Just Once

by Lori Handeland

  Charley liked how the cars lined up in front of the ferry exit – the door of the boat opening, a slice of sky widening. He didn’t notice Frankie was photographing him until she stopped. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You were so involved. It was beautiful.’

  Charley hadn’t ever been beautiful. Now he wasn’t ever going to be.

  They spent part of the day at Schoolhouse Beach Park, which was one of only five smooth limestone beaches in the country.

  ‘This is wild.’ Charley snapped shot after shot of the sandless beach, using Frankie’s shoulder as a prop. Her hair flying in front of the lens only made the photograph seem aged. The strands against the bright blue sky resembled cracks in a photographic plate.

  ‘You know, there’s a hefty fee if you get caught stealing one of those rocks.’

  ‘They’re rocks.’ Charley set his camera on top of them, then lay down and started shooting again.

  ‘They’re glacier polished rocks, which are thousands of years old, most holding fossils.’

  ‘Like this one.’ Charley zoomed in on a stone with some kind of insect etched into the surface. ‘What are those?’ He indicated the cairns that dotted the area.

  ‘When on a sand beach, sand castles must be built. When on a rock beach, you get that.’

  Charley got to his feet – it wasn’t as easy as it used to be but he ignored Frankie’s outstretched hand – then crossed the uneven ground, stumbling several times.

  Frankie caught up and took his arm. ‘You dizzy?’

  ‘No.’ He wasn’t right now, but his balance had gone south. He blamed the smooth stone beach.

  ‘We should bring Lisa here.’

  Charley was so fascinated by the cairns – some were very elaborate – he didn’t notice that Frankie wasn’t talking. When he lowered the camera, her face was so set and pale he lifted it again and took the picture.

  She cast him a disgusted glance. ‘Really?’

  ‘You reminded me of the death mask of Mary, Queen of Scots.’

  He’d seen a copy once in Falkland Palace in Scotland. Creepy stuff. Why would anyone make a mask of a dead person? But he’d discovered there were a lot of them floating around in museums everywhere – Ben Franklin, John Dillinger, Abraham Lincoln. He’d meant to visit more of them. And how creepy did that make him?

  ‘Thanks,’ Frankie said.

  She still looked a lot like Mary.

  ‘What’s wrong, Fancy?’

  She stared at the water and not at him. ‘You don’t remember bringing Lisa here?’

  ‘Here?’ He could swear he’d never been here before. ‘When?’

  ‘Before she …’ She stopped, pursing her lips as if she’d sucked on the lemons she still smelled so much like. ‘When we came to pick out the cottage.’

  The situation she described sounded familiar. If anyone had asked him if he’d come to Door County and chosen their cottage, he’d have said yes. If they asked him when and how and what else they’d done …

  ‘I got nothin’,’ he admitted.

  She took the camera from his hands. Until she did so, he hadn’t realized how heavy it was. His arms were shaking.

  ‘You don’t remember Lisa going into the water?’

  There was something about Lisa going into the water, but when he thought about it he couldn’t breathe. His chest hurt. His legs gave out and he collapsed on the rocks in a heap.

  ‘Charley!’ Frankie fell to her knees at his side.

  The breeze off the water caused the sudden sweat that had broken out all over him to cool and he shivered. ‘I don’t remember her here.’

  ‘She ran into the waves, then right back out because the stones hurt her feet. You let her wear her sneakers.’

  In his mind, something about him and Lisa and water hovered just out of reach. He tried to grab it, but it only danced even farther away.

  Charley shook his head.

  ‘That’s OK.’ Frankie kissed his cheek.

  From her face, it wasn’t OK. He knew he was forgetting things, but he’d yet to hear from anyone just what it was he’d forgotten.

  Something caught his eye on the water. He tried to pick up his camera from where Frankie had placed it on the stones, and he couldn’t. That scared him. He didn’t feel weak. He felt like he could lift that thing and then … it just didn’t happen.

  ‘Can you …’ he began. ‘Could you help?’

