Then he tells me that he volunteered to go back there for a third time.
“I don’t understand, Fisher. Why? Why would you go back there?” I ask, trying not to let him know that this decision is killing me. I choke back the tears as he paces around the kitchen like a caged tiger. I should have known this was coming. Each time he sees something in the news about the war, he gets so anxious that he can’t sit still.
“I have to go back, Lucy, I have to. I can’t be here when my friends are over there fighting for everything I believe in and risking their lives,” he explains.
Hearing him say that he can’t be here breaks my heart. Why isn’t our life together on this island enough for him? I love that he has this need to protect our country and our freedom, but at the same time, I hate it because it takes him away from me.
And sends him back just a little more broken every time.
After all the things he’s been through, he asked to go back. I want to be angry, I want to scream and cry and beg him not to leave me again, but I can’t do that. Deep in my heart, I’m still so very proud of him for fighting for our country. I admire him for doing something so scary and selfless, and the very idea that he would willingly return to that hellhole reminds me of how strong and amazing he is. It also makes me dread what will happen the next time he comes home, makes me fear which pieces of the man I love will be claimed by this war. I worry things will only get worse, and that scares the hell out of me.
“I just don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself. Why you keep putting yourself through this. What about us? What about our lives? We talked about starting a family, but how can we do that if you aren’t here?” I ask him, hating the weakness in my voice.
“Jesus, Lucy! How can you even think about bringing children into this world right now? What kind of future would they have if this shit never ends?” he argues.
There’s no use in trying to hold back the tears at this point. They fall down my cheeks and Fisher immediately comes over to me and pulls me into his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to yell,” he tells me softly as he kisses the top of my head. “I just need you to understand how important this is to me. I can’t stand the idea that my men, my brothers, are over there without me. They leave their families and they put their lives on hold to fight this war and I need to do the same. I HAVE to do the same. I love you, Lucy, but I need to do this. Please, tell me you understand.”
I hold onto him as tightly as I can as we sway back and forth in the kitchen and I give him a silent nod. He loves me, we’re building a life together and nothing else should matter. We’re strong and we can make it through anything. We will make it through anything because Fisher has always promised me that he will find his way back to me. I believe him with every piece of my heart and I will support whatever decisions he makes because I have faith in him and in us. This is just a tiny bump in the long road of our lives together. We’ll get over it and everything will be fine, I know it.
Chapter 2
Lucy
Present Day
Dear Fisher,
I guess this is it, huh? After almost fourteen years together, starting a life of our own on this island, five tours of duty and countless letters I’ve written you through it all, I finally go out to the mailbox and see something I’ve always dreamed of: an envelope with your handwriting on it. For one moment, I actually thought you’d changed your mind. That all the awful things you said to me were just your way of coping after everything you’d been through. I was still here, Fisher. I was still here, holding my breath, waiting for you to come back even though you told me you never would. You always said you’d find your way back to me. Out of all the lies you’ve told me, this one hurts the most.
Enclosed you will find the signed divorce papers, as requested. I hope you find what you’re looking for. I’m sorry it wasn’t me.
Lucy
I stare at the note in my hand, the creases that run through the words so worn from the number of times I’ve folded and unfolded this thing that I’m surprised the paper doesn’t tear right in half. I can still see little smudges in the ink where my tears fell on the page as I wrote the note last year. I can remember that day like it was yesterday and the pain in my heart is still just as fresh as it was then, even though I’ve convinced myself that I’m fine and I’m happy and I’ve moved on.
I am fine.
I am happy.
I have moved on.
Dammit.
Looking around my teenage bedroom, complete with the same pearlescent wallpaper with tiny pink roses, white, four-poster canopy bed and plush rose-colored carpeting, I realize maybe that’s not exactly the case. Moving back home after my divorce probably wasn’t the best idea, but there was nowhere else for me to go and nothing else for me to do. I’ve worked at Butler House Inn since we moved to the island when I was a teenager and my parents took over running the family business. Butler House was my grandparents’ legacy and my parents’ nightmare all rolled into one. When both of my grandparents passed away the year I turned sixteen, my parents thought a fresh start in a new place was just the thing our family needed. They uprooted me from my quiet little life in the city right before my sophomore year of high school, moving me out to an island where I knew no one. Little did they know, my grandparents didn’t leave Butler House in the best condition when they died. It took a lot of years and every penny in my parents’ savings just to get it back into the black, and by that point, my parents had had enough. Butler House was situated on a prime piece of island real estate, so there were quite a few investors who came sniffing around at that time, offering to purchase the inn. Even though my parents were exhausted and at an age where they just wanted to retire and relax, they couldn’t imagine handing over our family’s legacy to a stranger.
I gave up my dreams of seeing the world to take online college business courses, and as soon as I turned twenty-one, Butler House Inn became mine. I let the man I gave my heart and soul to travel the world in my stead and I stayed behind to make sure he had someplace to come home to.
