The Guardian(21)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

“I know it doesn’t change what you told me on the porch, but I didn’t want us to end with a fight. I enjoyed the time we spent too much for that.”

He cleared his throat and pressed his fingers against the lids of his eyes. “It just seemed so sudden, you know? I wasn’t prepared for what you told me.” He sighed. “Hell, I wasn’t prepared for much of anything. You can’t imagine what it was like up there. Everything . . . the way she looked at the end, what the nurses were saying, the way it smelled . . .”

Both hands went to his face and she heard his ragged breath, a series of quick intakes followed by a long exhale.

“I just needed to talk to someone. Someone I knew would listen.”

Oh . . . boy, Julie thought. Could this have possibly been any worse?

She forced a wan smile.

“We can talk,” she said. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

The Guardian

Richard rambled on for a couple of hours, bouncing from subject to subject: his memories of his mother, what he was thinking when he first walked into the hospital room, how it felt the following morning to know he was holding her hand for the last time. After he’d been talking for a while, Julie offered him a beer; as the evening went on, he finished three without seeming to notice. Every now and then he’d pause and stare off to the side of the room, a dazed expression on his face, as if he’d forgotten what he was trying to say; other times he spoke as though he’d just downed a double espresso, the words running together. Throughout it all, Julie listened. She asked an occasional question when it seemed appropriate, but that was all. She saw tears more than once, but when they welled up, Richard would pinch the bridge of his nose to stop them.

Midnight came and went. The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece rolled past one, then began edging toward two. By then, the beer and emotional exhaustion had taken their toll. Richard had begun to repeat himself, and his words had begun to slur. When Julie went to the kitchen for a glass of water for herself, she noticed that Richard’s eyes had closed. Wedged into the corner of the couch, his head was angled against the back cushion, his mouth open. His breaths were coming in steady rhythm.

Holding the glass of water, she stood in place, thinking, Oh, this is just great. So what do I do now?

She wanted to wake him but didn’t think he was sober enough to drive. She wasn’t comfortable having him stay, but then again, he was already asleep, and if she woke him again, he might want to talk some more. Despite her willingness to listen if he needed her to, she was exhausted.

“Richard,” she whispered. “You awake?”

Nothing.

A moment later, she tried again with the same result. She figured she could shout or nudge him awake, but considering the options, it seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

It’s no big deal, she finally decided, he’s out.

Julie turned out the lights and, leaving him where he was, headed back into the bedroom, closing and locking the door behind her. Singer was on the bed. He raised his head, watching as she slipped into her pajamas.

“It’s only for tonight,” she explained, as if trying to convince herself she was doing the right thing. “It’s not like I’m changing my mind. It’s just that I’m tired, you know?”

The Guardian

Julie woke at dawn, and after peeking at the clock, she groaned and rolled over, trying to ward off the day. She was sluggish and felt as if she were suffering from a hangover.

After crawling out of bed, she cracked open the door to peek out; Richard still appeared to be sleeping. She hopped into the shower and dressed for work; she didn’t want him to see her in her pajamas. By the time she entered the living room-with Singer moving warily beside her-Richard was sitting up on the couch, rubbing his face. His keys were perched on top of his wallet on the table in front of him.

“Oh, hey,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I guess I conked out, huh? I’m sorry about that.”

“It was a long day,” she said.

“Yeah, it was,” he responded. He took a moment to reach for his wallet as he stood. A brief smile flickered across his face. “Thanks for letting me stay last night. I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” she said. “You gonna be okay?”

“I guess I have to be. Life goes on, right?”

His shirt was wrinkled, and he brushed at it with his hands. “I’m sorry again for the way I acted last night,” he added. “I don’t know what got into me.”

Julie’s hair hadn’t dried completely, and she felt a drip of water soak through the fabric of her blouse.

“It’s okay,” she said. “And I know it must seem like it came out of the blue, but . . .”

He shook his head. “No-it’s fine. You don’t have to explain-I understand. Mike seems like a nice guy.”

She hesitated. “He is,” she finally said, “but thank you.”

“I want you to be happy. That’s all I ever wanted. You’re a great person, and you deserve that. Especially after listening to me drone on last night. You have no idea how much that meant to me. No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings,” she repeated.

“Still friends?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Thanks.” Then, after a beat, he picked up his keys and started toward the door. Opening it, he looked over his shoulder.

“Mike’s a lucky guy,” he called out. “Don’t forget that.” He smiled, but it carried with it a trace of melancholy. “Good-bye, Julie.”

When he finally got in the car, Julie felt herself exhale, thankful that it had gone a lot better than she’d thought it would. Then, frowning, she changed her mind. Well, better than last night, anyway. Anything was better than that.

But at least it’s over now.

Eighteen

The Guardian

Inside the rented Victorian, Richard made his way up the stairs to the corner room. He’d painted the walls black and covered the windows with duct tape and a light-blocking tarp; a red light dangled over a makeshift table along the far wall. His photography equipment was in the corner: four different cameras, a dozen lenses, boxes of film. He turned on the lamp and angled the shade so the light could fan out better.

Near the shallow containers of chemicals he used to develop the film was a stack of photographs that he’d taken on his date with Julie, and he reached for them.

He thumbed through the images, pausing every now and then to stare at her. She’d looked happy that weekend, he thought, as if she’d known her life had suddenly changed for the better. And lovely, too. In studying her expressions, he couldn’t find anything to explain what had happened last night.

He shook his head. No, he wouldn’t hold her mistake against her. Anyone who could move from anger to empathy as effortlessly as she had was a treasure, and he was lucky to have found her.

