Kissing the top of her head while trying to avoid mussing her hair, we stand in each other’s arms and stare out the window at our lighthouse, set amongst the cliffs.
“Someday, down the line, I’m going to marry you by that lighthouse. We’ll just renew our vows or something,” I tell her.
Lucy’s laughter rumbles against my chest and she tilts her head back to look up at me.
“Are we going to invite your mother? Because if we do, she might try to decorate the lighthouse and invite the entire town.”
I chuckle and shrug. “Maybe we can just keep it a secret and invite her five minutes before it begins. Let’s say… the fifteenth anniversary of the day I finally convinced you to date me. I’ll meet you at the lighthouse and you can become my wife again.”
Lucy nods her head, pushing up on her toes to kiss my chin. “It’s a date. I’ll meet you at the lighthouse.”
Just a few minutes holding Lucy and I already feel a thousand times better. I can still hear the faint hum of noise downstairs, but it doesn’t bother me. I hear a door slam and I don’t jump with anxiety. She makes everything better… She makes the world around me disappear until there’s just the two of us and she’s right, that’s all that matters.
I move back and grab her hands, pulling her towards the closet on the far side of the room.
“I have something for you. I snuck it in here this morning before you came up here to get ready,” I tell her as I lead us to the closet. “Close your eyes.”
She complies, standing beside me with a huge smile on her face.
“I thought we said we weren’t going to get each other wedding presents, Fisher. Marrying you is the only gift I need.”
I let go of her hands and open the door, reaching inside for the gift I made her.
“Yeah, well, I lied. Open your eyes.”
She slowly opens her eyes and they immediately fill with tears when she sees what I’m holding.
“I thought we could hang it next to the front door of our house,” I tell her.
I spent the last few weeks making a sign for her. It isn’t much and it’s definitely not the expensive pearls my mother insisted I buy for her, but I knew Lucy would much rather have a gift that came from the heart than anything I could buy.
“Oh, Fisher, it’s beautiful,” she tells me as she runs her hand over the oval sign.
I carved the words “The Fisher’s, EST. 2006” and beneath it, our lighthouse.
“I can’t wait to hang this up at the house. And I can’t wait to become Mrs. Fisher.”
Setting the sign down on the floor next to us, I pull her back into my arms.
“You make everything perfect, Lucy. You’re my light and my life and all I need is your love to guide me home, no matter where I go.”
Chapter 28
Fisher
Present Day
“Fisher, sit down before you pace a hole in the carpet.”
I stop walking and look over at Seth Michelson as he rocks back and forth in one of the chairs I made for his office during my stay here. In his mid-sixties with a full head of white hair, Seth is a Vietnam vet who’s spent his free time since retiring from a steel mill living in a suburb of Beaufort, South Carolina and volunteering at the local VA Hospital. I consider him a friend now, even though I hated him the first time I met him. He counsels vets at the rehab facility operated by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center where I spent the last year of my life. He’s not a certified therapist or anything, but he knows all about how hard it is to reacclimate to civilian life after being in a warzone. The VA tried pushing psychiatrists on me after Bobby dropped me off at the doors, his parting message a threat to kick my ass again if I didn’t get help and get my shit together. None of the white-coats they paraded into my room had ever been to war; they all just spouted facts and figures they’d read in books and urged me to lie down and discuss my feelings about my mother. After a few weeks of violent temper tantrums intensified by the effects of the alcohol detox, Seth walked in, took a seat on my bed and didn’t say a word. He sat there, lounging against my pillows until he got bored with the silence and pulled a book off of my nightstand and started reading it. It pissed me off so much that I started shouting at him. The shouting turned into another full-fledged hissy fit and I grabbed the book out of his hand and chucked it across the room. Still, he didn’t say a word. I kept screaming and he started examining his fingernails until my screams turned into muttered curses and then my muttered curses turned into talking. I talked and talked until my voice was hoarse and I exhausted myself, sliding down against the wall and crumpling to the floor. When I was finished, he got up from my bed, walked over to me, gave me a pat on the back and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll go for a walk.”
After that afternoon, I saw Seth every day of my stay at the rehab facility. He told me about what he’d seen in Vietnam and how he coped once he got home to his wife and newborn baby girl, but mostly, he listened. If I was having a bad day and took it out on him, he’d call me on my shit and tell me to quit my bitching. If I was feeling sorry for myself, he’d tell me to stop being a pussy and think about all the good things I’d been blessed with in my life. Seth was my savior during the darkest time in my life, and with all the conflicting thoughts going on in my head over the last week, I knew it was time to take the ferry over to the mainland and see him. I spent the last hour going over the events that had taken place since the last time I spoke to him, the day I left the hospital a little over a month ago.
“So, you’re freaking out that you hurt Lucy and pushed her away, ruining all of your plans of getting close to her again. Is that the gist of it?” Seth asks.
“Obviously, I hurt her. I shoved her face-first against the side of a fucking building and bit her neck. I lost control, Seth. After spending an entire year learning how to control my anger, I fucking lost it when I saw her kissing that dickhead she’s dating,” I explain, starting to pace again.
