Wrecked

by Harmon, AJ

  “I am really glad to see you eating more. You were pecking at your food like a bird,” he remembered.

  “I was just telling Regina today that it feels great to be able to taste food and enjoy eating,” Bess replied.

  They cleaned up their dirty dishes and placed the leftovers in the fridge for Bess to enjoy another time. She admitted to feeling guilty that she always got the leftovers but Ethan assured her that he didn’t mind one bit. She pretended to believe him.

  “Now you wanted to talk to me about something?” he asked, as they walked back into the family room.

  “Yes!” Bess stated. “You said that this part of the house, right where we are sitting, is the original house that was built… when?”

  “Um,” he thought out loud. “It was before or during the Revolutionary War, so some time in the mid to late 1700’s?”

  “And how do you know that this is original?”

  “The real estate agent told me,” he grinned. “She said that basically, this room was the entire house. The fireplace did double duty. It warmed them in the winter, but also was their cooking fire. No running water, obviously, so no bathroom, so it would have heated all of the water for bathing, too. And, it is still in its original state,” he added. “It was built so well that there hasn’t been any need to repair it. And, apparently, if we were to rip up the floors, we would find the original wooden floor that shows there were two small rooms where we are sitting now, which would have been the bedrooms. She said that the pictures of the original floor show where the walls had been. Why?”

  “Well, I’m curious,” Bess said. “I don’t understand construction and building, but shouldn’t there be a foundation? I’m sure the original house wasn’t built to code,” she laughed.

  “The house was jacked up and footings put in when the first renovation came. I believe the previous owners also did some major improvements to make it pass inspections for hurricanes. I don’t know much about construction either, but I had a home inspection done when I bought the house and there weren’t any issues that were detected.”

  “Good. Good to know,” Bess nodded.

  “If you’re worried about your safety, Bess, don’t be. I would never put you in harm’s way. Never!”

  “Oh, no. It’s not that. I don’t feel unsafe. Not one bit.”

  “So, why all the questions?” Ethan wasn’t sure what information she was looking for, nor why she wanted it.

  “Do you believe in life after death?”

  “Bess.” Ethan jumped from the armchair he was sitting in and sat next to her on the sofa. “Your surgery was successful. There is no need to worry. Eric says that you are doing remarkably well with the new drug and don’t have to worry. Please don’t think about dying.”

  He was so serious and concerned that Bess couldn’t stop the laugh that was bubbling up from her gut. It didn’t go over well.

  “I’m being serious!” Ethan scowled.

  “I’m so sorry,” Bess sputtered as she tried to stop the giggles, with little success. “I didn’t mean I thought I was dying.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “But I want to know what happens after we die. And I know I’m not dying!” She held up her hand in surrender, but giggled some more.

  “Didn’t you ever go to Sunday School as a kid?”

  “Ah… no,” Bess choked. “The only time my mom or her asshole husband ever talked about God was when they were swearing. Did you?”

  Ethan nodded. “A few times. It’s not like my parents were religious or anything, but we went occasionally when my mom was worried about dying.”

  “I didn’t mean to drag up old memories or anything,” Bess apologized.

  “No, it’s fine.” Ethan shrugged and settled back into the soft cushions on the sofa. “I guess she didn’t want us to be scared when she died. She figured a little bible reading might help.”

  “Did it?”

  He shook his head. “She was the most amazing woman, Bess. Nothing could help to overcome that kind of loss.”

  “So, you don’t think that there’s a heaven somewhere and she’s lounging on a cloud, playing a harp and sipping on champagne?” Bess grinned.

  “Well, she didn’t have much musical inclination, and didn’t drink, so…” Ethan chuckled.

  “She might like both now,” Bess smiled brightly.

  “Maybe. I guess it’s possible.”

  “Wanna go for a walk before it gets too dark?”

  “Yes!” replied Ethan with eagerness.

