This Is Not How It Ends

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

  I ran into Ben on a warmer-than-usual December day at Ocean Reef. It was one of those afternoons I was feeling particularly fragile. The irony of Philip’s death was never lost on me, how once his absence drove us apart, but now it brought us closer than ever before. I wore my engagement ring like a badge of honor, never taking it off, and it became a symbol of our love, the diamond a testament to strength. I was staring at it over lunch, after I’d decided to pack a bag and enjoy our membership. I’d brought a book and tried to focus on the words while lazing by the pool, and the echoes of families and small children made the void evaporate—for a time.

  Alone, seated near the crowded pool bar, I saw him before he saw me.

  Two tables over. Ben. I could tell by the way his hair touched the back of his dark polo. His arms filling out the sleeves. Claudia was across from him, her hair pulled back in a ponytail while she propped her chin up on her fists. She was eyeing him with an affection that made me feel a lot like a voyeur. His hand wrapped around a frosty beer, and I tried not to stare. My eyes clamped shut, and Kelsie crept nearby, her strong winds coming close.

  When I opened my eyes, the two of them were staring at me.

  Claudia got up first. She was freshly painted into a black sarong that accentuated her breasts and firm thighs. Her lips were a lush, deep red, and a faint blush covered her cheeks as she greeted me with a wave.

  “Charlotte! It’s me . . .”

  I let her hug me, though I had no interest in hearing any more condolences. I knew she was sorry. Everybody was sorry. Sorry didn’t bring people back.

  “Philip expected great things from us. He expected it from all of us.” She placed her hand on her hip. “I miss Philip every fucking day. We all do. But I’m going to do great things. For him. For all those who can’t. And you should, too.” Then she had a crazy idea. “Come sit with us. We’ll toast the shit out of Philip.”

  Ben waved across the bar. It didn’t occur to Claudia that he stayed seated, but it occurred to me. Why bog her down with what we’d lost? Philip wasn’t the only casualty.

  I tried to wave her off. “You two enjoy your alone time.”

  She responded minus an inkling of understanding. “We’ve had plenty of that lately.” And she winked before reaching for my beach bag and tugging me along.

  Dread climbed up my legs. Ben and I hadn’t seen each other or spoken in some time. He had finally given up on the phone calls and texts. It was an unsatisfying relief.

  He stood up, and the pull toward him caught me at once. I wished I were imagining it. I wished the space that surrounded him didn’t call out to me like a palm against my skin. He leaned in to kiss my cheek, and I smelled him again. Ben.

  “Hey, Charlotte.” The greeting was stiff and formal. “How are you?”

  Our eyes met in a guarded place. “I’m okay.”

  Claudia moved over for me to sit, a half-eaten salad nearby. “Charlotte, order something.”

  Ben gave her a questioning look.

  “Honey,” she said, “you just finished telling me how you two don’t see each other much anymore. This was meant to be.” She turned to me. “Right, Charlotte?”

  I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. Honey.

  Claudia ordered another round of drinks while I stuck with water but asked for a salad. She relented, and I soon realized that the drink would’ve eased the tension, lessened the barrage of her questions. Ben was watching me—glaring, rather. He was trying to get me to look at him, and like everything else about him, I refused. If I looked at him, I’d remember. If I remembered, I’d lose myself again. I would never do that again.

  “How’ve you been?” he asked for the second time.

  “I’m doing all right.”

  “We don’t see you much at the restaurant,” he said. “Jimmy asks about you.”

  Claudia interjected. The lawyer in her had little to no filter. “It’s got to be horribly sad for Charlotte to go to the place she frequented with the love of her life, Ben. Morada Bay holds all those memories. Their love story happened right there on that sand.”

  Ben cleared his throat and took a swig of his beer. His eyes fell, and he pursed his lips, holding everything back. Then he changed his mind. “I know exactly what Charlotte’s going through.”

  Claudia realized her mistake and returned to her salad. Only, I knew what Ben meant. He meant me and him. He meant the evenings we’d spent talking under the moonlight, the music we’d listened to without saying a word. It was our story that had come to an end.