“I’m assuming she screamed at you? Told you to stop, pushed you away, smacked you, punched you, cursed you?” Seth asks. I can hear the amusement in his voice because he knows damn well that didn’t happen or I would have included it in my explanation.
“It all happened so fast. She didn’t have time to fight me, but I know she wanted to,” I tell him lamely, without any real conviction in my voice.
Seth laughs. “Really? Are you a mind reader now?”
“Fuck you,” I growl. “I know Lucy and I know that’s not something she would have wanted from me. I turned into a fucking animal and I’m sure she hates me now, even more than she did before. She’s got Mr. Perfect who probably wears white gloves when he touches her so he won’t get her dirty and then she’s got me who roughs her up in an alley.”
Seth gets up from the rocking chair and walks over to stand in front of me. “You spent thirteen months away from her, so it’s possible you don’t know her as well as you thought you did. Things change, people change. You don’t think what happened to you after your deployments changed her, as well? Changed something inside of her and made her a little stronger, a little more confident and taught her how to adapt?”
It’s Seth’s turn to pace and I watch him, listening to him speak. “My Mary Beth, she was a mousy little thing when I left for ‘Nam. Never raised her voice, never argued… She was one of those wives who was seen and not heard, just like her mother taught her. She was the calm to my storm and it worked, until I came home a little different than how I left and I was angry all the time. She fed off of my anger and we had some knock-down, drag-out fights in the middle of the kitchen, complete with her tossing plates and glasses at my head while I ranted and raved and raged. The next day, I’d get down on my knees and practically sob about how sorry I was and she’d just laugh and wrap her arms around me. She’d say, ‘Seth, fighting with you is the most fun I’ve had in years. If you need to let out some of your anger, I have no problem with you letting it out with me. But if you ever lay a hand on me in
something other than passion, I will grab the shotgun from the hall closet and shoot your sorry ass.’ ”
Seth chuckles and I can’t help but laugh right along with him. He stops pacing and looks at me again. “I hadn’t even realized that while I was going through all my shit and I was changing into a different person, Mary Beth was changing right along with me. She realized she quite liked a little drama and excitement, as long as neither one of us was being downright cruel or purposefully hurtful. It also spiced things up in the bedroom and that’s how we got three more kids.”
Seth winks at me and I roll my eyes at him, pretending disgust at the talk of his spicy bedroom.
“You’ve told me a lot about Lucy during your time here, and the one thing you have always stressed to me is that she’s strong. Stronger than anyone you know, including yourself, and that’s why you felt the need to send her those divorce papers,” Seth reminds me. “You didn’t want to bring her down to the level of weakness that you were feeling at the time. If she’s as strong as you say she is, don’t you think she would’ve said something if she didn’t want what you were doing to her? Don’t you think she would’ve kicked your ass if it pissed her off?”
Closing my eyes, I think about every moment in that alley, even though part of me wants to forget. I think about how her sweet ass pushed back against me and how she begged for more. I think about how fast she came and my name on her lips when she did. I remember the look on her face when I pushed her away and apologized and a light bulb goes off. She was definitely pissed then, and about two seconds away from kicking my ass, but it wasn’t because of what I’d done. It was because I regretted it. While I was wallowing in guilt because I thought I’d hurt her, she was angry because. . . shit.
Did my Lucy like it a little rough?
I shove down the thrill that thought brings me when my mind flashes back to the marks I left on her body the day I returned home from my last deployment and the way she wrapped her arms around her waist, almost like she was holding herself together, the night I forced her from our home. Every time I loosen up the grip on my emotions, Lucy is the one who suffers. I cannot lose control where she’s concerned.
“I don’t want to hurt her like I did the day I ended things. I’m so afraid of turning into that man again and lashing out at her. It’s better if I stay calm and not get overwhelmed with emotions and anger,” I tell him, walking over to the window to stare out at the street below.
Beaufort reminds me a lot of Fisher’s Island. There are no cars racing up and down the street or people rushing around to get where they’re going. Seth told me they’d deliberately chosen a small community, having had their fill of the hustle and bustle of the big city during his forty-year career at a Detroit steel mill. Up until I met Lucy, I thought that was what I wanted. To live in a big city where things actually happened, to get away from the island that was my personal hell, once upon a time. Ironically, it wasn’t nearly seven years in a sandbox in the Middle East that made me appreciate the beauty of my island. It was spending a year in a treatment facility less than fifty miles away, where I could still hear the sound of the ocean and smell the salt in the air, that gave me the strength to get better. There was nothing like being so close to everything I’ve ever wanted to provide the kick in the ass I needed to get my shit together and get my ass back to the island where I belonged, where things made sense. Not only did I hate being away from Lucy, I hated being away from my beach, the lighthouse, our small cottage on the water and our close-knit community where everyone knows each other. Even now, it feels like my skin is filled with bugs that I want to scratch and brush away. I itch with the need to go back home to my Lucy.
“You haven’t had a drink since you got back home, right?” Seth asks.
