“I knew coming back here would be hard, but Jesus. I stopped by Sal’s Diner this morning to grab a cup of coffee and as soon as he saw me, he ran into the kitchen and refused to come back out. That guy taught me how to ride a bike and bought me my first case of beer when I turned twenty-one,” I tell Bobby.
“Well, you did punch Sal in the gut and tell him you hoped he fucking died like the dog he was,” Bobby adds.
I wince as I finish drying my hands and toss the towel on the counter. I had been in the throes of one of the worst flashbacks of my life when that happened. To me, Sal looked like a fanatic jihadi holding a gun to my head instead of the owner of the town diner with a spatula in his hand. I had a lot of fucking apologizing to do before anyone in this town would trust me again.
“It will be fine, I promise. Two games of darts and then you can go home,” Bobby says with a smile.
“I thought I said one game.”
Bobby turns and heads for the front door.
“That’s what I said. Three games of darts and then you can go home.”
This was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. Walking into Barney’s was like something out of a fucking movie where the jukebox screeches to a halt in the middle of a song and the entire place turns and looks at you in one big wave of prying eyes. Under normal circumstances, Barney’s is never crowded, even during the summer season when the tourists are out in full force. A little ways from the edge of town, Barney’s is a bit off the beaten path. A building that is longer than it is tall, the front of the establishment still has all of the original cedar wood planking. A huge awning runs down the entire length of the building so people can stand outside and shoot the shit or have a smoke. With its 1950’s décor and a bar that only serves beer, Jim, Jack, Johnny Red and Jose, it’s a favorite for the locals, who prefer it to spots that cater to young partiers looking for fruity drinks with umbrellas and that techno shit music piped through a sound system so they can dance. The only music you’re going to find at Barney’s is whatever is on the jukebox, also from the 50’s and 60’s, and the only dancing done around here is when someone presses E14 and Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” blasts through the tinny speakers. If Buster and Sylvia Crawford have had too much to drink (which is every time they’re in here), Buster always asks Sylvia to dance, and when you put two drunk eighty-somethings who have more metal in their hips and knees than a steel manufacturing plant together, dancing in the middle of a crowd of tables, people always watch. Mostly to see if Buster will grab Sylvia’s ass or trip over a chair.
I’ve never seen Barney’s this packed and it’s not even full of tourists. Word must have traveled pretty fast that I was going to be here and everyone with two working legs came out to see if anything exciting would happen in this otherwise boring town.
Located fifteen miles off the coast of South Carolina, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Fisher’s Island was purchased by my great-grandfather in 1902. At that time, the island was just a place for boats to wander when they were lost getting back to the mainland, but my great-grandfather saw potential and used what little money he had left after buying the island to build it into a fishing village that caught and harvested seafood for the surrounding coastlines. It wasn’t long before he made enough money to turn this place into a tourist attraction with restaurants, inns, parks, public beaches and a ferry system to move people back and forth. We have one elementary school, one high school, one bank and a population of 3,044 at last count. My father, Jefferson Fisher Jr., owns half of the businesses on this island and is jokingly referred to as King Fisher. I’m sure it’s eating him alive that I’ve come back to town and I’m sure he’s going to hear all about how I showed my face in public tonight. The fact that I love nothing more than pissing my father off is the only thing giving me the strength to continue moving through the bar when everyone is whispering and pointing at me.
“DON’T WORRY! HE PROMISES NOT TO PUNCH ANYONE IN THE FACE TONIGHT!” Bobby yells to the crowded bar, lifting both of his hands up in surrender.
Everyone shrugs and goes back to their drinks and conversations with just a few stragglers glancing at me nervously as we make our way to the back of the bar where the dart boards and pool tables are set up.
“Gee, thanks for putting everyone at ease and making me feel at home,” I grumble.
“I aim to please, my friend. I’m going to grab a beer. What’s that sissy shit you drink now?” he asks.
“San Pellegrino with a slice of lime, asshole,” I remind him.
He claps me on the back before heading off to the bar. It really is some sissy shit, but drinking it makes me feel a little more comfortable when I’m around people consuming alcohol. It looks like a glass of vodka and I don’t have to deal with people asking me why I’m not drinking or any other multitude of questions that will eventually lead to me having to explain that I’m a recovering alcoholic with severe PTSD who went a little batshit crazy a year ago and fucked up my entire life.
While Bobby is ordering the drinks, I say hello to a few guys from high school that don’t seem to be cowering, afraid that I’m going to attack at any moment. When Bobby comes back, we start a game and shoot the shit for about an hour. Even though I dreaded everything about coming here tonight, it feels good to be in this place, surrounded by the people I grew up with and doing something normal. For the last year of my life, every waking moment was spent talking to counselors, dealing with my issues and rehashing the things I’d experienced overseas that fractured my brain and turned me into a monster. This is a step in the right direction, coming here. I have a long way to go to prove to these people that I’m not that man anymore. Maybe I’m not fully healed, maybe I’ll always have nightmares and regrets, but I can’t keep living in the past and I am a different person than I was a year ago. I can’t ignore things and hope they’ll eventually go away. I did that with Lucy and look where that got me.
