The Bridge Tender

by Marybeth Whalen

  But God, as far as she could tell, was nowhere around.

  She turned away from the mirror and went to put her hair in a ponytail instead of styling it. She should probably have washed it but the truth was, she just didn’t care how she looked. She had actually considered not attending the funeral; let her parents and Ryan’s explain to “the people” that she was just too grief-stricken to drag herself out of bed. The ones who counted would understand. The rest she didn’t care about anyway. But a cooler head had prevailed and she’d relented when she looked out the window by her bed that morning and was greeted with a weeping sky. It was as if the world was telling her it was okay to be sad. She’d promised herself she would go and pay tribute to Ryan, but she would not look happy about it when she did. Hence the black dress, the lack of makeup, the unwashed hair.

  Marta arrived to drive her to the funeral a few minutes early—more evidence that all was not right with the world. Her best friend had never been early for anything in her life. She frowned when Emily entered the kitchen where Marta was helping herself to the coffee Emily had made but not drunk.

  Marta shook her head and blew on the hot coffee. She took a few sips as Emily shifted nervously from foot to foot, watching her. Between sips she saw Marta take in the too-big dress, the way the fabric billowed around her body. She gestured at the dress. “That new?”

  Emily narrowed her eyes. “As if,” she responded.

  Marta ignored her unfunny retort. “When this is over I think you should get rid of it. It doesn’t do much for you.”

  Emily shrugged and looked at the microwave clock.

  “You should want to pay your respects,” her mother had said yesterday when she’d admitted she was seriously considering not going. “This is your time to honor Ryan.” Her mother used guilt to guide her like ranchers used cattle prods. Walking out with Marta, she caught her unsightly reflection in the stainless steel oven door. Her mother’s guilt maneuver had worked yet again. Maybe she would take one look at her daughter and regret using it. As sad as she was, the thought made Emily smile just the tiniest little bit.

  Following the service, her parents opened the church gymnasium for a reception. All the old ladies from the church had made food, plates lining several long tables filled with every kind of food imaginable—fried chicken and deviled eggs, tea sandwiches and ham biscuits. Another table held pies of all kinds—fried pies and apple pie and blueberry pie and a chocolate meringue piled high with a fluffy white topping. Emily surveyed the food as if it were a foreign substance she’d heard of but had no need for. She felt like an alien among earthlings, watching them take part in this ritual known as eating. She was surprised her stomach rumbled in response to Marta’s filled plate, the smell of the fried chicken causing this one body part to betray the rest of her. Marta held up the plate. “You sure I can’t get you something?” she asked.

  Marta’s overly attentive attitude was yet another indication that things weren’t right. Not that her best friend wasn’t kind and helpful sometimes, it just wasn’t that often. She looked around them at the collection of men—Ryan’s friends from college and his office, many of them single. Normally Marta would’ve been on a hunt. Even at a funeral. But she seemed not to notice any of them, her eyes focused and intent on her best friend, eyeing her as if she were an armed bomb missing her timer.

  “You should eat,” Marta intoned, waving the plate under her nose.

  Emily nearly remarked that she sounded like her mother, but held her tongue. Marta would take that as an insult when she only meant it as an observation. She just shook her head and ignored the smell of the chicken, her hand resting on her concave stomach to stop the rumbling. She couldn’t eat at Ryan’s funeral. It just didn’t seem right. There were ways to mourn properly, and scarfing fried chicken in the presence of his friends and family wasn’t one of them. “Maybe one of the ladies will make me a plate,” she mumbled. “For later.”

  Marta, who was attacking her chicken, stopped midchew. “Great idea! I’ll go ask.” Obviously relieved to have something to do, she trotted off to find Mrs. Miniver, the grande dame of food at Christ Community Church.

  Emily stood still and surveyed the room, grateful for this first moment alone. Her mother and father were occupied with other people and Ryan’s parents had ducked out shortly after the reception got underway. Emily had nearly asked to go with them but had taken one look at Mrs. Shaw’s face and known that the woman needed to be alone to grieve her son apart from the onlookers. At the very least, Emily understood that. She’d given her in-laws one last hug and watched them go, wondering if they were still her in-laws if their son was dead.

  “Excuse me, Emily?” The voice at her elbow startled her and brought her back to the crowded church gymnasium filled with the smell of grandma’s cooking. She turned to find a face she recognized but couldn’t place, which had happened often that day.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “I’m Phil, Phil Griffin?” He watched her face for some sign of recognition and, seeing none, continued. “I worked with Ryan, but not in the same department. I handled—” His voice faltered. “I handle wills and, um, things of that nature.” He finished, straightening his posture and exhaling loudly. “Did Ryan ever mention me?”

  She searched the recesses of her mind, thinking back through the months after his diagnosis, the decision not to prolong his life with treatment, the stunning reality that cancer would take his life quickly, and their valiant efforts to enjoy every last minute they’d had together. They’d talked through so much—the gift of time, her father had called it in his eloquent service that day—but had the name Phil Griffin from his office ever come up? No. She shook her head at Phil. “I’m sorry but that doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Phil held up his hands. He wasn’t eating either. “ ‘S’okay. I didn’t think he would. Ryan . . .” She was startled to watch the man’s eyes fill with tears. He swallowed hard and continued speaking. “Ryan loved you very much. He made me promise I’d wait ’til . . . after to divulge anything to you. He made some plans a long time ago, plans that affect you now.” He looked away, scanning the room before looking back at her. “I came today to pay my respects but also to find you and set up a time to have you come to my office. Would you be willing to do that?”

