Eternal Journey

by Carol Hutton

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ETERNAL JOURNEY.Copyright © 2000 by Carol Hutton.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2018-9

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2000 by Warner Books.

  First eBook Edition: October 2000

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  In loving memory of my mother, Charlotte, the true storyteller in our family. Through her stories, my mother taught me about life and loss with the insight of a psychologist, the guidance of a teacher, and the wisdom of a mystic. Her gift for finding meaning in seemingly meaningless pain and disappointment continues to amaze and humble me.

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Like any effort of this nature, Eternal Journey represents the work of many people. Of all those who supported me to this point, I am most grateful to my agent, Janell Walden Agyeman, and my editor at Warner Books, Diana Baroni. Thanks also to Roz Alfaro-LeFevere, Patti Cleary, Susanna Barciella, Harriet Forman, Sharon Geltner Schwartz, Dorothy Powell, Vanessa Reynolds, and Mary Lynn Swartz, for their assistance, support, and encouragement during the early stages of this undertaking.

  Heartfelt thanks to my lifelong friends Regina Pakradooni, Cecilia West, Janet Colesberry, Barbara Meyers, and Bonnie Eyler; and to my sister, Barbara Quigley, whose friendship and love were the inspiration for the story.

  Special thanks to my colleague, mentor, and friend, Edie Stark, consummate grief counselor and death educator, who enlightened me over twenty years ago to the realization that death is not to be feared.

  I am most indebted, however, to those who are no longer here. When penning the story I felt the spirit of my dear friends who have died. The pain of their passing and the insight that came with their loss somehow make Eternal Journey much more than fiction.

  There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

  —C. J. JUNG

  PROLOGUE

  ___________________

  The wind stung Anna’s tear-stained face and mouth, causing her lips to crack. Placing the single peach rose on the coffin, she could taste blood as she bit down hard to ward off tears. Her breath was coming in small, painful gasps now, and panic began to set in. She forced herself to watch as Beth was lowered into the cold, hard ground. Chest constricted, hoping to find something or someone else to focus on, her eyes rested on Tom. He looked so old, and so tired.

  For a brief moment she thought she might be okay. As she turned toward the car, the sobbing began. The tears streamed down her face and her cries became audible. She felt as if she might vomit. “Beth, Beth,” she repeated to herself. “This isn’t happening.” The grief was choking her heart; her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe. She put her face in her hands and wept uncontrollably. A disembodied hand took hers, guiding her to the back seat of the limousine. This was all she would remember from the funeral. Despite the many times Anna went over it in her head in the weeks following, she could not remember anything else from that day.

  And so her best friend, Beth, was laid to rest. Funny, smart, loyal, pretty, kind, and unassuming Beth. Two years earlier, she had called Anna on a Sunday morning to find out about alternative treatments for advanced breast cancer. For Anna, that was the beginning. The beginning of this unrelenting pain and anguish, the beginning of what felt like the end.

  Beth O’Neill, Anna thought, was the better half of the duo who had suffered through twelve years of nuns and catechism, rosaries and incense. Beth and Anna had shared a childhood, survived adolescence, and sailed through college and graduate school together. They were playmates turned soul mates.

  They grew even closer during their adult years, despite shifting priorities of husband and children, careers and success. They’d joke about how they would be reunited in old age, rocking on the porch of the retirement home, boring the young attendants with stories of their youth.

  Cancer had changed everything once again.

  It was unbelievable, but Beth was the third of Anna’s friends to die. Anna had become obsessed over cure rates and cancer statistics. Three friends in three years, all gone. But numbers and life-expectancy statistics meant nothing anymore. Cruel chance did. The scientific, analytical side of Anna, which served her so well as a psychologist, insisted that all three friends should have lived. They should have been among the 90 to 95 percent in the “cure” category. But they weren’t.

  Another side of Anna, the more private side, could not—could never—get over the tragedy of these lives cut short. She berated their fates. Her friends should have been among the survivors, enjoying many more years of life, according to the “experts.” Instead, they were sent to early graves.

  The first time she experienced losing a friend it was hard, and the second even more so, but it was Beth’s death that shook Anna to her core. Beth had been very special. She and Anna had a connection that defied explanation. It just wasn’t fair that she had to die. Why should Beth be the one to suffer and leave this world?

  At first Anna was too tired to be in touch with her feelings, but soon she became angry. Her heart ached for her friend Tom, Beth’s husband of twenty years. It didn’t seem possible that he was now alone. Anna kept picturing his lost and tired eyes staring at her as the coffin was lowered into the earth. She worried about how Beth’s daughters would cope. Anna felt inadequate and weak as she reached out to them. Once alone, however, Anna began to feel the depth of her own loss. Her heart was heavy with sadness that struck like a clap of thunder and remained like a cloud blocking the light of day. Her best friend’s death created a cavern of emptiness in her soul. This black hole of loss and grief frightened her. She felt lost and unfocused, no longer whole. Anna was adrift in a tumultuous sea of pain.