“Damn, she looks better every time I see her. Who the hell is that lucky fuck that convinced her to go out? I’ve been trying to tap that for months and all I got is the cold shoulder.”
Eric, a web designer and tourist from last season who cashed in an inheritance and bought a cottage on the beach and became a transplant, stares at someone behind me. Eric’s arrival came after my departure, so luckily I didn’t have to deal with any weird stares or fear from him. Bobby gave him the gist of the story when he noticed how everyone was gawking at me, and he just shrugged and said, “Whatever. Everyone loses their shit now and then. Who wants to play some darts?”
I decided right away I liked Eric, but as I turn around to see who the hell he’s making a fuss over, I realize it’s probably a good thing it wasn’t my turn and I don’t currently have a sharp object in my hand.
Perched on the edge of a stool in the middle of the bar is my Lucy. She’s curled her long hair in soft waves that frame her beautiful face and my heart cracks in half. She only curls her hair for special occasions. She curled it for our wedding, for our first anniversary, for four homecomings and now, she’s sitting at a table with another man with her hair fucking curled. Anger and jealousy simmers below the surface as I stand here staring at her like a schmuck while she rests her elbows on the table in front of her and leans closer to that asshole. He kisses her cheek and whispers something in her ear that makes her scrunch up her nose and laugh in that Goddamn adorable way that I love so much.
“Deep breaths, man. In with the good, out with the bad,” Bobby coaches as he comes up to stand next to me.
“What in the fuck is happening right now?” I growl through clenched teeth.
Bobby lets out a loud, over-exaggerated sigh as he takes a sip of his beer and then points the bottle in Lucy’s direction.
“Allow me to introduce you to Lucy. Your EX-wife. You know, the one you divorced and then walked away from a year ago? Looks to me like she’s on a date. And since she’s DIVORCED and all that, I’m pretty sure she’s free to go on said date,” Bobby states sar
castically.
Refusing to take my eyes off of the woman across the room, the one I walked through fire for just to make myself whole again so I could come back to her, I reach over and grab onto the front of Bobby’s shirt and pull him into my line of sight.
“You knew about this when you told me it was high time for me to come back here, didn’t you?”
Even though I planned on coming back as soon as I started healing and realized I could live a normal life if I wanted to, the phone call from Bobby urging me to do it soon because it was “time” was enough to get my ass in gear and start the process of getting the okay from my counselors to go back into the real world.
Bobby just shrugs, taking another sip of his beer and ignoring the furious clutch of my hand on his shirt and the daggers I keep shooting his way in between glances over at Lucy and her fucking “date”.
“Dude, you’ve lived on this island all your life. People can’t take a shit without their next-door neighbor knowing what size and color it is. Do you really think Lucy would be able to start dating someone and the whole island wouldn’t know about it five seconds after it happened?”
I tear my eyes away from Lucy when I see her rest her hand on top of that douchebag’s she’s sharing a table with.
“I thought you said she was ‘on’ a date, not ‘dating.’ Which is it? Is she on a date or is she dating him? There’s a big difference between those two things, so pick your words wisely,” I tell Bobby, trying not to let my voice rise to shout level, even though I’m about two seconds away from screaming my fucking head off.
Bobby calmly removes my hand from his shirt and takes a step back, crossing his arms in front of him. “His name is Stanford and he works for your father at the main branch of the bank on the mainland. Your father hired him to do some auditing work for a few of the businesses and Trip asked him to take a look at Butler House’s books while he was here. He asked Lucy out a month ago and she said yes. They go out every time he’s on the island, which is pretty fucking often, if you ask me,” Bobby rambles. “And really, what kind of a fucking name is Stanford? It’s a school, not a dude. Fucking pussy.”
Bobby keeps complaining about that asshole’s name, but I tune him out, staring at Lucy across the room and wishing I could hate her. She moved on. She wasn’t supposed to move on. She was supposed to love ME forever, be with ME forever. She’s even more beautiful than every memory or photo I have of her. In a light blue wrap-around dress, I can see every curve of her body and the color of the dress highlights her summer tan, showcasing the freckles she always tries to hide with make-up. She crosses her slim legs to the side of the table and my hands itch to run my palms up the smooth skin of them and feel them wrapping around my waist. I miss her smell and her laugh and her touch so much that I want to drop down on my knees in the middle of this fucking bar and sob like a baby.
Of course she moved on. Of course she stopped loving me. I looked her right in the eye and told her she didn’t deserve me and that she was weak and pathetic for sticking around, waiting for me as long as she had. I broke her and I hurt her in the worst imaginable way and then I walked out. I never deserved her and she should have always known that, always felt that, always believed that. I just want her to be happy. I want her to smile easily and laugh often. I see her doing it with that fuckwad across the bar, but I don’t care. I know it’s selfish and I know it’s weak, but I don’t fucking care. If I were a better man I would walk away, leave this island and never look back. I would let her have this happiness that she deserves even if it killed everything inside of me.
