by Sarah White
Yours always,
Courtney
I still don’t know how Matt makes it through that letter. We sit sobbing together, knowing she was right and thinking about what it must have been like for her to hear us both struggle and keep our secrets. Matt wraps his arms around me and we stay embraced until we both stop crying.
“Christmas,” Matt says and we both laugh through our tears, one of my favorite emotions. Even in the end she had kept her humor, binding us to the happiest holiday for the rest of our lives.
“Christmas,” I laugh. We wipe our eyes and Matt takes my hand.
We have been sitting on the couch for a couple of hours, talking about the years that have passed since we saw each other before Court’s cancer. He tells me about all the places he has been and how many calls he had made to his sister, needing to hear that I was okay and he was making the right choice to stay away. He tells me she would give an update and then quickly weigh in with some comment about how he was wasting time letting me get more tangled up with Elliot.
Between his stories of war and calls to Court I share my calls to her too. The times that I called heartsick over something new, asking her if this was all there really was to life. She used to tell me that I should move back here and spend some time in the garage, which at the time did not make any sense but seems pretty clear now. I had always thought she was just extending me a place to stay but now I know it wasn’t the place she was referring to, it was the company.
As I sit with Matt on the couch I realize that my suicide would devastate him whether my body was found or not. I know what Court was asking in that letter and I can’t deny my dying friend her final wish. When I first came here the thought of dying seemed peaceful and uncomplicated, but now that I loved Matt it seemed sad and so final. Choosing to end my life would be a choice to abandon our game and never let Matt find me again, a reality I know he can’t live with.
I choose life. If Court could face her death with the grace of a woman then I could face my life with that grace as well. My mind wanders back to our discussion about the toxic sea the night before my wedding. Many creatures cannot survive that toxic environment because they didn’t know the secret to surviving it, but I know the secret. Don’t panic, dive head first into the water breaking in front of you without fear, don’t take in anything toxic but instead fill your lungs with clean air and when you can’t hold on any longer, breach the surface and relax. Most importantly, float on top with the water embracing you and wait for your love to come find you.
“I have an idea,” Matt says and I can hear the hope in his voice. “Come with me to the garage, I want to see if they are still in there.”
“If what are still in there?” I ask very curious as to what he might be looking for. He grabs my hand and leads me to the garage. As we open the door and enter I am reminded of the night that we spent there and feel the love I have for him filling my heart.
“There they are!” and I look to where he is pointing. Three dusty bikes rest against the side of the garage. “I knew she would keep them.” We make our way to the bikes and dust off the seats. “Let’s ride them down to the beach tonight.” I can see the hope in his eyes and also the happiness.
“Yes, it would be perfect.” Matt fills the tires with airt and then we go inside and pack a few beers into a small cooler as the sun begins to fall from the sky. Being in the house with Matt feels peaceful. My soul is at ease with him here and I finally feel like I might actually be able to eat something. We each open a beer as we stand in the kitchen. Matt’s facial features seem softer as we chat about Court.
Being in the kitchen with her ashes is like our own little service. As we sip on our beers, I share that I will always remember her bravery during her death and the way she had welcomed me so lovingly into her life. The sound of her voice will be missed greatly and the touch of her hands will stay with me forever. I loved her, I still love her.
Matt will miss his phone calls with her, the way she described what was happening in the neighborhood. He will miss her humor and sarcasm but mostly he will miss being loved by her. Just as we had said goodbye to his parents all of those years ago, we stand in her house saying goodbye to her. Nothing pretentious, just two people who loved her and will never forget what she means to them.
Matt and I pack the box that holds her ashes and head outside to the garage. The smell of summer floats through the air and I am taken back to when we were kids again. This is the perfect evening for a bike ride and I can’t wait to feel the sand beneath my feet when we reach the shore. I find my old bike against the wall and dust the seat off, taking a moment to commit it to my memory.