  If there’s one thing Philip taught me, it was to live boldly. “So when did you two get back together?”

  Claudia swallowed a bite of salad and waved her hand in the air. “Oh, that little time away thing? We couldn’t stay away too long.” Her fingers traveled across the table and took hold of Ben’s. He hesitated at first, but then gave in.

  “How’s Jimmy doing?” I asked.

  “Good,” Ben answered. “Jimmy’s good. His grandparents are excited about the move. He’s painting a lot. We’re going to open a new restaurant in the City . . .”

  “Tell her the news, Ben!” Claudia practically jumped out of her seat.

  “There’s more?” I asked, pulling off my fakest smile.

  Ben picked over his mahi-mahi sandwich, and I could tell he was miserable. Ben was someone I’d studied for months. His eyes gave him away. They could be acutely aware, pensive, or satisfied. They could want with an extraordinary desire, the kind that knocked the wind out of you. Ben was really unhappy at the moment.

  “Not now, Claudia.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said, “Charlotte’s one of your best friends. Tell her!”

  “Yes, Ben.” I stared back. “Tell me the great news.”

  Ben opened his mouth to speak, but Claudia finished his thought. “I’m moving to New York with him! The firm’s transferring me to the Manhattan office.”

  I knew I should count to ten and breathe, but numbers wouldn’t form. “Wow! That’s terrific news.” Terrific was one of those words old ladies threw around at bridge games. Helen, what a terrific tuna salad. I almost laughed out loud until I heard Philip’s voice in my brain. Fabulous, dahling. Just fabulous news. Because I really couldn’t think of a wittier response. The news lodged in my belly and twisted.

  “It’s fantastic, right?” Claudia beamed.

  “Yes!” I said. “Really terrific.”

  Ben sheepishly hid his face, reluctant to look up.

  Claudia jabbered on about her apartment and their neighborhood while Ben and I met in a private memory. “We’re not moving in together right away . . . I’ll find an apartment near his . . .” And then she stroked Ben’s arm in a proprietary way that jostled me awake. Burying Philip left me for dead, but seeing her hand on Ben’s flesh reminded me I was not. And it hurt. Being alive again hurt.

  My quiet could be misinterpreted for many things, one of which neither of them needed to know. I couldn’t be any less happy, but I told them I was. I told them it was great news. Exciting. I couldn’t help myself. Losing a mother and husband to the same cancer numbed my trust in happy endings.

  Claudia beamed. She really was a pretty woman, and I suppose that’s what hopefulness does to a person. All that innocence, all that happiness, it colors things, yet I’d seen how brightness could change, how the luster could fade to dreary gray.

  I caught Ben eyeing my arm. The inch-long scar revealed itself from beneath my sleeve, and I reached for it with my other hand, covering the memory.

  Claudia must’ve noticed the shadow that spread across my face, because she stopped talking. “I am so sorry,” she said. “Here I am talking about . . . shoot . . . Ben and I, we’re just excited to share the news with you.”

  “It’s fine,” I assured her. “It’s nice to hear good news.”

  “Ben told me you and Philip made it official.” The sympathy trickled from her brown eyes.

  “We did.”

  “That must’ve been
really beautiful. And difficult.”

  Her expression was sincere, and I admired her flawless complexion and perfectly rounded nose. The memories stabbed at me. Charlotte Stafford. It was the greatest oxymoron of all time. Life meets death. It strapped me in sorrow.

  The waiter dropped off my salad, and before I could answer, Ben asked for extra anchovies. The only way to stop the tears from building was to clench my lips and divert the pain. But Ben kept staring, and I needed an escape. Pushing the untouched plate away, I stood up from the table. “I think I need to go . . .”

  Claudia’s cheeks looked pinched. “But you didn’t touch your salad . . .”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready . . .”

  She eyed Ben as though he could coerce me to stay, and when he didn’t budge, she said, “Oh, Charlotte, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on like that . . . We understand . . . We’ll catch up with you before we leave.” Ben mumbled a goodbye, but I was thinking about something else. She said we. Her and Ben. Claudia and Ben.

