Six days later, he passed away.
Hundreds of people attended the funeral, and afterward everyone made their way to the house. When they left later that evening, the house went quiet, as though it had died as well. Hope knew that people reacted to stress and grief in different ways, but she found herself shocked by her mom’s downward spiral, which was furious in its intensity and seemingly unstoppable. Her mom fell into bitter fits of unpredictable weeping and started drinking heavily. She stopped tidying up and left dirty clothes strewn about the floors. Dust coated the shelves, and dishes would sit on the counters until Hope came by to clean. Food spoiled in the refrigerator and the television blared nonstop. Then her mom began to complain of various ailments: sensitivity to light, aching joints, waves of pain in her stomach, and difficulty swallowing. Whenever Hope went to visit, she found her fidgety and often unable to complete her thoughts. Other times, she would retreat to her darkened bedroom and lock the door. The silence behind the door was often more unnerving than her fits of weeping.
The passage of time made things worse, not better. Her mom eventually became as housebound as her dad once had been. She left the house only to go to the doctor’s office, and four years after her husband’s funeral, she was scheduled for a hernia operation. The surgery was considered a minor one, and by all accounts, it went well. The hernia was repaired, and her mother’s vitals had remained stable throughout the procedure. In post-op, however, her mother never woke from the anesthesia. She died two days later.
Hope knew the physician, the anesthesiologist, and the nurses. All had taken part in other operations that same day, both before and after Hope’s mother’s, with no other patients suffering adverse consequences. Hope had spent enough time in the medical world to know that bad things sometimes happened and there wasn’t always an easy explanation; part of her wondered whether her mom had simply wanted to die and somehow succeeded.
The following week passed in a blur. Dazed, she remembered little about the wake or the funeral. In the weeks that followed, neither she nor her sisters had the emotional reserves necessary to start going through their mother’s belongings. Instead, Hope would sometimes wander the home where she’d grown up, unable to grasp the idea of living without parents. Even though she was an adult, it would take years for her to stop thinking she could pick up the phone and call either one of them.
The loss and melancholy faded slowly, eventually displaced by fonder memories. She would recall the vacations they’d taken as a family and the walks she’d enjoyed with her father. She remembered dinners and birthday parties and cross-country meets and school projects with her mom. Her favorite memories were of her parents as a couple, recalling the way they used to flirt when they thought the kids weren’t looking. But the smile would often fade as quickly as it had come, for it would make her think of Tru as well, and the opportunity she’d lost for the two of them to make a life together.
Back at the cottage, Hope took a few minutes to warm her hands over one of the burners on the stove. Way too cold for October, she thought. Knowing the temperature would drop further as soon as the sun went down, she considered using the fireplace—gas lines, with gas logs, so a flip of a switch was all it took to light it—but decided instead to raise the thermostat and make herself a cup of hot chocolate. As a child, she’d liked nothing better when she was chilled, but she’d stopped drinking it around the time she became a teenager. Too many calories, she’d worried back then. These days, she no longer cared about such things.
It reminded her of her age, something she’d rather not think about. Fair or not, they lived in a society that placed an emphasis on youth and beauty when it came to women. She liked to think she didn’t look her age, but also admitted that she might be fooling herself.
She supposed it really didn’t matter. She’d come to the beach for more important reasons. Sipping her hot chocolate, she watched the play of fading sunlight on the water as she reflected on the last twenty-four years. Had Josh ever sensed that she had feelings for another man? As hard as she’d tried to hide it, she wondered whether her secret love for another had in some way undermined her marriage. Had Josh ever intuited that when they were in bed together, Hope sometimes fantasized about Tru? Had he sensed that part of her would always be closed off to him?
She didn’t want to think so, but could it have been a factor in his numerous affairs? Not that she was willing to take all the blame, or even most of it, for what he’d done. Josh was an adult and fully in control of his behaviors, but what if…?
The questions had plagued her ever since she’d learned of his first affair. She’d known all along she hadn’t committed fully to him, just as she now knew that the marriage had been doomed from the instant she’d accepted his proposal. She tried to make up for it with friendship these days, even if she had no desire to rekindle anything between them. In her mind, it was a way to make amends, or atone, even if Josh might never really understand.
She would never confess her guilt to him—she never wanted to hurt anyone again, ever. But no confession meant no chance at forgiveness. She accepted that, just as she accepted the guilt for other wrongs she’d committed in her life. In quiet times, she’d tell herself that most of them would be considered minor when compared to the secret she’d kept from her husband, but there was one that continued to haunt her.
It was the reason she’d come to the beach, and the mirror image of the two great wrongs in her life struck her as both ironic and profound.
To Josh, she’d said nothing about Tru in the hope of sparing his feelings.
To Tru, she’d told the truth about Josh, even while knowing the words would break his heart.
THE BOX
Hope woke to the sight of a sky the color of robins’ eggs, peeking through gauzy white curtains. Glancing out the window, she saw that the sun made the beach glow almost white. It was going to be a gorgeous day, except for the temperature. A cold front pushing down from the Ohio Valley was expected to last for a few more days, with gusty winds that would likely steal her breath as she walked the beach. In the past few years, she had begun to understand why Florida and Arizona were such popular retirement destinations.
Stretching her stiff legs, she got up and started some coffee, then showered and dressed. Though she wasn’t hungry, she fried an egg for breakfast and forced herself to eat it. Then, putting on her jacket and gloves, she stepped onto the back porch with her second cup of coffee, watching the world slowly come to life.
There were few people on the beach: a man trailing behind a dog in the same way she used to follow Scottie, and a female jogger in the distance who’d left a trail of footprints near the water’s edge. The woman had a bouncy stride that kept her ponytail swinging to a lively beat, and as Hope watched, she remembered how much she used to enjoy running. She’d given up the sport when the kids were young, and for whatever reason never resumed. She thought now that it had been a mistake. Nowadays, her physical condition was a source of constant preoccupation—sometimes she longed for the heedless way in which she once took her body for granted. Age revealed so many things about oneself, she mused.
She took a sip of coffee, wondering how the day would unfold. She already felt on edge, even as she cautioned herself against getting her hopes up. Last year when she’d come to the beach, she’d been buoyed by the excitement of her plan, despite its unlikely odds of success. But last year had been the beginning and today it would end…answering once and for all the question of whether miracles really could happen.