  Walking next to the cliff, the crash of the waves below was so loud, there was little need for conversation. Comfortable in each other’s company, they sauntered through the long grass, weaving their way along the edge until it was getting too dark to guarantee their safety. Ethan led Bess to the gravel path several feet from the cliffs’ edge and made their way back to her house. He was just about to say goodnight when he saw the surprised expression on her face, which then turned into a look of sheer delight.

  “Everything okay?” Ethan asked.

  “Yep! Goodnight Ethan. Thanks for dinner.” And Bess ran towards the house, leaving Ethan to wonder what just happened.

  11.

  “I was wondering when I’d see you again,” Bess grinned brightly as Andrew waited for her to enter the house and then followed her inside. “Where have you been?”

  “I haven’t been anywhere but here.”

  “So when I can’t see you, are you watching me?”

  “Not usually,” Andrew replied. “Why aren’t you scared of me?”

  “Are you going to harm me?”

  “No,” Andrew stated emphatically.

  “Then why should I be scared of you?”

  She had a point. He had no intention of harming her. He didn’t even want to scare her.

  “So you’re not scared. Good.”

  “Well I might be more inclined to be scared if you were rattling around the house with chains and moaning all the time,” Bess teased. “But seeing as though you are as sweet as a teddy bear I’m not frightened at all.

  “I suppose I could try and find some chains if you would like me better.”

  “I didn’t say I’d like you better,” Bess laughed. “I said I’d be more frightened of you. But even if the next time I saw you there was a huge chain hanging around your neck, I still wouldn’t be scared of you,” she grinned. “You’ve proven to be quite un-scary.”

  “I should have tried harder,” jested Andrew with a smirk.

  “Why me?”

  “Why you what?” he asked.

  “Why have you shown yourself to me? Have you appeared to all the tenants of the house?”

  “No.”

  “So, why me?” She wanted an answer. “Why me?”

  That wasn’t an easy question for him to answer. Andrew walked into the family room. It was the room he felt most comfortable in, although he spent most of the time upstairs in the uninhabited level of the house. It was more peaceful.

  “Well, for one thing, not everyone can see me, even if I allow myself to be seen.”

  “Really?” Bess was surprised.

  “Really. And there needs to be a reason to be seen.”

  “What is the reason you showed yourself to me?”

  “You were going to throw yourself off the cliff and plunge to a gruesome death.”

  Bess remembered the night well. She had given in to the sadness and hopelessness that she’d kept at bay for so long. There had been no strength left to fight it and in a moment of weakness she had given in.

  “It was you,” she whispered to herself in realization. “You were the one who yelled at me to stop.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “So many questions,” he sighed.

  “Please tell me why?”

  “I’ve already seen a beautiful and vibrant young woman die here. I didn’t want to see another one.”

  “I am not beautiful and definitely not vibrant, at least not tha
t night.” Bess sat in her favorite spot in the family room, the sofa that sat underneath the large picture window overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and those rugged rocks below the cliff.

  “No, you were not vibrant that night,” Andrew agreed sadly. “Tell me, what was so bad that you thought ending your life was the only option?”

  “I guess everything just hit me at once and I was overwhelmed with… with memories from my past. The future didn’t look much better,” she shrugged.

  “That isn’t a good enough reason,” Andrew replied gruffly.

  Bess looked up at the ghost standing in front of her, his hands clasped behind his back, staring at her.

  “You have no idea what my life is like. You don’t get to judge me.”

  “You’re angry. Good.”

  “Why is that good?” Bess asked… angrily.

  “Because it means there is a fighter inside of you.” Andrew’s expression softened and a tiny smile curled his lips. “Elizabeth, if you don’t like your life, change it! Be grateful for every day you get to be alive.”

  She suddenly felt very guilty and it showed in her expression. Her eyelids lowered and her chin dropped.

  “You are a beautiful and vibrant woman who has so much to live for. You must not waste a moment. If there is something you want, go after it. If there is someone you want, go after them.”

