The One Real Thing (Hart's Boardwalk)

by Samantha Young

  Reaching into my purse for my cell, the irritation I felt at being interrupted melted away when I saw who was calling.

  It was Matthew. Matthew and I had been friends for twenty-five years. He was the only remaining tie I had to my life back in Iowa.

  “Hey, you.” I smiled.

  “Hey, sorry for calling so late.”

  “Don’t be. Is anything wrong?”

  He heaved a heavy sigh, causing the line to crackle. “Helena’s mom has been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.”

  I knew Helena was close to her mom. “Oh, God. What are the doctors saying?”

  “Well, we’re hoping she’ll pull through, but even then she’s looking at some recovery time. She’s going to stay with us during recovery.”

  Suddenly I knew the other reason he was calling. Every year, during the anniversary of my sister’s death, I went on vacation. This year I couldn’t because my colleague, Dr. Whitaker, had already put in for her vacation for the weeks that I’d wanted. And she refused to even consider swapping vacation time. I hated the idea of working during what was always a hard time for me. The next best thing I could do was to plan a vacation with my best friend. In two weeks, I’d planned on meeting Matthew, Helena, and Perry in Key West for a shared vacation together. I never went home to Iowa, so these planned trips were the only chance we had to see each other.

  Disappointed, but more concerned for Helena and her mom, I said, “Matt, it’s okay. If you contact the owner of the house we were renting and explain, we should get our money back.”

  “I’m not worried about the money. I’m worried about you. It was our only chance this year to see each other.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something else out.”

  “You’ll call me when you do?”

  Smiling at his overprotectiveness, I said, “Yes. But more importantly, keep me posted about Helena’s mom. And give my love to her and Perry.”

  “I will. We’ll talk soon?”

  I could still hear the anxiety in his voice and I wished I were a less complicated person so he could stop worrying about me. “I promise.”

  Once we hung up I stared at Sarah’s last two letters.

  An emptiness had struck me when I realized Matt was canceling, and it suddenly expanded and filled my chest. It was strange how such emptiness could cause an ache.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had my three-week vacation time to use up and I knew I couldn’t stick around Wilmington for it. I’d have to come up with a plan.

  The thought exhausted me so instead I picked up the letters and started reading again.

  Sarah Randall

  Inmate No. 50678

  Women’s Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility

  Wilmington, DE 19801

  May 5, 1976

  My darling George,

  I will mail these letters to you. I will. It’s just taking me time to find the strength. Now you’ll get them all at the same time. At least you won’t have to wait for the truth then. There will be no agonizing wait as I try to gather my courage to tell you what I need to tell you.

  If I could save you from this truth I would. Perhaps it is selfish of me to tell you now, after all these years of protecting you, but it has taken me this long to realize that secrets are poison. You, of all people, are owed the truth.

  I wish I had known then what I know now.

  Everything would be so different.

  Do you remember the weekend you went with your father to tour the Princeton campus? You were so excited. You’d never wanted anything more than to be a Princeton man. Except me, you said. You said you’d always want me more than anything.

  Why didn’t I remember that then?

  I am so sorry.

  You were gone that weekend and that’s when Ron came to me. Remember he’d been bothering me for months, trying to get me to go out with him? He was becoming a problem. You two had that fight in Loretta’s the night he touched me. Everyone on the boardwalk was there to see you best Ron. He never forgave you for that. I sometimes wonder if he came after me just to get his revenge for that night.

  Ron came to me and he had proof that Anderson was involved in criminal activity. I know how much you love your father and how proud you feel of him. Back then you were secure in your place in life: son of a state senator and soon-to-be Princeton freshman. I couldn’t bear the idea that you might find out, that all that would be taken away from you. But now here is the truth:

  Ron discovered Anderson was making money illegally, mainly drugs and prostitution. He had photographs. Even I knew of Dot’s place out near Route 1. Your father was pictured there. Incriminating photos. Money passing hands outside the brothel. And Ron suspected your father of buying votes. Finally, he showed me money transfers from Anderson to Ron. Ron was blackmailing him, which was all the proof I needed that what he said was true.

  At the time.

  I wish I could go back to that scared kid and tell her to trust you, to tell you, to let you take care of it. But I’d lost Mom and you knew how much that destroyed my world. I didn’t want to destroy yours like that by taking away your father.

  I realize now how wrong I was.

  Please forgive me.

  Ron told me he would go to the police and the newspapers with what he’d found and that not only would Anderson go to jail, but you would lose any chance you had of getting into Princeton. Your whole future was on the line. I was stupid. So stupid.

  I agreed to marry Ron in exchange for his silence.

  Everything fell apart anyway. You hated me. I still see your face when I told you what I’d done while you were gone. I will never get that look out of my head. And I understand.

  About you and Annabelle.

  I don’t know if you slept with her to hurt me or if you genuinely cared for one another. When the baby came, when little Marie came, I was angry. I was hurt. I was . . . I lost my love and I lost my best friend. I lost my best friend when I needed her the most. But over time I’ve grown to understand. I hope you two found happiness in your marriage in spite of everything.

