A Gift of Time

by Beth Flynn

  I told him what Stan had told me about Sarah Jo’s sudden insistence that they move away. It all seemed to make sense now. Sarah Jo’s distancing. The awkwardness between us.

  “Do you think Tommy is the reason Jo was moving? Is it possible he figured out she was Wendy?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, but you figured it out, and he knew her for years before you did. What did she tell you when you saw her?”

  “She rambled, Grizz. She didn’t make sense at all. She admitted to doing us all wrong, but she never said what it was.”

  Something struck me, and I felt the bile rise in my throat.

  “Sarah Jo was with Tommy when he died. Oh my God, Grizz! No, no—please don’t let what I’m thinking be true.”

  I was certain I was going to vomit, and I stood to run to the bathroom. But he grabbed me from behind, pulling me to him and cradling my face in his chest. My stomach still roiled, but the acid making its way up my throat receded.

  “Quiet down, Ginny. There’s more. I have an answer for you. Carter and Bill gave me something today after you left. It will give you your answers. Sit back down, honey, okay?”

  I was shaking, but there were no tears as he tugged me back to sit on the couch. I was pretty certain I’d cried enough in the last year to last me a lifetime. The well had finally dried up.

  Grizz picked up a cassette tape player that had been sitting on one of his end tables. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d sat down.

  “Bill had to put this on a cassette tape since I don’t know how to work the fucking CD player that’s in this house. Besides, I don’t think we want to hear this coming out in surround sound. It’s going to be hard to listen to, Ginny, but it will give you some answers.” He peered at me. “Can you handle this, baby?”

  I sat up straight, determined not to lose my composure. “Yes,” I whispered.

  Before he pressed play, he looked at me.

  “Carter told me the day Tommy was shot, she watched Sarah Jo interact with you at the hospital. She knew how close you two were, and she felt something was off with Sarah Jo. She told me she tripped and purposely yanked Sarah Jo’s pendant off.”

  I nodded, remembering the incident. “She sent it away with Bill to have it fixed. He returned it later that day, I think.”

  “Yes, he had it fixed. But he also did something else.”

  I waited.

  “He put a bug in it. He and Carter were able to listen to everything Jo said when she was wearing that pendant.”

  I felt an icy hand wrap itself around my heart.

  “She was wearing the pendant in the hospital room when Tommy died,” he added in a soft voice.

  “Play it.” My voice was firm.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to hear—”

  “Play it!” I braced myself for the pain that would come with reliving that day. I had no clue what I’d hear from Sarah Jo, but I knew I’d eventually hear my screams of anguish and grief in the background. “Play it, please.”

  Grizz pressed the button.

  I listened as the sounds of the hospital room brought back memories so painful I felt lightheaded and had to will myself not to faint. Hearing the steady hiss of the ventilator that Tommy had been hooked up to caused ice water to invade my arteries. I remembered how I’d made a CD of some of our favorite songs and always had them playing on a portable CD player I’d brought to his room. “Love Can Make You Happy” by Mercy could be softly heard in the background. I froze as the sound of my voice brought me back to the nightmare of that day.

  “I’ll be right back. Do you want something?”

  Then came Jo’s reply. “I want you to take a break and know that I won’t leave his side until you come back, okay?”

  I remembered kissing the inside of Tommy’s palm, then walking out of the room. I left him. I turned my back on him and walked out. I was now biting the inside of my cheek so hard I could taste blood.

  I listened as Jo’s words floated out of the old cassette player and hung in the air. The tone of her voice, a tone I’d never heard, sounded sickly sweet. I'd heard the words sickly sweet used before to describe the smell associated with dead bodies during decomposition. My stomach heaved at the thought.

  “Stan and I had just returned from Sydney and were visiting friends in Atlanta when Mimi called me. I was doing what you said, Tommy. Pushing Stan to interview overseas. But circumstances change, don’t they?”

