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“So,” she said after a beat or two, when the awfulness of the silence became more unbearable than the intimacy of that last topic, “maybe after lunch you can show me how to paddleboard before I drown myself—”
“The thing is,” he said, keeping his face resolutely turned in the other direction, “if you have any more advice for me, now would be a good time to share it.”
Was this a safer topic? It didn’t feel safer, especially with his voice still in that husky range that twisted her up inside.
Lightening the mood with a joke or two probably wouldn’t work, but what other defense mechanisms did she have available to stop this man from burrowing his way straight to her heart?
“Advice? I’m happy to offer an opinion on anything from your shoe selection to animal husbandry.”
“Great. Then tell me how to get past the last several months.”
“‘Get past’?” she echoed faintly.
Just as she was beginning to feel grateful that he couldn’t see her face while she wrestled with her unruly thoughts, he looked at her again, nailing her with an expression so lost and bleak that he might have been the sole survivor of the apocalypse.
“Yeah. I’d like to do some forgetting. I’d like to stop being afraid. I’d like to stop feeling like death is all around me, just waiting to pounce on me or someone who’s important to me. What’s your advice on that, Talia? How do I do it? How do I live a regular life? What if I never can?”
Never before had she felt like such an abject failure. Even her good friend sarcasm couldn’t get her out of this one. “I don’t know, Tony,” she said helplessly.
“Give me something, Talia.”
God. If only he knew what he was asking of her.
“Right now, all I can think of is this quote by Publilius Syrus—”
“The Roman writer?”
“Well, he was from Assyria originally, but yeah. He said, ‘I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.’ So I should probably keep my mouth shut.”
Tony snorted and shook his head. “Has he got anything else?”
“Yeah. ‘Many receive advice, few profit by it.’”
His lips thinned. “This guy is batting zero with me, frankly.”
“I warned you. I wanted to keep quiet, but no.”
She hesitated, buying time and thinking hard. If he had any idea how uniquely unqualified she was to offer advice on the subject of living a normal and fear-free life, he’d probably bust a gut laughing.
Well, if she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound, right?
“He also said, ‘The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.’”
“Yeah,” he muttered, “but I’m betting he was alive when he said it, so how the hell would he know? Maybe we should switch philosophers.”
“Fine. I have one from that great sage, Charles M. Schultz.”
“The writer of the Charlie Brown comic strip? Hit me.”
“He said, ‘I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.’ But for you, I’d modify that to one hour at a time. How’s that?”
Tony’s brow contracted. His unfocused gaze drifted off again, toward the waves, and he mouthed one hour at a time to himself. Then he rested his elbows on his knees, and she got a quick glimpse of his scrunched face before he slowly lowered it into his hands. She watched, heart sinking, as his shoulders heaved.
Oh, no.
“Tony,” she said, squeezing his forearm in a lame offer of support.
His head came up. To her surprise, there was a new light in his eyes now, and she went so far as to think he looked…relieved. Hopeful, even.
“One hour at a time,” he repeated. “I can do that. I can get through one hour at a time.”
“I know you can, Tony. I have complete faith in you.”
“I don’t know why you would, but…thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I don’t know why I got on that topic. I just needed to tell you how much your letters meant to me, I guess.”
Her mouth opened, and out came another of the mixed messages he’d accused her of sending his way. “They meant a lot to me, too.”