  Frankie practically leaped forward and retrieved the Nikon, then handed it to him. He took it and, as he’d suspected, his arms couldn’t support the weight. His hands fell back to the ground, camera on top, driving his knuckles against the stones.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Frankie sounded so horrified, annoyance flared.

  ‘I’ll live,’ he said dryly. ‘Although not very long.’

  ‘Charley, please.’

  ‘Begging isn’t going to help. I’ve tried.’

  Had he? He thought so. He was still dying.

  ‘Just take the camera, Fancy.’

  Tentatively she lifted it.

  ‘See out there?’ He nodded at the bobbing black something. ‘Find it. Center it.’

  She did. ‘It’s a tire.’

  ‘Sheesh. People are pigs.’

  She began to lower the Nikon, but he used one finger to lift the lens back up. That was the most he could manage. ‘Wait until a bird lands. Then ka-ching.’

  ‘Money happens?’ She pressed her eye to the viewfinder.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Frankie snapped the picture and laid the camera between them.

  Charley stared at the water – clear up close, then blue, green, gray all the way to the blue-gray sky.

  ‘There are things so beautiful they make me ache,’ he said.

  Her glance was both surprised and guarded. ‘You always said photographing beauty was a waste of time. Beauty doesn’t change things.’

  ‘I did?’

  She nodded.

  Charley continued to stare at the water. The ache swelled. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I suddenly want to photograph everything that makes me ache. I want to photograph all the things.’

  Frankie took his hand. ‘I know.’

  They sat together in silence. They’d always been good at it. There were so many things they could say without ever saying them.

  ‘I love you’s had gone unvoiced. ‘I need you’s the same. So had ‘I miss you’s.

  ‘I love you; I need you; I’ve missed you,’ he whispered.

  At first he didn’t think she’d heard. Then she met his eyes and in hers he saw the whole wide world. Nothing had ever been more beautiful.

  ‘I love you; I need you; I’ve missed you,’ she said.

  He managed to lift the camera and fire off a single shot of her face.

  Why had he ever wanted to look anywhere else?

  Hannah

  Hannah arrived at the cottage in Fish Creek nearly two weeks after she’d left it.

  No car out front. Where could they be? She hoped not the hospital, though Frankie would have called.

  Hannah checked her phone again. The only missed calls were from her lawyer.

  She should have phoned to say she was coming, but she’d been afraid Frankie would tell her not to bother. And while she didn’t want to watch another man she loved die, she thought it would be worse not to watch. How could she live with herself?

  Charley was her husband. She loved him; he had once loved her. Did he still, somewhere in that brilliant brain? She might never know, but she would be at his side until the end. Hers would be the last face he saw on this earth. Just let Frankie try and take that from her.

  Hannah had decided, in the depths of several recent sleepless nights, that she hadn’t tried hard enough to make Charley remember her. She’d brought a large manila envelope stuffed with snapshots of the two of them, a visual record of their life together – their first apartment, then their second, vacations, dinners, outings.

>   In most of them they were laughing. Charley had often told her he’d never laughed with anyone the way he’d laughed with her. What if she could get him to laugh again? Might he remember the other times they had? Hopefully the pictures would help.

  Yes, she remembered quite well what had happened when she’d shown him their wedding photograph. But he’d been upset. She’d been angry and frightened. If she spoke to him calmly, when he was rational, maybe she could reach him. At this point, what did she have to lose?

  Hannah found the spare key inside the large seashell at the edge of the driveway, right where Frankie had told her it would be the last time they’d spoken on the phone – a week ago now. They hadn’t gone that long without a call since this had all started. Hannah didn’t want to admit that she’d missed Frankie’s voice on the other end of the line.

  They weren’t friends, exactly, but they were something.

  Inside she hurried to the room she’d used before, dropped her bag and turned. She froze at the sight of the hospital bed across the hall. People died in those beds. That’s what they were for.

  She was still standing in her room, staring into his, when Charley and Frankie returned.