  I looked at Grizz. I had my answer. So Tommy had figured out that Jo was Wendy, and he’d told her to leave, probably with the threat that he would tell me about her part in my attack.

  “Tommy, do you know how easy this would be for me? All I’d have to do is squeeze one of the tubes on your ventilator and stop the air flow.” My breath caught. “Or I could slip a syringe out of my pocket and inject insulin right into your IV. I’d have my back to the nurses, and they wouldn’t know what I was doing. You’re already being given a certain amount of insulin, so if they ever did an autopsy, which I doubt they will because of the seriousness of your wounds, they’ll never look for an insulin overdose. It would be so easy. Too easy.”

  The tears were back, and my hearing became muffled as my heartbeat quickened, causing the blood to pound in my head. Another tune had come on the CD player. The heartfelt love song, “Follow You, Follow Me” by Genesis, was in stark contrast to the sinister conversation.

  “But I won’t. Do you know why? Because I’m sorry. And like I told you before, Tommy, I love you, and I love Ginny, and I want this to stop. I want for it all to end.”

  I heard sniffling then and thought maybe Jo had started to cry.

  “I could never hurt you, Tommy. You were my best friend before Ginny came along.”

  She hiccupped then, and I heard what I thought was the sound of her taking a tissue from a box.

  “I wouldn’t have told Ginny about the herbal pills you gave her. I never would’ve let her think you caused that miscarriage. I never gave them to you to give to her with the intent of using it against you. I just wanted to hurt Grizz. Not you and Ginny. I never wanted to hurt you and Ginny.” She sniffled loudly. “You have to believe me, Tommy! Seeing you here like this, so vulnerable and coming so close to death, is ripping my heart out. It’s not supposed to be like this. I want us to start over. I want to put all the bad memories behind us. You have to wake up, Tommy. I need you to wake up so you can forgive me. Please wake up...” There was a pause, and then she softly whispered, “Grunt. Please.”

  She started crying harder now, and her sobs were becoming muffled. I could picture her leaning over the bed to hug him, the bug in her pendant pushing up against his body and muting her cries.

  My shoulders sagged, partly from relief and partly from remembering the weight of the grief. I bolted upright when I heard the loud and shrill hum of Tommy’s heart monitor signaling distress. I asked Grizz to turn it off when I heard Jo’s cries for help and her efforts to revive him.

  I didn’t need to hear any more.

  “I remember when he gave me those pills for my morning sickness. I never took them, but I never told Tommy because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.” I stared numbly at a piece of art hanging on the wall. It was a vivid abstract I’d not paid much attention to, but now, the loud colors screamed at me.

  “I can forgive Sarah Jo for everything that was done to me, Grizz. The rape, the beating, Gwinny, maybe even her attempt to cause my miscarriage. But I don’t think I can forgive her for letting Tommy die thinking he caused it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Why are Carter and Bill just now giving this to you?” I asked without looking at him. “Tommy’s been gone for over a year.”

  “Carter and Bill never knew about Moe’s journal until after you left for the hospital this morning. When I told them, Bill let me listen to this. They didn’t say anything sooner because they figured that whatever had happened between Sarah Jo and Tommy died with him. She obviously wasn’t there to hurt him.
Plus, they heard her grieving afterward and believed it to be sincere.”

  I leaned into him then and welcomed the refuge his massive arms offered.

  “How do you want me to handle it, baby?”

  I knew what he meant, and my first thought was to lash out, but that wasn’t me. Besides, there was no way I’d ever use my grief as a segue for him to go back to his old ways. I may not have been with him for the past fifteen years, but I still recognized that look. There was this anticipation he tried to mask, but I could see it in his eyes. I had always known that you could take a man off the streets, but you couldn't permanently take the streets out of the man. Even though I didn't want him hurting people, I also realized that was the Grizz I'd fallen in love with. The Grizz I still loved.