  Anna’s mother used to say that bad things always happened in threes. Yet somehow, knowing that these three deaths, this trilogy of pain, might mark the end of bad times did not make Anna feel any better. In fact, she felt worse. Much worse.

  FRIDAY

  ______________

  Three weeks later, the small plane lifted off the runway at La Guardia Airport like a kite caught in a powerful gust of wind. Anna usually dreaded these short commuter flights, but this time she hadn’t even given it a thought. As the plane began its ascent, Anna became hypnotized by the sight of her own reflection in the window. She watched as the features of her face gradually blended into the white backdrop of floating clouds.

  Mesmerized by the stark emptiness of the cloud screen that formed before her, Anna’s eyes locked like a laser on the vision that appeared. She sat transfixed as a replay of Beth’s last days and her funeral appeared in the skies. Anna recalled how Beth had agonized to accept her losses, how she had struggled to embrace her fate. Somehow from the depths of her own solitude and pain, Beth had managed to give strength and energy to all around her. As Anna sat gazing into the heavens and remembering her friend, she wondered why she had been spared, why she was the one left.

  Why?

&nb
sp; The little plane sputtered abruptly, then jolted as the engine thrust in its effort to reach cruising altitude. Despite the turbulence, noise, and violent vibrations, Anna was mindful only of her loss and its injustice. As the small plane climbed higher and found smoother air, the vision before her eyes melted into a vast emptiness, causing her very being to relax. She felt transported in time.

  At first Anna thought it was the pilot trying to make himself heard over the whine of the propellers. But like clouds that pull apart in the sky, the sounds became clearer and very distinct. Anna heard a calm and gentle voice at the funeral, softly reading the words Beth had written in her final days:

  Thank you, my loving husband, my beautiful daughters, my devoted friends, for giving me such a blessed life. I have tried to leave some part of me for each and all of you. Recently I have been reflecting on my life, and I have realized that if I had the chance to go back in time and alter the course of my existence, I wouldn’t change anything. I have lived a happy life and I have lived it to the fullest. As odd as it sounds, this cancer has brought me to an awareness that perhaps I would not have acquired without it. And it is with this knowledge that I say my legacy for each of you is to remember to live in the moment….

  As Beth’s words faded from her consciousness, Anna realized she was looking down, through tears, on the island’s distinguishing aerial landmark, Oyster Pond. It wasn’t long before Anna, like the small plane, once again touched the ground. As the plane rolled down the runway, Anna stared at the rickety, weather-beaten terminal, her mind numb. She would have sat there all afternoon, transfixed upon the small, faded wooden building, if not for the gentle tap on her shoulder. “It’s time to go,” she heard over her shoulder. With a slight shudder, she came out of her reverie, made a feeble attempt to smile at the man, and gathered her things.

  Some find the antiquated building that serves as the terminal for the Martha’s Vineyard Airport charming. It was so ramshackle, with a baggage “system” so simple, that Anna usually found herself chuckling as she collected her bags. No laughter today, however. Anna scanned the parking lot filled with vans and Jeeps, anxiously looking for a familiar face. She felt another tap on her shoulder, and turned as the man from the plane asked her if she needed help with her bag. Just before answering, she spotted the silver-blue four-wheel-drive with Patrick’s friendly face grinning out at her. Anna managed a weak smile for the stranger, shook her head, and slowly walked toward the Explorer. Patrick, the caretaker for the house where she’d be staying, helped her stow her bags. Few words beyond the perfunctory greeting were exchanged between them as they headed west for the short drive to Tisbury.

  Martha’s Vineyard bustled with tons of vacationers each summer, but, in the off-season, the island was a beautiful, quiet haven for those looking to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Anna couldn’t think of a better place to be at this moment in her life. She had fallen in love with the island the first time the ferry had dropped Beth and her in the little town of Vineyard Haven the June after they had graduated from college. That was the first time this duo from the tidewaters of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay had visited the rocky shores of Cape Cod. The idea had been proposed by Rebecca, Becky as nearly everyone called her, a good friend from college. She had met them at the bottom of Water Street with Michael, her boyfriend turned fiancé, by her side. They had a great time, that week back in 1970. Somehow, during those seven days, they remembered only the good things that happened during their four turbulent years at the University of Maryland. For that one week, no one talked about the war in Vietnam, its stupidity or horror. No one brought up the recent political skirmish, turned tragedy, at Kent State, which had cast a pall over the already shaky graduation ceremony at their school, and across the nation.

  They had stayed in a rooming house, later to become a bed-and-breakfast, sharing a bathroom and shower down a long and crooked hall. They’d bicycled all over the island, discovering its nooks and hideaways, delighting in the natural charm. Anna in particular relished the daily routine of eating breakfast in the quaint whaling village, spending all morning on the beach, then cycling along the many remote country roads in the afternoon.