Finally, I climb onto it as Matt sits on his bike waiting for me to join him at the end of the driveway. I run my hand over the seat that Court used to sit on and look down to Matt. He smiles and nods to me, saying without words that we will both miss her. I kick up the kickstand and glide down to the edge of the driveway, stopping next to Matt to give him one more kiss before we start our trip to the beach. I think to myself that if I could have had just a few days like this in my life recently, I would have never considered ending it. A chill runs down my body when I think of how resolved I had been and what a big mistake it would have been to not give life a chance. When Matt sees the shiver he wraps his arm around me, pulls me into his chest and kisses my head. We start off on the way to our last goodbye.
Life is going on all around us and we take turns racing each other. We stop at a small sandwich shop and pack them in the small cooler. We reach the lot at the beach and park our bikes. We head down to the shore with our cooler and the small dark box. The sun is just setting and the beach is empty just as Court had wanted. We decide to have one last dinner with her, laughing about old bonfires as we eat our sandwiches and wash them down with a cold beer. When the food is gone we know it is time and we carry the box down to the water.
Matt stands behind me with his hands on my shoulders and waits as I open the box uncovering the small plastic bag inside that holds the ashes of a person that had meant so much to both of us. I open the bag and the wind begins to scatter her ashes along the shoreline and into the crashing waves. We watch as the ocean carries her away from us, knowing it can never take her from our hearts.
When the sun has set and the darkness blankets the shore, Matt steps back and takes his shirt off. I smile knowing that we now have one more promise to fulfill and that it would be my favorite to keep. In moments we are running towards the water, diving under the waves that crash above us. I am alone with my thoughts as I dive deep and then lunge to the surface when my lungs beg for air. As I always had in the past, I let my body float on the surface, my ears submerged in the water, stilling my breath so I won’t be found.
I stare up at the beautiful sky lit up with stars and then close my eyes imagining the force I feel press against my body is the embrace that Court had promised me. When I open my eyes again I hear the water break beside me and Matt grabs my hand.
“I love you, Cait.”
“I love you too.”
Epilogue
Cait
It is a beautiful day as the wind whips lightly down the shoreline. I watch as the large ship enters the harbor as filling my body with excitement. Looking away from the ships for a minute, I see her waving to them, laughing and pointing as her little feet twirl when she spins in circles as excited as I am. Her beautiful hair hangs by her face and I reach down to tuck a strand behind her little ear.
Matt and I had returned to the house after saying goodbye to Court and had promised we would try. He had moved the date that he was to ship out so that we could pack up some of Court’s things and call the woman from chemo to come take her car. I made the decision that I would never go back to my old house I’d had with Elliot and instead Matt had talked me into staying in Court’s, telling me he couldn’t imagine letting it go and that home was now wherever I was.
I had felt sick for a while after her death and thought maybe I wa
s just truly heartsick and that my stomach couldn’t handle the stress of the weeks before. The doctor had run some tests and sent me home with a few prescriptions but later called me with the news that I was pregnant. Matt had been over the moon with the news and promised me he would do what he could to relocate closer and perhaps change his job so he would be away less.
As I search the ship that has now come close, I look for Matt on the deck knowing what he has given up for us. This will have been his last deployment and it has been hard on all of us. “Daddy, Daddy!” she shouts when she sees him standing on the deck. I reach down and take her hand, touching the small cross that still hangs from my neck with my other hand. It is the only piece of jewelry of mine I kept when Matt had put a ring on my finger, both of us knowing what it means to me.
At the time we got the news of my pregnancy we had only spent that one night together before Court had passed. I guess I had been wrong all these years and sometimes clichés do work out in my favor.
“There he is Courtney, there is Daddy.”
Autho r
Sarah White Studied psychology at UCLA. She is currently living in California with her husband and two children. A recent winner of the 2013 Harlequin So You Think You Can Write Bonus Contest, she is looking forward seeing her story, Rookie in Love, published this summer. Sarah White is also the author of Sammy’s Soldier, Somewhere Special, Sweet, and Maps to the Treasure: A Story of Alzheimer’s Disease.
You can find Sarah on Twitter and Pinterest @SarahWhiteWrite and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SarahWhiteWrite
