The Last Letter (Page 69)

Had it been Colt for Emma?

Or had I prayed too hard the last couple of years and accidentally traded Colt for Maisie with my desperate pleas for her to live?

The line of mourners began coming our way, wanting to express their sorrow. Why would I want to hear how much they missed him? I could barely breathe through my own pain, trying to absorb Maisie’s, support Beckett’s. There just wasn’t any more room for anyone else’s grief.

“I can’t,” I told Beckett.

“Okay, I can handle this,” he said and walked me over to the small bench we’d added to the island when Ryan had died. Maisie sat next to me as Beckett and Ada took the line, and Larry ushered them to the small rowboats we’d hired to take them back to shore.

“Now I’m like you, Mom.”

“How, baby?”

Her eyes stayed locked on Colt. “We both have brothers out here.”

Another wave of grief came for me, dragging me under waves so thick I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see my way to the surface. How did anyone live through losing a child? Why didn’t the pain simply stop my heart as it constantly threatened and send me with him?

Maisie’s hand found mine, and air trickled into my lungs.

“We do.” I finally found the strength to answer her.

“Beckett matches us, too.” She turned her attention to where Beckett was nodding and shaking hands with the last of the line. “Both his best friends are here.”

I swallowed for the thousandth time, trying to dislodge the permanent lump in my throat as I watched him. He stood strong and steady, handling what I couldn’t, even though his grief matched mine. He was simply that strong.

Soon it was just Beckett, Maisie, and me sitting on the bench, facing the house Beckett had built for us.

“Are you ready?” Beckett asked. “We can stay as long as you like.”

I couldn’t bear to watch them pour dirt over my little boy, to block out the sunlight on his face. It felt too final, too wrong. “Yeah, let’s go.”

We walked past where the workers were adjusting Colt, and I stopped at Ryan’s headstone, putting my hand on the smooth granite surface. “He’s with you, now. And I know you never really wanted to be a parent, but you have to be, just for a little while. Until we get there. Make sure he plays. Teach him everything, anything he wants to know. Hug him, and love him, and then let him shine. He’s yours for a little while.”

My vision blurred, and Beckett took my arm. I turned to see Maisie kneeling at the edge of Colt’s grave, her shoulders shaking. I moved forward, but Beckett stopped me. “Give her a second.”

I heard it then, her little voice talking to him. I couldn’t make out the words but knew it was just for the two of them, like so much had been while he was alive. Beckett stood silent, supporting me until Maisie was ready.

How do you say goodbye to the person who shared your soul? Who had been with you through every heartbeat of your life?

She stood up, tall and sure, then turned to us with a sad smile. Then, she wiped her eyes and stopped crying. “He’s okay now. We both are.”

And somehow I knew she meant it. She’d found her peace with the certainty that only a child could have.

It felt like a blink, but we were back in the house. Ada had organized the reception in the main house, so mine was quiet and empty, which was exactly what I needed.

I sent Beckett up to the house with Maisie, and simply sat, trying just to be. Havoc lay at my side, curling her head in my lap as I forced air through my lungs, concentrating on the simple mechanisms of living.

There was a knock at the door, and then Captain Donahue entered. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling, nor will I pretend to know.” He stood in front of me and then dropped to my eye level. So much like Beckett. “I know this might not be the time, but we’re shipping out, and I don’t know when I’ll get back to Telluride. So this is for you.”

He handed me a white envelope with Beckett’s handwriting on it. It was addressed to me.

“What is this?” I asked, peeling back the paper.

“Don’t read it yet. Now isn’t the time. Some of the guys asked me to keep their last letters. I kept Mac’s for Gentry, and I kept Gentry’s for you.”

“For me?”

He nodded. “I’m leaving it with you in case you start to feel lost or forget how much he loves you. Like I said, not for now. But for someday.”

He left, but I didn’t remember the act of him leaving, or anyone else returning. The steady rhythm of my breathing was all I could concentrate on, counting to ten over and over, trying to live through the pain. I sat there, drank the water that was handed to me, ate the food that was prepared, and faked a smile when Maisie said it was time for bed.

I pulled myself together enough to tuck her in. I brushed her hair behind her ear with my fingers and put my hand over her chest as she drifted off, the day taking its toll on her tiny body. The beat of her heart gave strength to mine, the knowledge that she was still here because I’d fought like hell to keep her alive.