Now, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Well, I could definitely imagine moving out of my teenage bedroom in the inn’s attached living quarters and finding a place of my own, but Butler House barely makes enough money to stay open as it is. Even right now, at the start summer peak season, some weeks I don’t pull in enough money to give myself a paycheck.
Glancing back down at the note in my hand, I hastily fold it up and curse myself for reading it. I was too chicken-shit to send it when I wrote it and who knows why I’ve kept it all this time. I was hurt and angry and my heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest. After I tore open the envelope that day and found the legal papers inside, I penned this note through the tears, wanting to hurt Fisher as much as he hurt me. In the end, I didn’t enclose my note when I sent the signed divorce papers back. Even though what he did was the equivalent of shoving a knife right through my chest, I couldn’t deliberately hurt him. That has always been my problem where Jefferson Fisher III was concerned. I would do anything for him, even if it meant sacrificing something of myself. I let him go not once, but five times when he had a duty to perform for this country, even though I wanted nothing more than to beg him not to leave. I supported his decision and praised his honor for being so selfless. I wrote to him every day and made sure he never had to worry about the island or the people he loved and promised him we would always be waiting here for him when he came home to us.
When he came back the first time, he was only a little bit different. More serious, more intense, not so quick to laugh like the smart-ass eighteen-year-old I’d first fallen in love with. I knew that war could change a man, and I loved him even more through those changes. He helped me with the inn when he was home and I kept the memories and the love we shared alive for the both of us while he was gone, protecting our country. I showered him with all of it when he returned, doing everything I could to erase the me
mories of the things he’d seen while he was away from me, away from our island, away from the physical proof of my love.
I naively thought all of that was enough. I never expected more and more of him to be chipped away each time he left me, but after he came home the last time, there was nothing left of the man I’d loved since I was sixteen years old. The boy who’d confidently kissed me for the first time at the base of Fisher’s Lighthouse and asked me to marry him a few years later in the exact same spot by stating all the reasons he loved me no longer existed. In his place was an angry, depressed man who couldn’t break free of his nightmares and blamed me for being stuck here where it seemed his darkness flourished instead of faded away.
We’d been together for fourteen years, but if you add up all of the time we actually spent together through those years, living together, working together, growing together side-by-side…it only equals a little over six years. A handful of months here and there in between basic training and five tours of duty over a fourteen-year span. When things began going downhill after his fifth tour, I started believing all of the hateful, hurtful shit that came out of his mouth. I’d even started to wonder if he’d ever really loved me. If you think about it, how in the hell is it possible to love someone who occupies the tiniest portion of your life? Did he even know me? I thought I knew him, but I also thought nothing could take down the strongest man I’d ever met.
Glancing down at the shoebox where I’d tossed the note, thirteen identical envelopes from Fisher’s Bank and Trust stare back at me. I think about the savings account in my name at the bank that has received an automatic deposit on the last Friday of every month for the last thirteen months. I can still recall receiving the very first statement, which arrived during a time when I was still mourning the loss of my marriage. Looking back, I realize that it was my rage over the fact that the man I loved sought to placate me with money that pulled me out of the grief I was drowning in. Since then, I’ve tossed the unopened monthly statements into this box as soon as they arrive, so I have no idea what the balance is. Based on that initial deposit, however, I’m sure it’s more than enough money to finish all of the repairs that need to be done around this place and probably even construct the addition I’ve been dreaming about for five years that would add two extra bedrooms and a game room for kids.
Smacking the lid down angrily on top of the shoebox, I shove it under my bed. I hate the mere idea of that damn savings account almost as much as I hate the man who opened it for me. He broke my heart and damaged a piece of my soul that will never heal and he thinks throwing his family’s money into a savings account makes up for what he did. It may have pissed me off initially, but now it just hurts. Those bank statements are a constant reminder that he’s still out there, living a life that doesn’t include me. A better life. A peaceful life. A life that doesn’t give him night terrors and pain. Just when I think I’ve gotten over the hurtful words he threw at me the last time I saw him, another statement comes in the mail and I have to live through that day all over again, realizing I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t…enough. I wouldn’t touch that money even if the bank foreclosed on Butler House and I was facing a life on the streets.
A doorbell rings through the intercom attached to the wall in my room, indicating there’s someone at the front desk at the inn. Pushing myself off the bed, I quickly check my reflection in the mirror hanging above my dresser. My long, strawberry blonde hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail, and even though we’re only a few weeks into summer, my skin is already lightly tanned from working outside. I like the healthy color it gives me and that it makes the dark circles under my eyes less noticeable, but it also brings out the stupid freckles on my nose and cheeks that I absolutely hate. Freckles scream cute and adorable, not sexy and hot. Taking in my reflection, I flick at the frayed edges of my cut-off jean shorts and attempt to smooth the wrinkles in my red, faded Lobster Bucket tank top that advertises my favorite restaurant on the island and is covered in dirt and sweat. Sexy and hot is going to have to wait for a day when I don’t have clogged sinks in two guest bathrooms, a washing machine that won’t drain, a freezer that won’t cool below thirty degrees and fifteen new guests checking in this afternoon who will expect all of these things to be in working order.