He knew quite a bit about Julie Barenson now. Her mother was a drunk with a preference for vodka who lived in a ramshackle trailer on the outskirts of Daytona. Her father was currently in Minnesota, living with another woman and surviving on a disability check for a mishap that had occurred while working construction. They’d been married two years before he’d left town suddenly; Julie was three years old at the time. Six different men had lived with Julie and her mother at one time or another, the shortest for a month, the longest for two years. Moved half a dozen times, always from one dump to the next.

A different school every other year until high school. First boyfriend at fourteen; he played football and basketball, and a picture of them together had made the yearbook. Appeared as a minor character in two school plays. Dropped out before graduation and vanished for a few months before coming here.

He had no idea what Jim had done to entice her to a place like Swansboro.

Happy marriage, bland husband. Nice, but bland.

He’d also learned about Mike from one of the locals after he’d met him at the Clipper. Amazing how buying a few drinks at a bar can accomplish so much.

Mike was in love with Julie, but Richard had already known that. He hadn’t known about the demise of his previous relationship, however, and Sarah’s infidelity had intrigued him. He remembered nodding as he’d considered the possibilities that had suddenly opened up.

He’d also learned that Mike had been best man at Julie’s wedding, and their relationship began to make sense to him. Mike was comfortable, a link to her past, a link to Jim. He understood Julie’s desire to hold on to that, to pull away from anything that might take that away. But it was a desire born of fear-fear of ending up like her mother, fear of losing everything for which she’d worked so hard, fear of the unknown. He wasn’t surprised that Singer slept in the room with her, and he suspected that she’d locked her bedroom door as well.

So careful, he thought. It was probably something she’d been doing even as a child, considering the men her mother had brought home. But there was no reason to live that way. Not anymore. She could move forward, as he had.

Their childhoods probably weren’t that different after all. The drinking. The beatings. The cockroach-infested kitchen. The smell of mold and rotting drywall. The soupy well water from the tap that made him sick to his stomach. His only escape had been through the photographs in books by Ansel Adams, photographs that seemed to whisper of other places, better places. He’d discovered the books in the school library, and he’d spent long hours studying them, losing himself in the surreally beautiful landscapes. His mother had noticed his interest, and though Christmas was usually a dismal affair, she’d somehow persuaded his father to spend money on a small camera and two boxes of film when Richard was ten years old. It was the only time in his life that he could remember shedding tears of happiness.

He spent hours photographing items in the house or birds in the backyard. He took pictures at dusk and dawn because he liked the light at those hours; he became adept at moving silently, obtaining close-ups that seemed impossible. When he finished a roll of film, he would run inside and beg his father to have them developed. When the photos were ready, he would stare at them in his bedroom, trying to assess what he’d done right or wrong.

In the beginning, his father seemed amused at his interest and even glanced through the first couple of rolls. Then the comments started. “Oh, look, another bird,” he’d say sarcastically, and, “Gee, here’s another one.” Eventually he began to resent the money being spent on his son’s new hobby. “You’re just pissing it away, aren’t you?” he’d snarl, but instead of suggesting that Richard do some chores around the neighborhood to pay for the developing himself, his father decided to teach him a lesson.

He’d been drinking again that night, and both Richard and his mother were trying to stay out of his way, doing their best not to be noticed. As Richard sat in the kitchen, he could hear his father ranting as he watched a football game on television. He’d bet on his favorite team-the Patriots-but had lost, and Richard heard his father’s anger as he pounded down the hall. A moment later his father walked into the kitchen with the camera, and he set it on the table. In his other hand was a hammer. After making sure he had his son’s attention, he smashed the camera with a single swing.

“I work all week to make a living and all you want to do is piss it away! Now we won’t have this problem anymore!”

Later that year, his father died. The memories of that event were vivid as well: the cut of morning sunlight on the kitchen table, the vacant look on his mother’s face, the steady drip of the faucet as the hours rolled toward afternoon. The officers spoke in hushed tones as they came and went; the coroner examined and removed the body.

And then, the wailing of his mother, once they were finally alone. “What will we do without him?” she sobbed, shaking him by the shoulders. “How could this have happened?”

This was how: His father had been drinking at O’Brien’s, a dingy bar in Boston not far from their home. According to people at the bar, he’d played one game of pool and lost, then sat at the bar the rest of the night, drinking boilermakers. He’d been laid off at the plant two months earlier and had been spending most nights there, an angry man looking for pity and solace in the company of alcoholics.

By that time, Vernon was beating both of them regularly, and the night before he’d been particularly brutal.

He left the bar a little past ten, stopped at the corner market for a pack of cigarettes, and drove past the houses in the blue-collar neighborhood where he lived. A neighbor who was walking his dog saw him as he was nearing home. The garage had been left open, and Vernon pulled the car into the small space. Boxes were piled against both walls.

This was where the speculation began, however. That he had closed the garage door, there was no doubt, evidenced by the high levels of carbon monoxide. But why, the coroner wondered, hadn’t he turned the engine off first? And why did he get back into the car after closing the garage door? For all intents and purposes, it looked like a suicide, though his friends at O’Brien’s insisted there wasn’t a chance he would have done something like that. He was a fighter, not a quitter, they said. He wouldn’t have killed himself.

The officers came back to the house two days later, asking open-ended questions and looking for answers. The mother wailed incoherently; the ten-year-old offered only his steady gaze. By then, the bruises on the faces of the mother and son had begun to green at the edges, giving them both a haunted appearance. The officers left with nothing.

In the end, it was ruled an accident, and the death was attributed to alcohol.

A dozen people attended the funeral. His mother wore black and cried into a white handkerchief as he stood beside her. Three people spoke at the graveside, offering kind words for a man who was momentarily down on his luck but was otherwise a good human being, a steady provider, a loving husband and father.