I shake my head. “No, and the crazy thing is, I’m not even tempted to have one, even with all this shit going on in my head. It feels good to be clear and focused, but even without the alcohol, I still have moments where I get fuzzy and I have to really concentrate on calming down.”
“Of course you do, son. It’s called PTSD, and it’s probably going to be with you for the rest of your life. Forty-plus years later and sometimes I still wake up in a cold sweat and it takes me a minute to realize I’m not neck deep in a swamp of rice paddies, soaked to the bone, waiting to get my head blown off,” Seth explains. “You can’t keep that shit inside or it will eat you alive, as you very well know. You spent years keeping your nightmares and your problems to yourself and look what it did to your marriage. Talk to your woman, Fisher. If you want her to trust you again, you need to give her that same level of trust. You need to have faith that she’s strong enough to take whatever you give her.”
Seth and I spend some time wandering the grounds of the rehab facility and I talk to a few of the guys who came in right before I left. I see so much of myself in them, and for the first time in a long time, I feel proud about how far I’ve come since I checked in here. Seth is right; I can’t expect Lucy to ever trust me or believe in me if I don’t do the same with her. She needs to understand what was going through my mind while I was slowly unraveling over a year ago. Sure, the journal pages of happier times that I’ve been sending her are a great way to remind her how good we were together, but I can’t expect her to give us a chance at a new future if I don’t talk about the bad times, as well.
As much as I want to keep my anger and my jealousy as far away from Lucy as possible, I have to accept that they’re a part of me. They live and breathe inside of me and I can’t just ignore them and expect them to go away. I know I will never hurt Lucy like I did the day I made her leave our home, but what guarantee do I have that I won’t hurt her even worse with my words and actions when those feelings take hold of me like they did that day in the alley? I want to believe that Seth is right, that Lucy would’ve found a way to make me stop if she truly didn’t want it, but it’s hard for me to see her as anything other than the sweet, shy, beautiful girl I married, no matter how much has changed since then. It’s hard for me to fathom that she would want me to touch her with anything but gentleness and soft hands, but I also can’t erase the sounds of her moans of pleasure from my ears, telling me that she loved what I was doing to her.
With a promise from Seth that he’ll bring Mary Beth out to the island soon, I head outside and take a cab to the ferry that will take me back to the island.
I know Lucy will be busy with all of the Fourth of July events coming up, but maybe I can convince her to give me a little of her time. It’s way past time for me to come clean with her.
About everything.
Chapter 29
Lucy
Present Day
“You are NOT playing in that softball game today!”
“You can’t tell me what to do, asshole. GO AWAY!”
I glance up from my paperwork when I hear shouting coming from the porch to watch as Ellie flies through the front door with Bobby charging in right behind her.
“I most certainly CAN tell you what to do, and you’re damn well going to listen!” Bobby argues.
I’ve never seen Bobby so fired up before and it gives me pause. Where Bobby isn’t what I would call hot, like Fisher, he’s boyish and cute with his curly head of brown hair, twinkling blue eyes and easy smile. He stands even with Ellie’s five-foot-ten frame and he’s lucky she’s not wearing heals right now or she’d be towering over him and most likely pummeling him to the ground going by the furious look on her face.
“You are not the fucking boss of me! I knew it was a bad idea to tell you!” Ellie yells, stomping right past me, not even glancing in my direction.
Bobby races behind her and I toss down my pen and follow him, wondering what in the hell is going on. Thank God all of the guests are already down on Main Street waiting for the parade to begin and aren’t getting front row seats to this shouting match.
Bobby finally catches up with Ellie in the kitchen, wrapping his arms around her from behind when she tries to leave through
the sliding glass doors.
“Will you stop trying to run away from me?!” he argues, lifting her up and moving her away from the door.
She kicks and claws at his arms until he lets go and moves away, putting himself between Ellie and the door so she can’t try and escape again.
“Will you stop following me? Jesus, just go away!”
“I’m not going anywhere until you agree to marry me!” Bobby shouts at her.
My mouth drops open and my eyes widen in shock. What in the actual fuck is happening right now?
“Oh, my God, will you stop?! I am NOT going to marry you, I don’t even like you!” Ellie argues.
“Bullshit! You’re in love with me, dammit, you’re just too scared to admit it!”
Ellie stomps her foot like a toddler and crosses her arms in front of her. I should probably say something, try and get them to stop arguing and tell me what the hell is going on, but I’m too stunned to do anything other than stand here in the doorway.
“You are SUCH an asshole!” Ellie screams.
“You’re right, I’m a huge asshole. That’s one thing we agree on. I’m also not going to let you do this alone,” Bobby adds.
“I am perfectly capable of doing this on my own. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was nineteen years old and I don’t need some guy thinking he needs to marry me just because I’m pregnant!”
Whoa. What the hell?!
“Ellie?” I whisper, finally making my presence known.
She jumps a little at the sound of my voice, her tear-filled eyes finding mine across the room. I look at her questioningly and she just shrugs, swiping angrily at the tears that have started to fall down her face.