But God hadn’t given me that chance with Colt.

I found Beckett in the hallway, leaning in the doorway of Colt’s room.

“It’s like some kind of cruel joke,” I said, startling Beckett. “Like this isn’t real.”

He turned back toward me. “I keep expecting to find him in here. Like I can tell Havoc to seek him, and he’ll pop out from wherever he’s hiding.”

I nodded, my words failing me.

“Let’s walk,” he suggested.

I didn’t object as we walked outside, the fresh air stinging my raw, salt-wounded cheeks. Across the water, my son lay next to my brother, and I still couldn’t grasp the reality of it all. The fog that had surrounded my brain since the fall began to clear with the breeze off the lake, leaving room for other emotions for the first time in days.

This. Wasn’t. Fair. None of it. Colt deserved better.

“I fought so hard for Maisie,” I said, bracing my hands on the wooden banister of my deck. “I kept saying that she needed me, and that Colt would be okay, but Maisie was dying. How damn stupid was that?” My voice broke.

Beckett leaned back against the railing and listened, like he knew I wasn’t looking for a response.

“All of those treatments, and trips, and hospital stays, just trying to keep her alive from the monster inside her. All that fear, and joy when she went into remission. All of those emotions…and then this happens. He falls only a few miles from our house and dies before I can even say goodbye to him.”

His hand covered mine on the railing.

“Why didn’t I get the chance to fight for him? I should have had the chance. Where were his doctors? His treatments? Where were his binder and his timeline? Where the hell was I? Did I trade his life for hers? Is that what happened?”

“No.”

“That’s what it feels like. Like every worst nightmare I had about Maisie, preparing to lose her, just came true with Colt, but it’s worse than anything I could have imagined. I’ve spent two years battling for Maisie’s life, while making sure I made every moment special because it could be her last. I was so busy staring down the freight train headed for Maisie that I lost sight of Colt, and now he’s lost. I lost him.”

“He knew you loved him,” Beckett said softly.

“Did he? I keep playing that morning over in my mind. We were in such a rush, and I hugged him—I remember that—but I don’t think I told him that I loved him. He ran off so fast, and I didn’t think anything of it. I thought I’d see him later. Why didn’t I stop him? Why didn’t we sleep in later? He would have missed the bus. Why didn’t I hug him longer? It was so fast, Beckett. All of it. His whole life went by so fast, and I forgot to tell him I loved him.”

“He knew.”

I shook my head. “No. I missed his plays, and games, and projects, and months of his life because I chose Maisie, and he knew it. I always chose Maisie because I didn’t know that he’d be the one to go. What kind of mother does that? Chooses one child over the other constantly?”

“If you hadn’t, we’d be burying two children right now. Ella, this isn’t your fault. You didn’t trade Colt for Maisie. You didn’t bargain him away, didn’t lose him because you fought like hell for her. This was an act of…I don’t even know. It was an accident.”

“There’s no reason! None. No war to fight, no way to battle what just happened. It was over before I knew it even began. I couldn’t fight for him. I would have, Beckett. I would have fought.”

Beckett wiped the tears I hadn’t felt. “I know you would have. I’ve never met a woman who fights like you do. And I know it doesn’t help you, but I fought. I did everything I could think of, and when that wasn’t enough, I lay down and held him for the both of us. He was not alone. You did not abandon him. You never abandoned him. Not during Maisie’s illness, and not the day of the field trip.”

The pain overwhelmed my system. I couldn’t imagine it ever lessening, or living with it day after day.

“I don’t know how to breathe. How to get up tomorrow.”

He wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on top of my head. “We figure it out together. And if you can’t breathe, I’ll do it for you. One morning at a time. Minute by minute if we have to.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because a very wise woman told me once that you can’t reason with the universe, no matter how sound your logic is. And that we can either breathe through the pain or we can let it shape us. So I’m sure that we’ll take it breath by breath until the ache lessens just a tiny bit.”

“It’s never going to go away.”

“No. I’m going to miss him every single day. Maybe we lost a little of our sunshine, but Maisie’s here, and it might not be as bright without Colt, but it’s not entirely dark, either.”

He was right. I knew it in my head, but my heart still couldn’t seem to see past the next five minutes.