  “There isn’t anybody who would want me,” she whispered.

  “Nonsense! Ethan is in love with you.”

  “He is not!” she declared.

  “He is,” Andrew chuckled.

  “He is not,” Bess repeated.

  “You are young and naïve, I suppose.”

  “I’m not that young. I’m twenty-three and I’ve lived enough to last a lifetime. I had to grow up very young and it was… unpleasant. I am not as naïve as you think.”

  “But you can’t see that a young man is wooing you.”

  “Wooing me?”

  “Yes.”

  That made Bess laugh. Ethan wasn’t wooing her by any stretch of the imagination. But, she supposed looking at it from the Captain’s perspective, from an age when if you held hands with a member of the opposite sex you were basically engaged, it may look more than it truly was.

  “This isn’t the eighteenth century anymore,” Bess explained. “Just because a man and a woman share a meal and go for a walk, doesn’t mean that they are in love and going to live happily ever after. Things have changed since you were… were alive.” Her tone was a tad condescending and Andrew picked up on it in an instant.

  “Men are men no matter what the year, or century. And you obviously have no insight into how a man thinks or feels. All one has to do is look at Ethan when he looks at you and a blind man could see what his feelings are. Obviously you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do.”

  And with that, Captain Andrew Wentworth disappeared in front of Bess’s eyes.

  *****

  “She couldn’t wait to get away from me,” Ethan was telling Regina a couple of days later. “She literally ran away from me and into the house.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing!”

  “You obviously did something,” Regina accused.

  “We were heading back and talking about the different grasses that covered the ground. Literally nothing I said could have offended her.”

  “Maybe you bored her enough to run away,” she laughed.

  “Bess asked the question!” Ethan was still beside himself over what could have made her simply run away.

  “Then I guess you should ask her,” suggested his friend.

  “You really are not much help,” Ethan growled.

  “I’ll ask her then.”

  “Don’t tell her I told you!”

  “We really are back in middle school, aren’t we?” Regina laughed again.

  But Regina didn’t get a chance to talk to Bess before Ethan ran into her… literally. He was rounding the corner at the end of his shift to get his jacket and ran right into Bess and she was coming out of the locker room.

  “Hi,” he said as he balanced her with both hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to send you for a tumble.”

  Bess laughed and her eyes sparkled as she smiled. “You didn’t knock me over. Nice try though.”

  “Everything alright?”

  “Course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Ethan paused and then spewed out in a hurry, “I thought maybe I’d said something wrong the other night because you just kind of ran away like you wanted to separate yourself from me and I wanted you to know that if I did say or do something that I didn’t mean to and I’m really sorry and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “Take a breath,” Bess laughed. “Why do you think you did something? Just because I ran back to the house?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “I’m sorry, no. You were a perfect gentleman. I, ah, just was, um, ready to, um, get to bed because, you know, I had to be at work the next morning.”

  “Okay, well if you’re sure,” Ethan replied, not buying her excuse for one second.

  “I am,” she smiled.

  No. He didn’t buy it.

  *****

  It was a real thrill for Bess having this amazing secret. Captain Andrew Wentworth was her friend – a friend nobody else knew about and it was exciting. There were moments when she wondered if she was slightly crazy, but whenever Andrew was with her she knew he was as real as the sun or the ocean… or Ethan.

  There was, on occasion, a feeling of guilt that managed to creep in when she thought of Ethan. It was his house and technically his ghost, but Bess didn’t want to tell him – for several reasons. She couldn’t bear to think that he thought she was crazy or mentally ill. No. Andrew was hers and he needed to stay that way.

  Although, as she stepped out of the shower in the evening after a long day at work, a shiver ran up her spine and she whipped around looking for someone, Andrew, in the bathroom, but she saw nothing. After quickly drying off and throwing on a pair of comfy old sweats and a t-shirt, Bess went in search of her resident apparition.