  And I’m sorry that after everything I hid so you would have Princeton and the future you dreamed of, fate took it away from you anyway. But I hope that being a father has been a new kind of dream, better than the one that came before it. God, I hope that for you, George.

  I’m sorry for keeping the truth from you for so long. I’m just so ashamed that something that could have been avoided grew so out of my control.

  It’s selfish of me now, I know, to tell you the truth. But there’s so little time in life. I realize that now more than ever before. I needed to unburden myself. I just needed you to know that I love you.

  Always have. Always will.

  Forever yours,

  Sarah

  Heart thumping, I almost dropped my drink trying to get to the next letter in hand. I had to know what happened. Why hadn’t these letters made it to George?

  Sarah Randall

  Inmate No. 50678

  Women’s Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility

  Wilmington, DE 19801

  May 8, 1976

  My darling George,

  I’ve made all the wrong choices up until now. I hope this isn’t another.

  I hope this is the right thing to do.

  I have asked much of you in these letters, George, and now I ask one last thing: write me back, just once, telling me you got the letters, and letting me know whether you forgive me or not. Yes or no, I’d like to know. If you could do this as soon as possible I would be so grateful. So grateful.

  I will never ask anything else of you. Not ever.

  I love you.

  Always have. Always will.

  Forever yours,

  Sarah

  With tears on my cheeks
, my nose running, and a sharp ache in my chest, I folded the letters up and slipped them back into the envelopes.

  For some reason Sarah’s letters had never made it to George.

  My heart hurt for her beyond bearing.

  A sob escaped me and I sat in my low-lit apartment with my heart breaking over a stranger’s story.

  Upon waking the next day the first thing I thought about was Sarah. I couldn’t get her letters out of my head, and I realized that the ache in my chest wouldn’t lessen until I found out what had happened to her.

  “Any chance I can get into the old records room?” I said to Fatima during my lunch break. I always came down to the guards’ room to eat my lunch with her and Shelley, Fatima’s shift partner.

  Fatima swallowed the bite of sandwich she was chewing and frowned. “Why? You can’t check the computer’s medical records?”

  “I want to find out what happened to an inmate that was here in 1976.” The computer held only the records for inmates of the past fifteen years.

  Shelley pulled a face. “Who the hell did you know here in 1976? Suddenly the truth comes out about why this one is working here. Ghosts in her closet, huh?” Shelley winked at Fatima.

  Fatima gave her a dry look. “You are the only person I will say this to in my life: stop reading so many damn books.”

  Shelley looked horrified. “And actually have to talk to Paulie? No, thanks.”

  Paulie was her husband.

  Fatima chuckled and turned back to me. “Seriously, why do you want into the old records room?”

  “It’s for a friend. She knew of someone who served time here in 1976. My friend just wants to know what happened to her.”

  “You got a name? An inmate number?”

  “Both, actually.”

  “Okay. I guess I can trust you. Remember, though, no stealing or photocopying those records,” she teased.

  I crossed my heart.

  Man, it was dusty in the old records room. I slammed a drawer shut and sneezed for the fifth time as another cloud of dust floated up around me.

  Thankfully, I was determined enough to get through the horror of the dustland.

  Fourth drawer in, my heart leapt in my chest at the sight of Sarah’s name and inmate number. I almost dropped the damn folder in my hurry to get it out of the drawer. Clutching it tightly in hand, I took it over to a table that was set up in the back of the room and clicked on the library lamp that sat on it. To my surprise the bulb in the lamp still worked.

  I didn’t completely understand my reaction to Sarah’s story. All I knew was that she’d gotten under my skin in a way that surprised the heck out of me. I felt like I knew her. Like I understood her in some way. And more than anything I wished for a happy ending for her.

  I flipped open her records. The first thing I saw was a picture of a frail-looking woman. There were hints of her once-upon-a-time beauty, but it appeared as if life had battered most of the prettiness out of her.

  And as I read on, all my hopes and wishes for her died there on the spot.

  Inside the folder was a copy of her medical records and her date of death.

  May 8, 1976.

  The day she wrote her last letter to George.

  That was why he’d never gotten them.

  I read through the medical notes with a heavy heart. Sarah had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in January 1976. All the time she’d been writing to George she’d been undergoing radiation therapy. The treatment had been aggressive because her cancer was aggressive, and she died of heart failure.

  I closed her records feeling impossibly sad. Now I knew why Sarah had wanted George’s forgiveness so quickly. She wanted it before she died, and he never got the chance to give it to her.

  Wiping tears from my eyes, I quickly put her records back, wishing I could unsee them and frankly wishing I could unsee the letters. There were enough unhappy endings in this life. I didn’t need to know about a stranger’s.

  However, as I worked that day, my mind kept drifting back to the man she had written to. I couldn’t help wondering if George might still be alive. I knew from Sarah’s records that she was twenty-six years old when she died. If she and George were the same age, then he would be only sixty-six years old.

