Locked Hearts

by D. Brown

Sam consented to the usual round of interviews and promotional spots to help market the book, but this time, the reporters and camera crews came to him. They descended upon Tybee Island like fireflies in June.

  Plus, the rest of the world would finally meet his Maggie.

  The real one.

  56

  Sam died on a Tuesday in November, and Maggie on a Friday.

  When word filtered about the island that Sam had passed on, no one remarked about the bountiful life he and Maggie built for each other over the years they shared together, or that at his age, 79, how he lived a fruitful and fulfilling life.

  They all thought the same thing, and said, “Such a shame. Those two had such little time.”

  Sam had long maintained since he was never sick, when it came his time to go, he’d drop dead right where he stood.

  Didn’t quite happen that way, but close.

  The years were kind to Sam. He might have slowed a step or two, but his mind was always sharp, his wit forever biting and his sense of humor as dry as a stiff Martini.

  He played grandpa whenever grandkids showed up, both his and Maggie’s, and great-grandpa when his grandkids starting having kids. He took them fishing off the pier, helped them build castles in the sand, and preached the gospel of baseball over the evils of soccer to whoever cared to listen.

  Sam and Maggie started each day with a walk along the beach at sunrise. They picked a direction; either ‘this way’ or ‘that way,’ whatever suited their whim and following their walk often ate breakfast at O’Hara’s at the pier.

  The weather never mattered much to Sam.

  If it’s hot, take off your shirt.

  If it’s cold, put on a sweater.

  If it rains, you’ll dry off.

  This is the beach.

  Getting wet comes with the territory.

  It’s like sand in your shoes.

  This morning, they took their usual walk to the sea wall, their favorite place.

  Maggie didn’t notice anything specific wrong with Sam other than acting a little melancholy at times.

  It was an iron gray day, chilly, but a comfortable windbreaker cold.

  The sky had grown darker as the morning passed, and the wind cut around them as they stepped off the porch. It whistled as it swept between the rows of homes and hotels along the beachfront, sounding ghostlike, a spectral flute playing a single note sonata.

  Sam loved walks in hard weather. He loved to watch the ocean during storms. Though Maggie loved to watch the ocean during storms as well she’d be content watching from the sanctuary of the porch or living room.

  Sam held this Christmas-morning fascination with the ocean, and could sit and watch for hours.

  They sat on the sea wall. Maggie tucked under Sam’s arm and watched the gathering storm, enjoying the solitude of each other’s company. They talked when they had something to say, and occasionally Sam pulled her close in a hug and kissed the top of her head.

  “It’s going to come a bad cloud later,” Sam said in a faraway voice. That meant rain.

  Maggie nudged him in the ribs. “First cloud I see, I break out the raincoats.”

  “You’re learning.”

  “You always knew how to show a girl a good time.”

  Sam touched a finger to her chin and tilted her face upward that familiar mischievous sparkle dancing behind his eyes. His smile was one of contentment.

  “I like this,” he said.

  Maggie leaned against him, “I like this too.”

  “Happy?”

  “Very,” she replied, “You?”

  “I can hardly sit still.”

  That grin of his again, “But I’ll try.”

  The wind raked the coast as the storm moved approached from the south. Out at sea, another freighter crawled toward port, a featureless silhouette looming above the horizon. A ghost ship and it left an uneasy feeling of foreboding skittering about Maggie’s stomach.

  Anxious?

  Maybe, she thought, but at the time, she couldn’t understand why.

  Looking back, she felt it, she sensed Death’s presence.

  She knew.

  That’s when Maggie heard the sigh of melancholy in Sam’s voice.

  “This has passed all too quickly.”

  “What has, sweetheart?”

  “Us,” he said. “I’ll always want more time.”

  He was quiet for a long time and from out of the blue, “I love you Maggie, for always, through the end of this life, and beyond. Never forget that okay?”

  “And I love you too Sam McKenna. I will always love you. And I won‘t forget it, not ever.”

  “Good,” he said, and fell quiet for a long time then added with a chuckle. “You better.”

  A pelican swooped low, skirting the white caps, and they watched until it rose up to land on the deserted pier, seeking refuge there from the coming storm.

  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, you know that?” Sam said.

  “You’re not so bad yourself . . . you know that?”

  She chuckled and nuzzled his neck with her nose.

  “Don’t make me throw you in,” he said.

  “Don’t make me make you sleep on the couch.”

  “What do you want for lunch?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine with me.”

  “I want ham salad today,” he said, “Macaroni salad on the side, potato chips, and a beer.”

  “It sounds delicious.”

  “Sounds like Heaven,” Sam replied.

  They walked back to the house hand in hand, taking their time, no longer in any hurry, with all the time in the world at their feet. Today was theirs to do as they pleased. As was tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.

  Sam never considered the notion he might have run out of tomorrows.

  They stopped at the water line at the bottom of the slope below the house, watching the walls of gray water tumble in upon itself.