  CHAPTER 40

  December 2018

  I was so shaken from seeing Claudia and Ben, I called Liberty on the way home and begged her to come over. I’d hidden my feelings for so long—the grief, the guilt—I was determined to be strong, but I was unraveling. The sound of Philip’s voice was becoming harder and harder to recall, and if an hour went by that I didn’t think about him—some funny anecdote of his—I panicked. Then there were minutes, like today, when I was the widow on a lounge chair and his absence hit me like a brick.

  When Liberty arrived, I was on the couch under a blanket. I left the door open because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back up. My body trembled, feet and hands icy cold. She found me curled in a ball, in the fetal position, Sunny by my side.

  “What’s going on, Charlotte?”

  She didn’t wait for my answer. She pulled me toward her and hugged me close. It had been so long since someone had held me; my body craved human touch. I sank into her and let her stroke my hair the way my mother once did. She smelled of lavender oil, and I inhaled.

  “I’m so tired of crying,” I said.

  “Shhhh. It’s okay, honey. Let it all out.”

  The tears slid down my cheeks, and I was helpless to stop them.

  She leaned back on the couch and took me with her. I was a child again, letting her console me, being lapped in the gentle strokes of her fingers. “You’ve had a lot to overcome, Charlotte.”

  Sunny sniffed the salt, jumping up on the couch. He slathered my face, and I let him. “Maybe marrying him this way wasn’t the best idea, Charlotte.”

  There was sympathy and doubt laced through her voice, and I sat up and grabbed a tissue from my bag. “It’s not like I can get a divorce, Lib. It’s done. Besides, I loved Philip. I love him. We would have married eventually.”

  She was eyeing me with the same look she gave to parents whose kids failed their treatment—when they swore up and down they didn’t eat or touch anything containing vitamin A. “That’s not why you married him, Charlotte. It was an admirable move for someone you loved, but you know and I know that it wasn’t going to change anything.”

  I blew my nose in the tissue so she couldn’t see the blush that crept up my face. “What are you implying?”

  She took her time before continuing. “Ben. It wasn’t going to change the way you felt about Ben.”

  The tears were a defense, and my body stiffened. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Liberty.”

  “You can lie to me all you want, but you can’t lie to yourself. You and Ben. It was always obvious.”

  I shook my head, refusing what she pointed out.

  “You weren’t wrong,” she argued. “It was inevitable. There was too much space, Ben’s energy merged with yours. I’ve seen your auras at play. You can’t fight that type of pull.”

  My body rocked in a steady rhythm as I warded off what she was saying. Sunny gave up and lay at my feet. “There’s nothing between Ben and me.”

  Doubt passed through her eyes. “Why are you punishing yourself?”

  “Punishing myself? Burying my fiancé—my husband—I didn’t do that. It was done to me.”

  “Tell me,” she said, her copper hair framing her face, “what are you so afraid of? Is it finding love or the prospect of losing it again?”

  Energy drained from my body, and Liberty’s words recounted a past I’d tucked away in a drawer. A lengthy spate of losses had shaped me into an untrusting person who surrounded herself with people who left, people who kept a safe distance. But lately the narrative had changed. I couldn’t blame Philip for our undoing. It was me who was responsible. Who knew that fate would intervene and land Philip in the hospital that next day? Who knew that the promise I made to Ben would have to be taken back? I cheated. There was no way to sugarcoat it. Regardless of my childhood and the mistaken beliefs, the cheating was on me.

  I broke apart from Liberty and ran my fingers through my hair before twirling it in a messy bun behind my head. She said, “You’re still a beautiful woman, Charlotte. Despite the way you’re feeling.”

  She would never understand the deep disparity that set my inside apart from the outside. Accepting her compliment was disingenuous, because Liberty was seeing a fraction of me—the rest I’d hidden from view. And before I knew it, the mask came off, and I was drawing her—the other part of me—out. Breathy words disguised my regret. “Ben and I. We were together. During the storm.” I was chewing on a broken fingernail, but I felt her freeze. The next part had me choking back tears. “I thought Philip understood me. I thought we wanted the same things, but we didn’t.” She let me go on. “Being around Ben and Jimmy . . . Philip didn’t want kids . . . I saw a life I wanted. A different life. The love was there. It was always there, but it wasn’t enough. I found it with someone else . . . I found it with Ben.”

