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A strangled chuckle gets caught up in the net of nausea and guilt that’s trapped in my throat. He wanted to make a grand gesture. He wanted us to start our relationship with a bang because he thought that’s what I’d want, what I deserved. Did he not understand that I just wanted to hear from him, that a call would’ve been more than enough? If he’d given me that call, I’d have driven all the way to him instead, and none of this would’ve happened.
I falter as he mentions a therapist, rewinding my mind back to the vague mention of him only recently returning to work. I have a feeling they’re related, but it’s not like I can go in and ask him about it.
“She showed me who she is,” Rowan says softly, “pared back to the cluttered humanity inside. Part of me was only seeing the surface, and I’m glad she warned me of what I’d face if I chose her, but that’s not why I’m driving to her at four o’clock in the morning. I’m driving to her because she put Grace and Lyndsey before her own happiness, and because she had the courage to send me away. Still, I’m late.”
I hear the awful roar of the engine, and I know he’s putting his foot on the gas, trying to get to me quicker. If he hadn’t done that, if he’d just taken his time, I wonder if it might’ve changed anything. I can’t help thinking like that, running every detail under a microscope, as if hoping hard enough or understanding well enough can somehow alter the outcome. It’s a bad habit that no amount of ‘letting go’ will fix.
“I’m ready for whatever you throw at me, Summer,” Rowan tells me through the screen. “I’m ready for the flaws and all. It took me a minute, and you were right to give me space and time to consider what we’re getting into, but I’ve balanced the books and it’s all coming up good. You’re not going to scare me away. I’m coming to you, Summer, so you’d better be there when I pull up. If you’re not, it’ll be my turn to wait—after keeping you in suspense, it’s the least I can do, but this is going to be something incredible, Summer. This is going to be it, or as close to ‘it’ as a new relationship can be, and Icanpromise that. I’m ready, Summer, so please say you’ll ‘live big’ with me?
“I have the sneakers on, so I can use them as a prop. Corny? Maybe. Do I care? Not even a little bit. After all, these are some lucky sneakers. These are the sneakers that got us talking, and these are the sneakers that are going to keep us talking as I promise to stay by your side. Heck, bury me in them, so when they dig me up a thousand years from now, they’ll know that this was a guy who followed his motto and risked everything in the hope of finding the love of his life, damning the cons because that’s what his sneakers told him to do.”
A sob tears the insides of my lungs, burning my throat as it chokes from my mouth. I picture his sneakers and wonder where they are. They weren’t on his feet when I saw him, but they must be somewhere; theyhaveto be somewhere, because they were the start of us, and I don’t want this to be the end. I want to live big with him. I tell him so—the version who’s smiling nervously in the driver’s seat, on his way to the cottage, dreaming of the way he’s going to run to me and tell me that he’s in this for the long haul.
“I want to live big with you,” I gasp, shaking. “I want to love big with you, too.”
“Okay, I need to concentrate,” he insists, as if we’re on a video call and he needs to sleep, but I’m not ready to hang up yet.
His hand reaches for the phone, braced to turn it off, and I hear myself whisper, “No, Rowan. Don’t. Stay with me. Stay on the phone. Please, stay.”
“I’ll be with you soon, Summer,” he replies, like it’s really him, talking to me in real time. “You just hang on for a few more minutes. I mean, you’re probably asleep, so don’t hate me when I knock on your door.”
Just then, a blinding flame of light illuminates his face. He squints against the intensity, his brow furrowing in annoyance.
“Focus on the road,” I urge. “Grab the wheel and veer into the other lane. He’s coming right at you.”
“I’ve fallen for you, Summer,” Rowan carries on, oblivious, “and I hope that’s—”
An almighty jolt sends him flying backward into the seat, the phone juddering wildly. The scream of folding metal screeches through the phone and I hurry to stab the ‘stop’ button. I can’t hear what happens next, I can’t watch what happens next, not when I already know the outcome. It will kill me if I see him suffer, and I’m not twisted enough to watch the play-by-play of a man almost losing his life—though the “almost” is still hanging in the balance.
Two years ago, I desperately wished I could’ve been there at the end of Ben’s life, to hold his hand and kiss him one last time, but everyone told me it wouldn’t have done me any good. And watching just that snippet of the collision, I think I finally understand why.
Sweating and panting, I sit down cross-legged on the linoleum and put the trashcan in the dip between my folded legs. Wrapping an arm around the bin for security, I tap the screen and find myself staring at a long list of recordings. And though it goes against everything I believe about a right to privacy, I press play on the previous video.
“I’ve fucked it up,” Rowan tells me, as he sits at the bottom of the cottage garden, his face shadowed by nightfall. “In one whole day, I’ve managed to fuck it up.”
I don’t need the chapel or the cafeteria when I’ve got his voice, coming through the speakers like he’s right here in the waiting room with me, though judging by the long list of videos, I can agree with the nurse—I’m going to be here for a while.
* * *
“…She’sa widow. Her husband died—what, two years ago? And her husband was my niece’s father, and my sister’s ex. How’s that for a tangled web, huh? Ugh, I just need to go to bed. It’s probably the beer and champagne talking. So, yeah, it has been a good day, more or less. No heart attack yet. Check in tomorrow to hear the fresh ramblings of a madman.” I’ve made it all the way back to the first of Rowan’s videos, recorded on the night of Grace’s birthday party.
Exhausted and feeling like I’ve just had the behind-the-scenes tour of someplace that no one is supposed to see the inner workings of, I set down the phone. My sleeves are soaking wet from the tears I’ve shed, but the faucet seems to have run dry for now.
For as long as I’ve known him, pretty much, he’s been making these videos, but there are moments in a few of them where I can hear my voice in the background. He was recording when I accosted him at the bodega, and our entire conversation about Snapple and my terrible movie taste is on there. He even captured the moment I stole an apple, which I should probably delete in case it incriminates me. And though I had no idea he was making these videos, and they’re part of some therapy process he’s been working on, I’m not sorry that I watched them. How can I be, when it has cast this beautiful, vulnerable light on this man, making me love him even more?
There is one part that lingers in my mind, replaying over and over though I’ve set the phone down and turned it off, locking the stable door after the horse has already bolted.
“I guess Oscar understands, far more than me, what it’s like to compete against Ben’s ghost. Is that the key to it—to not compete at all, but to carve out your own space in the hearts of those who loved him?” Rowan had asked his phone
I replied, though he’s not here to hear me. “You’ve already begun to carve your space, Rowan. It’s a big space, too.” And in my mind, I imagined a fresh cypress board, as yet untouched, where we could commemorate when we fell for one another.
None of the medical staff have come back to give me any news, so I don’t know if that’s going to be possible, or if I’m just going to have another board that’s never going to be finished. And I pray I’m not going to be the crazy woman who has a collection of dead men’s words, stored like precious artifacts to be revisited when the grief hits. If Rowanismy second chance, and I believe he is, then let me have that gift.
Please, don’t take him away, too,I beg, certain that fate is still hovering around me somewhere, reveling in its cruel tricks and twists.
But, as I hear footsteps approaching, I wonder if fate has decided to cut me some slack after all.
At the doorway, the nurse appears, wearing a wide smile that surely can’t mean devastating news. “Mrs. DuCate, if you’ll come with me,” she says, beckoning. It takes me a minute to realize what she called me. It seems my cover has been blown, and I’m about to get kicked out of the ICU.