  “I’ll put some water on for tea,” Maggie said, “You coming?”

  “In a second,” Sam said then turned to her. “You know Maggie, I couldn’t be any happier than I am right now.”

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  As Maggie left, Sam watched the ocean.

  He watched that one spot over the others, the one he’d put out of his mind for a long, long time. Today, snow-tipped wave mountains pitched to and fro around this one spot, but he always knew where to find it.

  The memory of that July 4th afternoon so long ago was always there.

  It never went away.

  And one day there will come a reckoning.

  “Hello, Sam.”

  He turned.

  And saw her.

  He saw the familiar lay of her chestnut hair.

  He saw the swing of her hips.

  He saw her turn, catching him out of the corner of her eye, watching the same things he watched and she smiled.

  “Hello, Diane.”

  57

  Maggie sat in her rocker and waited for Sam.

  She put the kettle on for tea, and when it whistled, she steeped a couple cups for the two of them. She knew Sam said he wanted a beer, but it was so cold out there this morning, and he looked so pale during their walk.

  She saw Sam appear beyond the slope of the sand dunes, pausing in mid-step, hands propped on his thighs, trying to catch a breath that didn’t want to come.

  While this caused her concern enough to notice, she wasn’t alarmed.

  After all we aren’t as young as we used to be.

  Trudging through the sand drifts up the slope from the water took the wind out of her as well. She heard the teakettle whistle from inside, and Maggie started inside to go make the tea.

  When she turned to tell Sam to come on, his tea was ready, she didn’t see him.

  He was gone.

  Sam took a first step and knew right away he couldn’t take a second.

  Oddly,
there was no pain.

  No gripping tightness in the chest.

  No twisting squeeze behind his sternum trying to milk the last drop of juice out of the spent rind of his heart.

  There was only the gasping for his next breath of elusive air.

  Sam felt a sharp kick in the ribs. He saw bright, silver starbursts flash behind his eyes and heard the roar of the ocean whine in his ears.

  I’m not going to make it.

  Sam used to have this recurring dream.

  The dream found him here, on this very same slope of sand and sea oats.

  He saw Maggie sitting in her rocker on the porch, and he smiled. She stood, going inside to make tea.

  Sam knew this.

  She smiled and waved him on, but she never saw him.

  Never saw his feet encased in concrete as he stood there, mired in quicksand.

  And while Maggie disappeared beyond the screen door, Sam felt the quicksand swallow him. His shouts went unanswered, snuffed out by the choking sand, his cries for help fell on deaf ears.

  Sam now knew the helplessness Diane experienced during her last minutes of life.

  Nobody heard her cries for help either.

  Paybacks are hell, he thought.

  As Sam took his second step, he fell.

  I’m dying.

  And the beach rose up and slapped him.

  Hard.

  “Sam?”

  Where the familiar sight of her husband striding up the beach to greet her filled her eyes just a moment before, an empty grayness returned her searching gaze now.

  Maggie took a step off the porch and called out louder.

  “Sam?”

  An empty beach answered her.

  The squeeze of something’s wrong twisted her stomach in a tight knot.

  “Sam?”

  Maggie reached the crest of the beach slope and spied Sam lying on his side.

  So still.

  Deathly still.

  “Sam!”

  Maggie screamed.

  She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, but knew she was too late.

  The sand clawed at her legs like wet concrete.

  She stumbled twice and nearly fell, but Maggie’s sole consuming thought: get to her husband, and get to him now.

  A doctor was too late.

  Sam was dying . . .

  If he’s not dead already.

  And she wanted so desperately to tell her husband good-bye.

  One more time, please God, just one more time.

  Sam stared at the gray sky overhead.

  Gray can be a beautiful color if it’s the last color you ever see, he thought.

  His last breath so long spent, he knew his next would not come.

  No matter.

  Dying isn’t so hard.

  It’s way overrated.

  But Maggie.

  There, as always, lay his one regret.

  How can I live without Maggie?

  I can’t.

  So, I’ll die first.

  “Sam!”

  She reached him in seconds and scooped her husband into her arms, cradling his head to her breast.

  Keep him warm.

  Help will be here soon.

  Just keep him warm until then.

  But Maggie knew.

  Help wasn’t coming.

  Not fast enough anyway.

  Now.

  Now was the time to say good-bye to her husband.

  And that broke Maggie’s heart.

  “Oh Sam,” and the tears spilled down her cheeks. “What did you do?”

  Sam opened his eyes for the last time and looked into those of the woman he loved.

  “Damned sand,” he said with a weak chuckle. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

  Maggie squeezed him tight.

  Please.

  Not yet.

  Sam always said her eyes and smile were heaven sent. They always did make his heart skip a beat.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Maggie began to cry.

  “We fit,” Sam said, “Always did.”

  “I love you, Sam.”

  “I love you too, Maggie.”

  Sam’s eyes fluttered and he struggled one last time to keep them open.