  Years later, after everyone in their college crowd had established good careers, they could afford annual reunions on the island each June. Becky and Michael had built a summer home there in Tisbury, near Lake Tashmoo, in 1991. The get-togethers had lasted only three summers, however, before they were permanently interrupted by the cancers that began to take friends one by one.

  As she sat quietly in the Explorer, Anna stared at the starkness of the terrain. She remembered that wonderful week from so long ago, a week that marked a major transition in all of their lives. Anna fidgeted with her gloves as her mind tried desperately to grasp all that had changed since then. The war and Kent State were now history. Cancer, not guns, was now slaying her generation.

  Anna hadn’t been to the island since she and Beth had impulsively hopped the ferry one October morning a year ago, and ended up staying a week. When Beth’s cancer had returned she’d reluctantly agreed to put herself through another six weeks of chemo. Once her treatment was completed, Beth felt like getting away, so she and Anna had headed to the island and settled in at Becky’s house for what turned out to be Beth’s last stay on the Vineyard.

  Lost in thought, Anna was now oblivious to the barren late autumn landscape as Patrick navigated west on the road to Tisbury. Before she knew it, they were turning onto Lambert’s Cove Road, and it seemed as if the tall trees were closing in on her. It was midafternoon, only a hint of sunlight was left, and the woods were eerily quiet. Their tires crunched somewhat forebodingly on the hardened dirt road, alerting Anna that they had reached the house. Patrick opened the kitchen door, politely asked her if she needed anything else, and then quietly departed.

  The house looked and smelled as it had a year ago. Anna felt as if she had never left; she almost expected Beth to come bounding through the kitchen to greet her, but there was only silence. Anna sighed deeply, ambling over to the counter to smell the fresh flowers and read the accompanying note from Becky:

  Hope the weekend alone is really what you need. Patrick has taken care of everything, including stocking the fridge. We’re only a phone call away. We love you!

  Becky & Michael.

  God, I hate that we stuff, Anna mumbled aloud. Michael can barely stand to be in the same room with me, let alone love me.

  Becky and Michael had been part of the crowd forever. A couple since their early college years, they had married the September after graduation. Anna found Michael to be both superficial and pretentious, yet his boring consistency and cluelessness about anything real kept her intrigued.

  Following his medical training, Michael had established a very successful practice as a cardio-thoracic surgeon in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The practice, like its location, was among the most affluent in the nation. When their group got together, Michael never let an opportunity go by without making some deprecating comment about psychologists for Anna’s benefit. Little did he know that his arrogance and insecurity were the catalyst for her first book, You Are Your Own Worst Enemy.

  Like her husband, Becky was very bright and quite business savvy, but she also possessed an innate sensitivity that served to temper Michael’s brashness and worked to sustain these relationships of so many years. Anna was continually amazed at how Becky managed to juggle the elements of her life. Between handling a man as high maintenance as Michael and the social demands he placed upon her, she had developed a very successful interior design company in the twenty years since graduate school.

  Although they lived totally different lifestyles and had grown somewhat apart over the years, Anna and Becky had remained friends. Anna had long ago given up trying to understand the relationship. She did know that she truly cared about Becky even though she found Michael irritating and almost amusingly obnoxious.

  Anna opened the refrigerator and smiled faintl
y. Becky was right. Everything she could possibly want or need for two days was there, even capers—a new, unopened bottle of capers! These brought back a rush of more memories; tears welled again in Anna’s eyes.

  “Chris, I think I’m falling apart,” Anna confided to Christopher Hayden, her closest colleague and good friend, the Wednesday before she left for the Vineyard.

  “Anna, you are not falling apart, you have fallen,” replied Chris. “I’ll be down in twenty minutes, as soon as I get through this pile on my desk.”

  Normally she would have ripped into him for such a remark, but not today, not this time. He was right, and she knew it. Wonderful, exasperating, and competent Chris, her friend for more than twenty years, was a management consultant and confidant to more than a few CEOs.

  Anna and Chris had grown up together professionally, yet their connection went much deeper. She was the one who had encouraged, if not shamed, him first into leaving his coaching job at the local high school, and later into breaking away from his comfy executive VP spot at AT&T, to launch his now successful consulting firm. Chris was known nationally in corporate circles as “the Coach.” He was the one who had harassed her into writing her first book and had prodded her to do the second, Get a Grip! Quit Whining, and Take Charge of Your Life. They had offices in the same building overlooking Flagler Drive, next door to Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach. The view from their windows was spectacular. The sparkling waters of the Intracoastal divided two worlds; those who worked for a living on the mainland looking over at those who lunched in Palm Beach. Yachts, sailboats, pelicans, and seagulls separated the strivers of the city from the rich in their mansions. Just up the street from their offices was the radio station where Anna broadcast her live show, Get a Grip! She had now hosted the popular call-in program for three years. It had been developed at Chris’s urging, following the success of that second book.