The bell dings through the intercom again and I race out of my bedroom and down the stairs, my flip-flops slapping against the hardwood as I go. One of the downsides of living on Fisher Island is just that. Living on Fisher Island – a town named after the family of the man who broke my heart. Everywhere I turn, I have to see his name on business signs, street signs or beach signs. It also doesn’t help that his grandfather, Trip Fisher, is the island’s only handyman. Trip’s parents founded this island and, while his father was a successful fisherman turned financier whose money helped establish many of the shops that still thrived on the island, Trip decided at an early age that he wanted nothing to do with the business side of things. He preferred getting his hands dirty and working side-by-side with the rest of the islanders who made this place their home. I smile to myself despite my earlier walk down memory lane as I stomp down the stairs. Trip is the only member of the Fisher family who ever truly embraced me and made me feel like I was worthy of the Fisher name. At eighty-three-years-old, he’s still just as active and hard working as I imagine he was as a young man, and whenever I’m having a problem here at the inn, he drops everything he’s doing to help me. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got the mouth of a trucker, flirts like a frat boy and never fails to make me laugh when I see him.
He made good time, considering I left him a message about all the problems that cropped up this morning only fifteen minutes ago. Even though each new issue I came across as I ran through my daily checklist while I drank my first cup of coffee made me want to scream in frustration, at least all this shit gave me something to keep my mind off of the real issue. There was one thing sure to push me over the edge, even more so than a few clogged drains, and the only reason I pulled that stupid shoebox out from under my bed when I haven’t touched that thing in months, other than to throw the bank statements inside.
Everyone has been talking about today ever since Trip made the announcement at the town meeting two weeks ago. The events that took place thirteen months ago didn’t just affect me, they affected everyone who lives here. We’re a small, tightknit community and everyone knows everyone else’s business, whether we want them to or not. When the prodigal son of the town’s wealthiest family very loudly kicks his high school sweetheart and wife out of their home, goes on a drunken bender, trashes several business and gets into fist fights with more than a few men on Main Street, it’s front page news. Literally. The story was on the front page of the Fisher Times even though the family owns the damn paper.
When Trip announced to the town that Fisher was coming home, the calm, cordial meeting that was supposed to be about zoning permits turned into complete anarchy. I got up and walked out without a word, and for two weeks, I tried not to think about today. I tried to keep myself busy at the inn and with the social life I was finally attempting to have. I refused to look at the indentation on the third finger of my left hand where a wedding ring used to wrap and sparkle against the morning rays of sun when I stretched in bed. I politely smiled when people in town stopped and asked me what I was going to do when he came back to the island. I went about my business, refusing to allow myself to fall down that stupid rabbit hole of sadness and depression.
I might not have been born here, but this is my island. I’ve made a name for myself, I have friends and family here and I’ve built a life here, such as it is. I’ve cleaned up the mess he left behind and I’ve moved on. As strong as I’d like to believe I’ve become, though, even I can admit it’s not a good sign that the very thought of running into him sends chills running throughout my body. This isn’t a huge island and, unfortunately, I have to shop at several of the businesses his family owns. It’s only a matter of time before I
have to see him again, and I hope that I’m strong enough not to allow his presence to ruin me once more. I won’t let Fisher crack the walls I’ve spent so long and worked so hard at reconstructing. I don’t know why he’s coming back and I don’t care. I have my own life now that has nothing to do with Jefferson Fisher, just like he wanted.
Pushing through the door connecting the living quarters to the inn, I stop short when I see the ass-end of a man on all fours, smacking his hammer against my floor right in front of the registration desk.
“Enjoying the view, pretty lady?”
Trip stops hammering and grins at me over his shoulder.
I shake my head and laugh as I walk into the room, holding out my hand to help him up from the floor, but he bats it away and grumbles at me.
“I’m not that fucking old. The day I need help getting up from the ground…” he trails off as he grunts and groans while he pushes himself to his feet. Just like his grandson, Trip Fisher stands well over six-feet. Between his full head of salt and pepper hair and the body he keeps in shape walking all over the island and performing manual labor, I’d know even without seeing old pictures that he was a very good looking man in his day.
“Why are you beating up my floor, Trip?” I ask as I lean forward and peck his cheek with a kiss.
“That board has been loose for weeks. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen when one of those yuppies comes in here and stumbles over it,” he explains, shoving his hammer into his tool belt. “How you holding up, Lucy Girl?”
We haven’t talked at all about the bombshell he dropped during the town meeting, even though he’s tried countless times. I know he’s worried about how I’m feeling about Fisher’s return, but I still don’t want to talk about it, especially with him. I love him like he’s my own grandfather, but he was always our biggest supporter and was almost as heartbroken as I was after our marriage fell apart. No matter what I say, Trip will turn it around and try to play matchmaker.