  I swiped my hand through my hair and sat up straight. I needed to concern myself with seeking a way to find true forgiveness. I knew it would come one day, and I prayed that day would come sooner rather than later.

  “She’s punishing herself,” I whispered. “I think that’s enough.”

  I looked up at him then and said five words I’d never meant more.

  “Take me away from here.”

  Chapter Seventy

  Grizz

  2002, North Carolina

  Grizz sat at the kitchen table and filled Micah in on the events of their last month in Florida.

  It hadn’t been an easy one as Ginny had reached into the depths of her soul looking for the forgiveness she knew she needed to give Sarah Jo. She’d convinced herself the only way to find it would be to make an honest effort toward helping her old friend. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d done her best to visit her and convince her Grizz was dead and not haunting her. She wasn’t sure if her visits helped, but when it was time to leave, she did so knowing she had done her best in the little time she’d had.

  She also knew she would heal from this, just like she’d healed from everything else that had ever bruised her soul.

  “It kind of sucks that my wife, who doesn’t lie, had to lie in the very end,” Grizz told his father as he cradled a mug of coffee. His green eyes stared into Micah’s. “She had to reassure Sarah Jo I was dead. She thought it would be the only thing that might help the woman.”

  Micah’s eyes were warm as he reached across the table and patted his son’s hand.

  “She didn’t lie, son. That man is dead.”

  They didn’t say anything for a few minutes.

  “So how long has she had this flu bug?” Micah nodded toward the room in the basement, where Ginny slept. “She hasn’t kept anything down since you got here. A trip to the doctor might be in order.”

  Grizz nodded. “Yeah, she started throwing up when we hit Georgia. She hasn’t kept much down since.”

  They’d all been invited to go on a picnic in one of the many national forests. Both Mimi and Jason were excited and had gone with the others, but Grizz elected to stay home with Ginny and Micah. She was now lying down in the basement bedroom they shared. Grizz had taken the quiet opportunity to fill Micah in on everything that had transpired since they’d last seen him during the kids’ spring break.

  “So, any loose ends in Florida?”

  “No loose ends,” Grizz said. “She sold her share of Tommy’s business to his partner. The house sold almost immediately, and the new owners let Ginny rent it back from them until our move. She sold it completely furnished and started packing her and the kids’ personal belongings, shipping their things to a warehouse in Montana.”

  “If somebody looked hard enough, they could probably figure out how to trace those shipments. Might even be able to ask the schools where the kids’ records are being transferred to. Guessing she’ll have to have things like her car title transferred. Get a new driver’s license. Lots and lots of paperwork.” Grizz didn’t miss the question in his statement.

  “That’s all being handled by a friend.” Grizz didn’t have to go into detail about Bill’s special skills, and Micah wouldn’t ask.

  Micah nodded. “I know she drove up in her car, and you drove your car while pulling that ‘death on wheels’ thing you call a motorcycle. If you want to drive with them out to Montana, you know, in one vehicle, I was going to suggest you leave your car and trailer here, and maybe I’ll make a little trip out there for a visit. I can drive there and fly back.”

  He looked away after he said it. With all the secrecy about their move, Micah wasn’t certain if he’d be among the people permanently saying goodbye to the son he’d just found. And he’d never mustered the courage to suggest they move here to live near him. He’d never been a father and didn’t know what would be considered pushy. He didn’t want to lose the family that God had recently blessed him with.

  Grizz took a sip of his coffee and gave his father a half-smile.

  “Sounds like a plan, Preacher. But you have to come soon. I don’t want to miss out on a whole summer of riding with Ginny.”

  He saw the relief in his father’s face and stood up from the table. He wanted to check on his wife. If she wasn’t feeling even a little better, he’d take her to the local doctor.

  The kids returned later that afternoon and found their mother sitting on the couch gingerly sipping a cup of tea. Both Spooky and Hope were snuggled up to her, Spooky on her lap and Hope burrowed into her side. Ginny smiled when she thought how well the first leg of this journey had gone. That is, until she’d picked up a nasty stomach bug somewhere in Georgia. She had to let Mimi drive most of the remaining miles to North Carolina.