  “Andrew?” she called as she walked down the hall of the second floor. “Andrew, I need to talk to you, please?”

  As Bess turned into the last bedroom doorway, there stood the captain.

  “You wanted to converse with me?”

  “Were you in the bathroom?”

  His smile made his eyes twinkle in amusement. “I have no physical body, Elizabeth,” he cheekily scolded. “There is no need for me to be in a bathroom, water closet, or outhouse.”

  “I meant in my bathroom,” Bess sneered.

  “No, of course I was not in your bathroom! What kind of a man do you think I am?” he snarled, obviously offended. “Have I done anything that should have you questioning my honor as a gentleman?”

  Bess shook her head, momentarily silenced in shame. He had been nothing but kind and here she was accusing him of spying on her while she showered.

  “I rarely venture out of this room,” he continued.

  “Why?” Bess asked. “Why this room?”

  Andrew glanced to his left – a wooden trunk stood against the wall. It was plain, but varnished, and there was a large lock that hung from the latch, keeping it closed.

  “It’s yours?” she asked.

  Andrew shook his head, but his focus remained on the wooden trunk.

  “Bess?” a call came from downstairs.

  “Your gentleman caller has arrived,” Andrew announced. “You’d better go.” And Andrew vanished.

  Bess turned and hurried back downstairs to find Ethan standing in the foyer.

  “I knocked a few times but you didn’t answer,” he offered.

  “I was upstairs,” Bess replied. “Come on in.”

  Ethan followed her through to the family room and Bess filled the kettle with water from the sink faucet.

  “Tea?”

  Ethan smiled. “Sounds great.”

  Bess busied he
rself pulling cups from the cupboard and milk from the fridge.

  “I came over to ask you a question,” Ethan said.

  “Shoot,” Bess replied over her shoulder as she pulled teabags from a terra cotta pot on the counter.

  “There is the annual hospital dinner on Saturday and I was hoping you’d like to accompany me.”

  “Dinner? Sure.”

  Ethan was relieved that Bess had agreed to come with him but he needed to explain a little more in order for Bess to understand what he was asking.

  “The corporation that owns our hospital and three other small medical centers holds an annual event for all of the department heads and administrators. The board of directors will be there and there are some awards that are given out, along with some serious schmoozing and ass-kissing.” He chuckled as Bess’s head whipped around.

  “So this is like a… a big deal kinda dinner?”

  Ethan nodded. “Tuxes and evening wear and all that.”

  “I can’t do that!” Bess yelped.

  “Why?” Ethan asked, deflated at her refusal.

  “I don’t have anything even remotely suitable to wear, and I don’t schmooze!”

  “The gown is easily fixed.”

  “Gown?” gasped Bess. “A gown?”

  “Yeah. Like, um, Miss America,” Ethan smiled.

  “Good grief. I am far from wearing anything like that!” Bess groaned.

  “For me?” Ethan pleaded. “There’s no one else I’d like to go with.”

  “Who did you take last year?” Bess asked.

  “I went alone.”

  “So why not just go alone again?” Bess asked as she filled two cups with steaming water.

  “Because I want to go with you.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear,” Bess reaffirmed.

  “And if that wasn’t an issue? Would you go with me?”

  “I suppose, but…”

  “Great!” Ethan interrupted. “Be ready by five o’clock on Saturday,” and Ethan left before she had a chance to argue.

  12.

  Captain Wentworth watched Elizabeth hurry to the beautiful young child, taking her by the hand and holding it tightly. With his heart in his throat, Andrew watched his love lead the child back towards the small mercantile shop and then disappear inside. He followed closely and stood outside watching her through the window as she purchased some blue cloth, a small bag of flour, and some candles. Filling her wicker basket with the goods, she smiled pleasantly and as she opened the door to leave, she was met by her father. Andrew would remember that man’s face for as long as he lived… and apparently even longer.