  How hard could it be to find a state senator’s son who lived in Hartwell, a city so small I hadn’t even heard of it until I Googled it? Turned out it had a pretty boardwalk and gorgeous beach so it was actually quite a popular vacation spot.

  When I had another moment free I Googled “Anderson Beckwith.” Sure enough it pulled up articles on the state senator, and before I knew it I found a photo of George Beckwith. It was taken in 1982 with his father at a political rally at Princeton University. The college of George’s dreams. The college he never got to go to despite Sarah’s efforts.

  I stared at his handsome face and knew he and Sarah must have been a fine-looking couple. I wanted desperately to see a photograph of them together, when they were both young and happy.

  “God,” I muttered, clicking off the screen. Why was I so hung up on this? “You’re going crazy.”

  “Why are you going crazy?”

  I jumped, startled, as Fatima strode into my office with a cup of coffee for me. I took it gratefully but scowled at her. “Don’t creep up on me like that.”

  “Why? So I don’t catch you talking to yourself like a crazy person?”

  I sighed. “I think I might be a crazy person.”

  Fatima frowned and sipped at her own coffee. “And why is that?”

  “I did something.” I pulled my purse out from under the desk and searched through it for the envelopes. “That book you confiscated. Pride and Prejudice . . . I found something inside the binding . . .” I told her everything, including my discovery of what had happened to the inmate who’d written the hidden letters.

  “Why didn’t you just say that was what you were looking for in the records room instead of lying?”

  At her waspish tone I tried to appease her. “I didn’t want you to think I’d gone nuts.”

  “I don’t think you’ve gone nuts.” Fatima looked over the letters and I saw my sadness reflected in her gaze. “This is heartbreaking shit.” She glanced up from them. “And I know why they get to you more than they probably would anyone else.”

  For a moment I froze, wondering if she— Nah. She couldn’t.

  “You can kid yourself all you want that you’re happy, but you and I both know there should be more to life than how you’re living.” Fatima handed the letters back to me, her eyes kind as she gave me some harsh truths. “You have no family, no boyfriend, and your oldest friend lives over a thousand miles away. Now, I’m glad you’re here working in this prison, but I have to ask myself what the hell made you want to work here when you clearly had so many other opportunities open to you. Can you honestly say that at thirty-three years old this is where you always hoped your life would lead you?”

  For hours I sat in my empty apartment later that evening, Fatima’s words ringing in my ears. The woman had always known how to be blunt, but up until now I’d never felt the force of her words so much as I did today.

  I didn’t want to believe that she was right or that the reason I felt so much for the woman I’d met through her letters was because I, too, felt as if life had slipped away from me somehow.

  That there was no hope of a happy ending for me.

  And maybe there wasn’t. Maybe I’d designed it that way.

  I picked up my phone and called Matthew.

  “How’s Helena’s mom?” I said as a hello.

  “The same as she was yesterday. She hasn’t gotten any worse so that’s a good sign, I guess.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You could tell me why you’re really calling.”

  I rolled my eyes a
t the amusement in his voice. He knew me too well. “I really am concerned about your mother-in-law.”

  “I know that. But I also know when your voice gets all high and twitchy like that, you’re worrying about something.”

  “Is my life empty?”

  “Sweetheart,” he replied.

  And everything was in that one word.

  Jesus Christ, Matthew thought my life was empty.

  He would. In comparison to his it was. He was an architect and passionate about it; he had Helena, who he was in rapture over (still!); and he had his little girl, Perry, who he adored. And it wasn’t hard to adore her since she was the coolest, most awesome thing that had existed since Jimmy Stewart! Of course my life would look empty next to Matthew’s.

  “You need that vacation, Jess. That’s all I’m going to say. Get away from that prison, that apartment, and that idiot you’re screwing around with.”

  “Get a little perspective?”

  “Exactly,” Matthew said. “Helena and I were in Hawaii last year and it was amazing. You’d love it there.”

  “Hawaii.” I tried to picture myself lying on a beach, drinking cocktails for a few weeks.

  “There are some nice treks in Honolulu. Water sports. Deep-sea diving. More to it than cocktails by the pool.”

  But even so, Hawaii didn’t feel right. “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, so where do you feel like going?”

  Honestly, the whole idea of taking a vacation to get perspective on my life scared me a little. What if I found perspective and realized I really did hate my entire life? That would suck, black-hole-style. And who needed to deal with a black hole, right?

  “Jess?”

  “Hartwell,” I blurted out. “I’m going to Hartwell.”

  “Hartwhat now?”

  “Hartwell. It’s a boardwalk town here in Delaware.”

  “How adventurous of you.”

  “I’ll have you know that it is an exciting place to be.”

  “It’s Delaware, honey. The same state you live and work in. If it was an adventure it would be Hawaii or the jungles of South America.”

  “You’re lucky I love you, you condescending ass.”