  Intrigued, she nodded as the rest of the room fell away—gone was the idle chatter of the collected mourners, the smell of food. All that mattered was this stranger who promised to tell her something she’d not known about her husband. “How soon could we do it?” she asked, waving Marta over so she could introduce her to Phil. She would beg Marta to take her to his office immediately, to this last piece of Ryan she hadn’t known existed, whatever it was. Suddenly, even though she was at his funeral, he felt close again. She found herself wanting to wrap her arms around this feeling and hold it forever. But she knew the more she tried to hold on, the more it would slip away.

  Two

  It didn’t take much cajoling to get Marta to bug out of the reception but she elected to wait in the car, furiously tapping at her phone, while Emily followed Phil into his office, her heart hammering away in her chest for reasons she couldn’t explain. No matter what this man had to tell her, nothing was going to change. Ryan was still going to be dead, left behind in that cold grave they’d stood beside hours earlier while her father called out the Lord’s Prayer and everyone mumbled along. Whatever he’d left for her wasn’t powerful enough to bring him back, of that she was sure. And beyond that, what did it matter? She took a deep breath and did her best to compose herself. Phil gestured for her to have a seat across from his desk, first moving some file folders out of the chair so she could do so. He smiled nervously at her before reaching into a drawer and thumbing through more files. “Sorry I’m not more prepared,” he said as he searched. “I had no idea you’d want to come down today.”

  She shrugged as if she’d come out of convenience and not curiosity, but she knew she was fooling no one. She kept quiet
so he could keep looking for the papers he’d promised at the funeral. His desk looked a lot like Ryan’s, with piles of papers sloping dangerously. They’d been kindred spirits, she imagined. That was probably why Ryan had chosen him. Two messies in the midst of a sea of buttoned-down type As had found each other. She heard Phil mutter to himself when he found the right one, extracting it with a flourish. “Terribly unprofessional,” he said. “My apologies.” There’s a method to my madness, she could hear Ryan tease. She ignored him and focused on Phil.

  Without waiting for her to reply, he opened the file he’d placed on the desk. She could see the name “SHAW, R” marked in black ink across the top. He read silently for a moment, then looked up at her, blinking as if he’d just stepped into the light from a dark cave. “How to say this?” he sighed. “I don’t usually handle this part, you understand.” He waited for her to nod even though she didn’t understand anything. “But because of Ryan’s and my professional connection I agreed to do so.” He cleared his throat. “For him.” His mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners. She guessed that he was remembering something Ryan had said. “He could be quite . . . persuasive.”

  She nodded again, willing herself not to cry, even as a memory emerged from the recesses of her brain. Ryan, goading her to strap on their old inline skates and race each other. He’d won, of course, and she’d ended up with a skinned elbow. She’d called him a ringer. He’d broken into a very bad rendition of Abba’s “The Winner Takes It All,” singing the part about the loser taking a fall especially loud. He’d made it up to her with a big scoop of ice cream on their way home. Now she bit the inside of her cheek and tried to focus on Phil instead, who slid a stack of stapled papers across the desk to her.

  “Did you know about the life insurance policy your husband took out early in your marriage?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, thinking through the things like this they’d discussed before he died. She took a guess. “He had one through work? It’ll cover his funeral costs and medical bills and leave me a little bit of money?” Somehow she didn’t think that was what he was referring to. She was holding her purse in her lap and realized she was squeezing the straps tightly, the leather edges biting into her skin. She made herself loosen her grip.

  “Right. I knew about that one. But I helped him with the legalities of another one. One he told me was to be kept secret until the time of his death. I was just making sure he didn’t decide to tell you himself at—” His voice cracked. “At the end.”

  “Tell me himself about what?” Her fingers tightened on the purse again. She twisted the leather around once, twice, until it was nearly cutting off her circulation. What was this guy talking about?

  He gestured at the papers in front of her. “He took out a half-a-million-dollar policy on himself and you’re the beneficiary.” He caught her eye and gave her a small smile. “But he had a condition on what the payout could be used for. He was very specific.” From the file in front of him he extracted a photo and slid that across the desk to her. She could’ve sworn he was blushing as she took it from him.

  She looked down at the photo from five years ago, taken by a random woman they’d flagged down and asked to snap the picture. They’d been walking back from that house in the ocean, holding hands and feeling giddy over the prospect of having their own home at Sunset Beach someday. She studied the two of them as if they were two people she didn’t know—a nice young couple with sun-kissed skin and big goofy grins on their faces. They were so unaware of the future she wanted to reach into the picture and shake them. Didn’t they know that happiness like that never hung around for long?