  “I’ll wait for you,” Sam said in a soft, barely audible whisper as his final sigh escaped his lips. “Smile for me.”

  She did.

  And Sam died in Maggie’s arms.

  58

  Maggie rode with Sam to the hospital.

  She listened to the urgent voices of the EMTs as they worked to revive him. Staring out the van’s back window she watched as Tybee Island retreated into the distance.

  She could never go back.

  That life was over.

  She’d go back to the beach house, but without Sam there, what would she do?

  She looked into Sam’s eyes, trying to find a trace of lucidity, a glint of his familiar sparkle of his, no matter how faint, anything to tell her she might share one more day with him, anything to give her hope and show her this wasn’t the end.

  It’s never the end though.

  Death is just a door, a passageway from one scope of reality to the next.

  Sam told her so.

  And Maggie believed it fervently.

  She waited in the emergency room, feeling detached.

  This isn’t happening to me.

  It can’t be.

  This is Sam.

  He always promised he’d never leave her alone.

  I’ll wait for you.

  Maggie didn’t cry when she saw the ER nurses take Sam’s stretcher and rush him away into the ER trauma room.

  She held his hand on the way in, and knew there was no more hope.

  He let go, only because she let go.

  There was no response in his grip.

  She didn’t cry when she saw the ER resident leave Sam’s trauma room too short a time later, to find her, a heavy look pulling at the lines on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We couldn’t save him. He’s gone.”

  She didn’t cry then.

  She didn’t cry when she signed over the papers acknowledging her husband had died, and directed the local funeral home to cremate Sam and hold his ashes for her until Thursday.

  Sam didn’t want a memorial service.

  He hated those.

  When Maggie returned to Tybee, a misting rain fell, swept through the channel by a brisk northerly wind scrubbing all the warmth from her life, and all traces Sam had ever been a part of it, his footprints in the sand washing out with the tides.

  The two tea cups sat on the counter where she’d left them this morning, teabag tags draped over the rim. The teakettle remained where she left it on the stovetop, the water now cold. The fire Sam had started in the Franklin stove had long ago extinguished.

  A heavy damp chill permeated the house, a chill no fire could abate, a chill seeping to the very core of her soul.

  A chill that would stay with her for the rest of her days, caused by the gaping hole in her soul, the deep dark void Sam left behind.

  She sat in her rocking chair on the porch for a long time and watched the rainfall, eyes continually straying to the empty rocker on her left, almost willing Sam to appear there, to come walking up the beach as he’d done every day before this one, as reliable as the next sunrise.

  “I’ll always be here for you, Maggie,” she remembered him telling her, “Always. You can always count on that.”

  He’s still here in all these things he has put here over the years to make this house his home and their home.

  Sam never left her.

  He never broke his promise.

  Still, Maggie did not cry.

  She made the required phone calls.

  She endured all the condolences from friends who suddenly didn’t know what to say. She called
Wendy Finch who cried for a long time and asked if she wanted company.

  Maggie thanked her and said, “No,” she wanted this time alone.

  She called Sam’s kids and let them know about their father. She called her kids and told them it was okay not to come. Sam didn’t want any fuss, and said she was fine.

  She made that cup of tea finally, and sat on their bed staring at the clothes hanging on Sam’s side of the closet.

  A stack of his laundry still sat atop his dresser where she left it for him two days ago.

  She smiled.

  What did he say?

  I file by the pile.

  Oh, how she knew that man.

  Sam’s teacup remained on the counter, where she left it, as if he’d be home later on.

  As daylight faded from gray to black, Maggie sat in the dark of the great room feeling the cold encroach, as if the house itself had died as well. She wondered how she’d see tomorrow without Sam as part of her life. It continued to rain as day became night, as if the day cried for Sam’s passing, when she could not.

  Sam wouldn’t want me to cry.

  Maggie eventually surrendered to the pull of fatigue and drifted off to sleep.

  She dreamed of Sam, dreamed that Sam wasn’t gone, but was instead at the pier fishing with the boys. When she awoke sometime later, and saw the orange light flicker outside the back window, Maggie thought Sam was simply outside firing up the smoker again, and everything she’d experienced since their walk on the beach this morning was the bad dream instead and her dream had become her reality.

  Sam didn’t leave.

  Maggie saw the orange light warble beyond the drapes and cleared her head, reluctantly prying herself loose from sleep’s seductive hold.

  She crossed the dark room to the back door, opened it and stepped outside.

  A great bonfire in the fire ring snapped and crackled in the falling rain, spitting the occasional angry hiss as sparks spiraled upward in a narrow plume into the thick blackness hanging low overhead.

  “Maggie?”

  It wasn’t Sam’s voice she heard, but Carl Brock’s.

  Carl was a deputy with the Tybee Island Police only tonight he wasn’t in uniform. Carl was the first to answer Sam’s 911-call this morning.

  Carl came inside and turned off the stove so the house didn’t burn down as well.