Too bad I’m not a better man. It should be me. It was always me and it’s still going to be me, dammit.
With Bobby calling my name and telling me not to do anything stupid, I clutch my drink in my hand to keep me from throwing any punches and make my way across the room to MY Lucy.
Chapter 5
Lucy
April 8, 2014 – 1:45 PM
“Fisher, please, don’t do this!” I beg through my tears as I stand in the doorway of our bedroom with my arms wrapped around my waist and watch him stalk around the room.
He yanks my clothes from the hangers in the closet and rips them out of the drawers of my dresser, shoving everything into the two open suitcases he has lying on top of the bed.
For two months he’s barely said more than a few words to me and now he’s done a complete one-eighty, saying more than I ever wanted to hear.
“We’re done. This is over. I’m packing your shit and you’re leaving!” he barks, grabbing my books and reading glasses off the nightstand and tossing them on top of the clothes.
I race across the room and grab onto his arm, determined to make him see reason, but he jerks out of my grasp and goes back to the closet, snatching up my shoes and piling them in his arms.
“Will you stop and just talk to me?” I yell, coming up behind him and reaching for the shoes in his hand.
He side-steps me, never even glancing in my direction.
“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s perfectly clear what’s going on here. Everything is fucked up, don’t you get that? It’s ruined, all of it is ruined and you need to fucking leave!” he yells as he slams the armful of shoes into the suitcase.
My body shakes with fear and the sobs that I’m trying so hard to contain. I’ve done everything I could. I’ve tried talking, I’ve tried ignoring things, I’ve tried reading books and speaking to other wives whose husbands have been deployed and nothing has worked. No suggestion was good enough and nothing I’ve done has broken through whatever walls Fisher has put up in his mind to keep me out. I made the mistake of casually suggesting over breakfast that maybe it was time for him to talk to a counselor and that’s when my world came to a screeching halt.
“It’s not ruined, Fisher, it’s just a little broken,” I whisper through my tears. “After all these years, after everything we’ve been through together, you can’t just shut me out. I only want to help you, I want to see you smile and laugh again, I want to make you happy.”
He laughs cynically, finally turning to face me. He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at me. The look in his eyes makes my skin crawl. I don’t recognize this man scowling at me with so much animosity and hatred.
“You can’t help me and honestly, I think it’s pretty pathetic that you keep trying. Jesus, you really need to get a life. You’ve spent how many years now, sitting on this shitty island just waiting around for me? All your life, just sitting here like a good little girl, waiting and waiting while life passed you by.”
My lip trembles with the tears I’m trying to hold back. I want to scream and argue with him, but a part of me knows that he’s right. I have just sat around here, waiting for Fisher. My life has been spent waiting for this man to come back to me. I know I should just walk away and give him time to calm down. He’s been drinking and I know on top of the nightmares and the memories that always haunt him, the alcohol is only making things worse. I should step back and let him decompress, but I can’t. I’ve never been able to walk away from him, and there’s no way I can do it now when he’s broken and hurting. Regardless of what he says, I know he needs me. He’s always told me I’m the only one who can take it all away when he’s at his lowest. He’s lower than low right now and I refuse to leave him, even though he’s doing everything in his power to make that happen.
“You don’t mean that,” I mumble, worrying at the hard look in his eyes that maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this time he really does mean all the nasty things he’s saying.
He laughs cruelly, dropping his arms to his sides and stalking across the room towards me. I back away from him, stopping only when I feel the bedroom wall behind me. I’m not afraid of Fisher, I could never be afraid of Fisher, but this isn’t Fisher right now. This is a stranger, a man intent on breaking my heart in the worst possible way.
“I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe and experienced things you couldn’t even imagine while you were rotting
away on this Godforsaken island, wasting your time writing me all those fucking letters, week after week. All those sad, pathetic letters about how you missed me, you needed me, you loved me.”
He laughs again and shakes his head like he pities me. I hate him for bringing up those letters. Years and years worth of letters that I never stopped writing and sending to him, even when the internet and email would have made things easier. I took the time to write him real letters so he could get a piece of home to touch and hold onto when he was so far away. Week after week, year after year, I poured my heart and soul into those letters. When I asked him why he never wrote me back, he told me that he didn’t have time, but that I shouldn’t stop writing them because they gave him the strength to do his job and come home to me.
“Do you want to know why I never wrote you?” he asks, almost like he’s looking right through my eyes and into my soul, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “It wasn’t because I didn’t have time. Plenty of guys over there write to their wives or their girlfriends. The problem was, I just didn’t want to.”
I shake my head back and forth and swipe angrily at the tears falling steadily down my cheeks.
“Stop it. Just stop it. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to be cruel to get me to walk away and it’s not going to work. You can say whatever you want, throw whatever hurtful words at me you think will hit the right mark to make me hate you, but it’s not going to work.”