  She remembered Ryan’s promise to her that evening and awareness began to creep in. He had taken that promise seriously. She raised her eyes to meet Phil’s, her look telling him she’d figured it out. He nodded and slid an envelope with her name written on it in familiar handwriting. “He explains everything in here.” He pointed at the stapled papers. “That’s just all the legal mumbo-jumbo. You can look it all over and then let me know how—and when—you’d like to proceed.” He chuckled, already visibly lighter now that he’d delivered the news. The poor man had obviously been dreading this part of his job. Used to hiding behind the legal documents, this case had involved getting his hands emotionally dirty. He probably wished he’d never agreed to it, but someone had to keep Ryan’s secret for him. Phil rose from his desk. “I’ll just be right outside so you can have a moment to read that.” He reached over to a box of tissues sitting on a credenza nearby and, without aplomb, handed her a few. She hadn’t realized she was crying.

  After Phil was gone, she slid her thumb into a small crack in the sealed envelope and tugged it open, trying not to dwell on her name in Ryan’s handwriting, trying not to anticipate what he had written to her. She pulled the sheet of folded paper from inside the envelope, smelling his scent on the paper as she did, thinking of his hands smoothing out the folds she was now opening. When he wrote this, he’d done it knowing that the end was near and—even then—thinking of her. She swallowed hard and focused on the words swimming before her eyes, blinking so she could see again. She saw her name at the top and rested her forehead against the page as she gave up and let the tears fall freely. Grief grabbed her by the chest as it had done so many times recently, squeezing the very life out of her as she fought to take in air.

  After fighting to gain control for a few minutes, she was finally able to continue reading. She knew Phil was just outside the door, waiting for her to give him the all-clear sign. She should’ve just taken the letter home and read it there, alone. But she didn’t want to wait. She looked down at the words before her, written in the same handwriting that had appeared on grocery lists, notes promising he would return, to-do lists, and the occasional love letter through the years. If she had known she’d lose him so soon she might’ve saved every one.

  With a sigh she began to read her husband’s last, unexpected words to her.

  Dear Em,

  If you’re reading this then you know I didn’t win this particular fight. And you know how much it kills me to lose. (Pun intended.) But I couldn’t go without leaving something behind for you, something you could hold on to even if I wasn’t around anymore.

  The funny thing is, I started this plan long before I knew I was sick. When we got home from our honeymoon, I took out a life insurance policy with a half-million-dollar payout. Some months it was hard to make that payment without you knowing about it. But I found creative ways to come up with the money that didn’t involve dancing in front of screaming women. One month, I will confess, I borrowed the money from my parents, even though we said we’d never do that. Sorry. But hopefully you’ll forgive me once you know why.

  Remember when we walked out to that house that was sinking into the ocean? It was one of our last days at Sunset Beach and I didn’t want our time there to end. Neither did you. All I could think as we walked back to the beach house was that I wanted to give you a place of your own there. I knew that eventually together we’d make it happen, but if something happened to me it never would. And so I did the one thing I could think of doing—I took out that policy. If it was the last thing I did, I would give you a house at Sunset Beach.

  And now it looks like it will literally be the last thing I do.

  Em, I know you’re sad right now. And I know that the thought of going back there and buying a house without me makes you feel like your heart will break even more. I know that because that is how I would feel if it were me. But I need you to promise me that you will do it when you’re ready. You will go back there and find a beautiful house at the beach to make a life in, to make new memories, to remember me but to also move forward. You have a whole life still ahead of you and I can’t go knowing that your life will be miserable. I have to believe that you have a hope and a future like that plaque my parents gave us for our wedding gift says. And when I think of you without me, I see you at Sunset, walking on the beach. Walking into your fu
ture. And when I see you, you are smiling. And you are full of hope.

  If I could stay with you, I would. If it could be me walking beside you on that beach, it would be. But I’m starting to understand that was never the plan, for whatever reason. You are supposed to go into a future I’m not a part of. But you don’t have to be afraid of that future. I have a feeling it’s going to be as bright as that sunshine we walked in, as warm as those days we spent on the beach together, as happy as you’ve made me. I need you to promise me you’ll take this gift and go into the future God has planned for you. I like to think I’ll be watching from another shore.

  All my love, always, Ryan

  Marta put down the letter and stared, open-mouthed, at Emily. “Wow,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “Wow,” she repeated. She dabbed at her eyes with the cuff of her long-sleeve T-shirt and sniffed loudly.

  This was the biggest show of emotion Emily had witnessed from Marta since Ryan’s diagnosis. She knew her friend had cried privately but she’d been stoically strong around Emily. She loved her for putting on a brave face on her behalf. Marta had been her rock, intuitively knowing what Emily would need to get through this time. But in that moment tears were unavoidable. This last gesture of Ryan’s was so surprising, so selfless, so amazing the only thing anyone could do was cry in response. Marta had summed it up best with her word choice: wow.

  Emily plucked the letter from Marta’s lap and folded it up, carefully smoothing the folds as she imagined Ryan had once done, feeling connected to him as she did. She looked around the room, wondering if somehow he could see all this—if people in heaven witnessed the ripple effects of their time on earth. Though she couldn’t make a case for it biblically, she hoped so. She hoped God had called Ryan over to some special window and let him have a look. The thought made her smile.