  ‘Hannah?’ Frankie called.

  ‘Here,’ she said, shocked at how faint her voice had become. Anyone listening would think she was the one who was dying.

  But wasn’t she? Bit by bit, inch by inch, as Charley faded, so did Hannah. He was everything and when he was gone she’d have nothing.

  ‘Stop that,’ she whispered an instant before Frankie came around the corner.

  She paused at the sight of Hannah’s face. ‘You gonna pass out?’

  ‘Not today.’ She tried to smile.

  The attempt must have been dismal because Frankie grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the living room. ‘Let’s have wine.’

  Sometimes she almost loved Frankie.

  Charley sat at the kitchen table, eyes glued to the laptop screen. Since his camera was plugged into the USB port, he must be downloading from one to the other.

  ‘Hi, Charley.’ Hannah’s cheeks heated. She felt as awkward as she had the day she’d met him. What had happened to the confident woman she had become?

  Charley grunted.

  Guess he wasn’t happy to see her.

  He looked a lot worse than when she’d left. Thinner, paler, shakier.

  Hannah cast a concerned glance at Frankie, who avoided that glance, studiously pouring the wine.

  Charley was dying, faster now since he wasn’t doing anything to stop it.

  Hannah shouldn’t be surprised. She wasn’t. What surprised her was that she’d still had hope he might pull out of this. Heath had called her Pollyanna for a reason.

  ‘Here.’ A glass of red wine appeared in front of her face.

  Hannah took it and gulped.

  The photographs spilling on to the computer screen caught her attention. She inched closer so she could see over Charley’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Rock cairns on a rock beach, bright blue skies and waves at their back.

  ‘Is that Scotland?’ Hannah had never been but she’d always thought that was what the place would look like.

  ‘Washington Island.’ Frankie stood in the kitchen, swirling her wine in the glass, not drinking it.

  ‘Is that Scotland?’ Hannah repeated.

  Charley snorted but didn’t answer.

  Hannah felt her cheeks heat again. He’d never made her feel like an idiot before. He’d always taught her what she didn’t know with patience and love. But he wasn’t that man any more, and she feared he wouldn’t ever be that man again. Unless she did something soon.

  ‘Washington Island is off the tip of the peninsula by about five miles. That’s where we spent the day.’

  A shadow passed over Frankie’s face. Something about Washington Island disturbed her.

  ‘Everything go OK there?’ Hannah waved at the photographs, which had switched to fields of lavender so vivid she could almost smell it.

  ‘Sure,’ Frankie said too quickly.

  ‘No,’ Charley muttered.

  What happened? Hannah mouthed.

  ‘Can you …?’ Frankie beckoned toward the rear of the house with her yet untouched glass of wine and Hannah followed her in that direction.

  She glanced back at Charley; his eyes followed Frankie. He didn’t even seem to remember Hannah was there.

  ‘He’s getting worse fast,’ Frankie said when they reached her room. ‘You should probably stay.’

  ‘No problem.’ Hannah had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Don’t you need to make arrangements for work?’

  ‘You is no more.’ Hannah filled her lungs with air, then let the breath out slowly. Sometimes it helped. ‘I filed for bankruptcy when I was in DC. That’s why it took me so long.’

  Well, there had been a few other issues, but You had been the main time suck.

  ‘Oh, Hannah.’ Frankie set her glass on the bedside table and then set both hands on Hannah’s shoulders. ‘I know how much the magazine meant to you.’

  Hannah searched her face for sarcasm, found none. ‘It was really my brother’s baby.’ She had to swallow before she continued, lest the tears in her throat leak out her eyes. ‘And my aunt’s.’

  You had ended up being her baby too, though. The only one she would ever have.

  Now it was gone.

  While a magazine wasn’t a child, she thought she felt a bit of what Frankie had all those years ago, and she was ashamed of herself. What kind of woman sleeps with the husband of another who’d just gone through what Frankie had?

  Her only excuse was that she’d been foolishly, madly in love with Charley. She still was.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Frankie stepped back, let her arms fall.