  Both cats shared a crate in her car while Rocky rode with Grizz and Jason in Grizz’s Chevelle. Grizz and Micah were now in the kitchen doing some prep work for dinner. She hoped she’d be able to keep down whatever it was they were planning on cooking.

  “You know your way around a kitchen,” she heard Micah tell Grizz in a surprised tone.

  “So do you, Preacher.”

  Jason was excitedly filling them all in on the day he and Mimi had spent with their cousins.

  “It’s not just called Sliding Rock, Mom. It is a sliding rock. The water’s been running over it for, like, a gazillion years and made it smooth.”

  “Sounds like you had fun, honey,” Ginny said, her voice sounding weak.

  Mimi stood to head upstairs to pack an overnight bag. She’d been invited to spend the night with a cousin and wanted to be ready when the girl came to pick her up.

  “Before Mimi goes upstairs to pack, can we open Aunt Carter and Uncle Bill’s wedding present for you and James?” Jason asked his mother.

  Carter and Bill had delivered it to them in the early morning hours on the day they were leaving for their move. Ginny had already turned the keys to their home over to the new owners and had promised to spend their last night having dinner with the Bears. Instead of hitting the road after dark, they’d rented a hotel room where Grizz waited for them. Anthony, Christy, Ginny, and Grizz had all decided that it was in everyone’s best interest that the Bear kids never meet him, so he’d waited at the hotel while they ate one of Christy’s delicious home-cooked Native American meals.

  “I can’t believe I almost let you guys leave without giving you a wedding gift,” Carter had told Ginny as she’d handed her the neatly wrapped present. “Don’t open it, yet. I know you’re anxious to get going.”

  Ginny stared at her friend and asked under her breath, “It’s not breathing, is it?”

  Carter smiled as she remembered Bill’s role in having the black kitten delivered to Ginny and Tommy in what seemed like a lifetime ago. She shook her head.

  “Please?” Jason begged, interrupting Ginny’s memory.

  “It’s still in the back of the car, I think,” Mimi said.

  “I’ll get it.”

  Jason was out the door and back inside carrying the present within thirty seconds. Handing it to his mother, he said, “James should open it with you. It’s his, too, Mom.”

  Grizz dried his hands on a dishtowel and joined them in the living room. He
sat on Micah’s coffee table, an old sturdy chest.

  “Go ahead.” He nodded at her.

  By the time it was unwrapped, Micah had made his way to the living room and stood back as Ginny carefully opened the plain brown box. She looked down and smiled, showed Grizz.

  “What’s in it? What did they get you?” Jason peered into the open container. He looked mildly disappointed.

  Grizz and Ginny exchanged knowing smiles. Without taking her eyes from his, she announced, “I think there’s a little something in here for each of us. This would be for you, Jason.” She handed him a homemade slingshot.

  “Cool,” he said as he snapped the rubber band that was attached to it.

  Ginny handed Mimi a small stuffed gorilla. “I think this little guy can find a home with you. But I’ll keep this little card that came with it.” She carefully removed it from the gorilla’s wrist.

  Ginny handed the shaving bag to Grizz. “I bet you’ll find a use for this, Gri—James.”

  He winked at her.

  She took the Barry White album out last, cradled it to her chest.

  “And I’ll be holding onto this.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Ginny

  2002, North Carolina

  I scanned the waiting room looking for Grizz, the news I’d just received still not sinking in.

  “That’s not possible! Please check again, Tammy,” I’d begged of the nurse who was offering me an understanding smile. She was Grizz’s second cousin and had been there with her family at Micah’s that first day we’d met him. She was also one of the women at the Bunco night I’d attended.

  “I’d be glad to check again, Ginny, but I’m pretty sure it’s accurate. I’ll have the doctor come back in.”