he did in high school, he would fulfill his dreams. She loved and adored her children and knew, come what may, they’d be fine.
With that final thought, she exited the ramp and turned onto a busy neighborhood street. The rain battered her windshield, and momentarily blinded her. And in that instant Julia mistakenly turned into the oncoming lane.
A blare of horns and the sound of crunching steel was the last thing she heard.
John walked into the house, loosened his tie and threw it over the back of a chair.
Kim followed. She removed her shoes and headed straight for Julia and John’s kitchen. “I’ll put on some coffee.”
Elizabeth ran straight to her old bedroom and shut the door. Tommy sat quietly on the living room couch with Grandpa Bert and Bonnie.
John headed to his bedroom and shut the door. He stared at the bed, wondering how he’d ever be able to sleep in it without her. These last few weeks, when home, he had slept on the couch, but mostly he stayed by her side at the hospital. John looked away from the bed. There would be no more hospital visits. Today he signed the papers, and then, together with the family and Kim, they let her go.
John walked to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a file of papers. He sat down on the bed, and searched for the one he ignored for so long. Ah, there it was, yellowed with age, but still legible. He fingered the letter Sam wrote ten years earlier. Finally he opened and read it.
A gentle knock sounded on the door.
“John?” It was Kim. Since Julia’s car accident four weeks ago, Kim became an angel of comfort to John and the family. While Julia lingered and everyone prayed for her to wake from the coma, Kim readily left her own children with her husband and helped John with anything he needed. Bert and Bonnie, although elderly, also stepped in and did what they could.
Kim talked through the door. “The coffee’s ready, John. Would you like some?”
“Come in, Kim.”
The pretty, middle-aged woman entered and stood by the bed, as he stared at the letter. “Are you okay?” She glanced around the room. “I know that’s a stupid question, considering, but is there anything I can do?”
“I need you to look at something for me, would ya?” He handed her the letter. “Sam Lyons gave me this before he died. I’d like you to read it.”
Kim read aloud:
John,
If you even read this letter, I will be eternally grateful. I have no right to write it, nor ask you for anything. You have done what I couldn’t. You were there for Julia and Elizabeth and gave them love and a home. I never meant to burden any of them, nor you, yet, in my last days you honored my request to be near Julia, and for all this, I thank you.
Lest you think any good of me, which is certainly not your due, I must make one last request, and I believe if I’m not already dead when you read this, you will surely take the matters into your own hands. But, I must ask, for like you, I too have loved Julia for years, yet unlike you, I have had, by my own foolishness, to live without her.
Knowing you have been with her in life, should you outlive her, I would ask that she be laid to rest next to me, in England.
I can hear you scoff now, John. But I jest not. I hope that this arrangement would be what Julia wished as well, yet I wish not to burden her with this decision throughout her life, nor do I wish her to keep any more secrets from you. So, I will leave the decision as yours, knowing that, should the time arrive, you will understand where Julia should rest. I can only hope that you, having loved her so many years in life, will allow her to rest beside me, only in death. (Included are instructions as to who to contact in England if you so choose to honor my request.)
Sincerely,
Sam Lyons
Kim sat down on the bed and pushed a lock of graying hair from her face. “My God.” She placed the letter on her lap. “When did you get this?”
“Just before Sam died ten years ago.”
“And you never told Julia?”
“No.”
“Why not? I think you should have.”
John allowed himself a gentle laugh. “I think I actually agreed with Sam, that she shouldn’t be burdened with making the choice. Or maybe I didn’t want her to even know she had the choice. I don’t know.”
“Wow.”
“I know,” John said. “I thought to tell her right after Sam died, but she was depressed for so long, that I just couldn’t. I didn’t know if this letter would help or harm, you know?”
“Yes.”
“And then, I just filed the letter away. I never expected to outlive her.” John’s voice choked. “So I thought this letter would never matter.”
“Except now it does, if you let it. You have to decide.” Kim handed the letter back to John.
John sighed, his heart heavy with indecision. “I know what I should do, Kim. And I know what I want to do, and believe me, they are two different things entirely.”
“You always do the right thing, no matter what, John. You’re a good guy.”
“I don’t want to be the good guy, Kim.” He stood up and paced. “I want Julia here, with me. In the hospital, I thought that if she didn’t pull through, the decision would be simple. I’d bury her in the plots we bought in our early years. It’s where she thought she’d be buried anyhow.”
“But?”
“But now the decision isn’t simple, because I love her so much. Isn’t that odd? I know she loved me, but she loved Sam first. And the problem here is that because I love her I want to do what I know would make her happy.”
“And in rides the White Knight again,” Kim said, with a gentle smile.
“I never wanted to be anybody’s ‘White Knight’. I just wanted to love her and have her love me back.”
“She loved you.”
“But it wasn’t the kind of love she had for Sam. She loved him first, automatically, and he didn’t deserve it. She grew to love me. That’s the difference. But I accepted what she could give me because the way I saw it, any love from Julia was better than not having her in my life at all.”
Kim spoke softly. “I think you should keep her with you. You deserve it.”
“That’s what I’d like to do.” John looked out the window. “But Julia lived her life doing what she should do, always for us. What I’m thinking is that maybe we should let her go.”
Kim stared at the letter. John noticed the hesitancy in her voice. “You know, her will states she wished for cremation.”
“I know,” John said. “We discussed our plans when we bought the plots and she told me that. I still can’t stand the thought.”
“I know. But John, if you do as she asks, you could split the ashes between here and England.”
John sat on the bed again. “I hate this conversation.”
Silence enveloped the room for several minutes in which John allowed a few tears to fall.
“John?” Kim put her arm around him. “Oh, John. I’m so sorry.”
He wiped his tears. “The kids can’t know about this. Or Bert, or Bonnie. Bert never knew about Sam.”
“I remember.” She smiled. “I was in on the scheme from the start.” She offered him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry about that.”
John allowed himself a brief laugh and gave her a quick hug. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you either. You were always her best friend and you’ve been so helpful after the car accident and throughout these long weeks. I hate to do it, but I need one last favor.”
“Sure.”
John sighed, stood and straightened his shirt. “Can you help me book a flight to London?”
“Mr. Riley?”
John turned from the graves, and in the direction of the heavy British accent. He found it belonged to a man possibly a bit older than himself, certainly in better shape, with thinning reddish blond hair. The stranger wore a gray trench coat that blended into the threatening sky.
The man offered his hand. “I’m Spencer Budacker.”
John recognized him as the man he spoke to on the phone about the arrangements. He returned the handshake. “Oh, nice to meet you. I’m surprised you’re here.”
“Well, I’m terribly sorry for your loss. Julia was a lovely woman.”
John glanced around the small, country cemetery. How could he leave Julia in this place? The English churchyard sat in ruins. Overgrown wildflowers and weeds carpeted the graves, and some of the headstones sat cracked or disheveled. Dried, crackly, brown leaves blew carelessly about the ground, as if dancing on graves. The entire place appeared abandoned and uncared for.
John returned his gaze to Spencer. “You knew my wife?”
“Briefly.” The gentleman looked at the two headstones, one a shiny and new black marble, the other old, faded and weathered from many years of disregard. “I was a friend of Sam’s for many years.”
“Oh, I see.” John stared at the fresh mound of earth before Julia’s headstone. “Were you the one who sent for the priest to bless her grave? He was here earlier.”