  ‘Take care of Charley like I promised. If you want, you could leave tonight.’

  ‘Leave?’ Frankie echoed.

  ‘Here.’ Hannah handed over the carry-on suitcase that housed all of the slides, negatives and prints Charley had of Lisa. ‘If I find any more, I’ll send them to you.’

  Frankie took the handle, but she appeared troubled.

  ‘Is there something else I should know?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘He’s not that bad yet. It’s too soon for you to take over. He’ll just run away like he did with Ursula.’

  Hannah shrugged. ‘You said he’s failing fast. I doubt he’s going to be able to run very far or very long.’

  Frankie peered at her as if she didn’t know her. Really, she didn’t.

  ‘How can you be so cold?’

  Hannah’s gaze was drawn toward the living room, where Charley had begun to cough. She knew that cough. He wasn’t as far away from the end as Frankie believed.

  ‘It’s the only way I’m going to survive,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think I can …’ Frankie paused, found her wine, took a large sip. ‘I can’t leave tonight.’ She set the glass back down. ‘I’ll do a grocery store run. There’s no milk.’

  Hannah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If she did, Frankie just might punch her.

  Though Hannah had been horrified when Frankie had punched Charley the night she’d seen them kiss, Hannah could admit now, if only to herself, that she’d also secretly admired Frankie’s balls. She’d wished she could find a set of her own. A few times she’d even channeled that memory of Frankie when she’d needed to dredge up some courage.

  ‘Fine. Get milk.’ Hannah wanted to talk to Charley alone, and if Frankie was going to hang around, this might be her only chance.

  Frankie left the room, murmured something to Charley, who said, ‘I’ll go with you.’

  ‘No. You rest.’

  Charley said something too low for Hannah to hear.

  ‘She’s not that bad.’

  Hannah knew the she Frankie was referring to was her.

  As soon as the door closed and the car started, then tires rolled on the gravel driveway, Hannah pic
ked up the manila envelope and headed for the kitchen.

  Charley still sat at the computer, scowling at what he saw there.

  ‘Problem?’ Hannah asked.

  He didn’t look up but his scowl deepened.

  She sat in the chair next to him then glanced at the computer. The entire screen was filled with waves, artsy shot, not Charley at all. He seemed to be taking an awful lot of water photographs lately; Hannah thought she knew why.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘I … we …’ He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Took it on the island. There’s something about it that makes me think.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘Remember. There’s something about Lisa and water.’

  Hannah flinched and for the first time that day he glanced at her. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I know a lot of things.’

  ‘Fancy keeps saying Lisa’s away, that she’ll be here soon. Is that true?’

  Hannah discovered that she couldn’t lie to him. She also discovered that she couldn’t tell him the truth. She didn’t want to. Shouldn’t have to. Wasn’t going to.

  ‘Hannah?’ His expression was so intense, so determined, and the way he said her name was so ‘not Charley’ that she panicked and dumped the photographs of the two of them all over the table.

  ‘What the fuck?’ He grabbed the nearest one.

  A photo of them on a cruise to Hawaii for their tenth anniversary. She’d had to beg and threaten and cajole to get him to go. He hated cruises, hated tours. When they’d been on Kauai, he’d turned up his nose at the helicopter ride over the Waimea Canyon and instead hired one of the locals to take them down the Wailua River in his boat.

  This picture was not of that trip, which had been to her an unmitigated disaster. No bathroom, no sunscreen, no clock. They’d missed the cruise ship sail time and had to hire another local to drive them at top speed to the next port. She’d been so mad.

  This was a posed photo of them at dinner on their anniversary, champagne glasses raised. By then she’d forgiven him, of course. Forgiving him was what she did best. They were laughing again. Hannah had just told the story of the Wailua River to the others at their table. She’d made it funny, left out the anger. Another thing she did very well. Across the bottom of the picture, an elaborate typeface read Happy 10th Anniversary, Hannah and Charley! And many more!