  She reached for my hand, and I finally looked up.

  “Philip made it so easy, Lib. He . . . he . . . was never home . . . and then when he was home, he always wanted to be around Ben. He pushed me to Ben. Ben, walk Charley home . . . Ben, teach Charley to cook . . . He loved so big, but held back so much . . . What was I supposed to do?”

  Her hair fanned across the cushions, and I noticed the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. But what I saw more than anything was an understanding that I hadn’t felt in months.

  “And then we got the call that morning. Do you have any idea what that call did to me? It was my fault. I did this.”

  “You didn’t do this. You didn’t make Philip sick.”

  “I’ve lost a lot of people I loved, Liberty.”

  She eyed me firmly, no sympathy in sight. “I don’t do pity parties, honey.”

  I fell back on the couch, collecting my courage.

  “Life challenges us, Charlotte. Every single one of us. Do you think you’re any different?” She let me ponder this. “You didn’t know that phone call was coming. You had no way of knowing. You were prepared to do the admirable thing.”

  “I’m a cheat. And Philip died believing I’m someone I’m not. I hate that I wronged him. I hate how we deceived him. They were the closest of friends. It doesn’t get any worse than that.”

  Her face neared mine. “Do you know how easy it might have been for someone to have walked away? Philip begged you to walk away. You insisted on staying, insisted on taking care of him by yourself. What you did for him in his last moments was devotion. Unconditional love. Do you know what that says about you?”

  “Yes!” I shouted. “It says I’m selfish. It says I let guilt control me.”

  “You’re human, Charlotte. You made a mistake.” She knotted her fingers into mine. “And now you’re going to let Ben go, too?”

  Damn right I was. I deserved to be alone.

  “You don’t believe he really loves that Claudia?”

  “I’ll never presume to know what Ben feels.” My voice dipped when I added, “But what kind of people are we to do what we did? I
t’s best he leaves.”

  Liberty released a hearty laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  The trouble was, I did. Ben was forbidden to me. In keeping Philip’s memory alive, in honoring him in death as I failed him in life, I had to stay away. I had to let Ben go.

  “The self-righteous martyr thing is unbecoming. You’re no victim, Charley, so get off your back and stop playing one. Life throws shit at all of us, and it’s how we deal with it that defines who we are.”

  “It’s over. He’s leaving for New York with Claudia.”

  “And what’s your plan?” she asked. “You’re hardly working . . . You going to stay here and memorialize Philip for the rest of your life? Would he want that for you?”

  “He wouldn’t have wanted me to sleep with his best friend, Lib. That much I know.”

  She snorted and shook her head. “You’re a stubborn fool. Philip’s in your heart. He’ll always be in your heart. There’s always room for more. Let Ben in. Let him love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

  I wriggled in my seat. “That’s the thing. I’m not sure I deserve it.”

  CHAPTER 41

  January 2019

  The night of Ben and Jimmy’s farewell was a full moon. A blanket of stars dotted the sky, and a thin chill filled the air. I was hesitant to attend; there wasn’t an actual place for me in Ben’s life and seeing him again would only resurrect painful feelings we’d both had to bury.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t take Liberty’s words to heart, but there were so many conflicting emotions circling around that I was paralyzed, unable to make decisions. I thought about showing up at his door, and I even dialed his number several times, but I stopped myself, something deeper within preventing that final step forward.

  It was no coincidence that I wore a dress in the light shade of blue that Ben loved. And the wrap I flung over my shoulder was the one Philip sent from New York. Liberty found me and hooked her arm into mine as we entered Morada Bay’s patio together. The table was set for sixteen. There was Jimmy and Carla, a handful of waiters and waitresses, kitchen staff, and Ben and Claudia. I felt Philip’s absence in the cool breeze. I expected to turn around and find him there in our seats by the water, holding his bourbon in his hands, calling me dahling.