The Lucky One(102)
At his words, they both began to cry.
Epilogue
Two Months Later
Beth glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled at the sight of Zeus standing in the bed of the truck, his nose to the wind. Ben sat beside her, rangier since his recent growth spurt but still not quite tall enough to rest his elbow comfortably out the window.
It was the first warm spell they’d had after weeks of miserably cold weather, and Christmas was coming soon, less than a couple of weeks away: The heat and storms of October had already become a distant memory. The floods had made national news. Downtown Hampton had flooded like many other towns in the region; in all, six people had lost their lives.
Despite the nightmare they had all endured, Beth realized that she felt a kind of . . . peace for the first time in recent memory. Since the funeral, she’d grappled with the extraordinary events that had led to that fateful day. She knew that many people in town wondered about the choices she’d made. Occasionally, she heard whispers, but for the most part, she ignored them. If Logan had taught her anything, it was that sometimes her faith in herself and her instincts was all she had.
Thankfully, Nana had continued to improve; in the days and weeks after “the accident,” as she referred to it, Beth and especially Ben had leaned on her for her special brand of wisdom and her unfaltering support. These days, she sang regularly with the choir, found time to train the dogs, and was using both hands, limping only occasionally when tired. There had actually been a moment a couple of weeks back when both of them were walking exactly the same way. It was two days after Beth had had her cast removed—she’d broken four bones in her foot and had been in a cast for five weeks—and Nana had ribbed her about it, enjoying the idea of someone else being the invalid.
Ben had changed markedly since then, in some ways that Beth worried about and in others that made her proud. Surviving the ordeal had given Ben a newfound confidence that he carried with him to school. Or at least she liked to think so. Sometimes she wondered whether it was because of the photo he’d carried in his pocket. The lamination was scuffed and worn and beginning to separate, but he wouldn’t part with it, carrying it with him everywhere. In time, she assumed he’d grow out of it, but who knew? It was Logan’s legacy to Ben, and as such it held special meaning for him.
The loss had been hard on Ben, of course. While he rarely spoke openly about it, she knew he blamed himself in some way. And he still had occasional nightmares, in which he called out sometimes for Keith and sometimes for Logan. When Beth shook him awake, the dream was always the same. He was floundering in the river, about to go under, when he saw Zeus coming toward him. In his dreams, though, he grabbed for the tail, only to find that he couldn’t grasp it. He would reach and fail again and again, only to realize that Zeus no longer had a tail, and he would watch himself—as if from someplace else—flailing as he sank slowly under the water.
When she reached the cemetery, Beth pulled into her usual spot. She carried two vases of flowers. First, as she always had when coming to this place, she went to the spot where Drake had been buried and took a moment to remember him before pulling a few weeds around the headstone and setting the flowers nearby. Then she went to the other grave. She’d saved the larger floral arrangement for this one: It was his birthday, and she wanted to make sure he was remembered.
Zeus wandered here and there, sniffing and exploring as he usually did. Ben trailed behind, as he had ever since Zeus had arrived. Ben had always loved the dog, but after Zeus had saved him in the river, it had become impossible to separate them. Zeus seemed to recognize what he had done—or at least, that was the only way Beth could explain it—and in the dog’s mind, they were now bound together. At night, he slept in the hallway outside of Ben’s room. Stumbling to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Beth often spotted Zeus near the bed, checking up on his beloved companion as he slept.
Loss was complicated, and she and Ben both struggled with its aftereffects. She felt sometimes that their memories wreaked havoc with their grieving, for despite the heroism that marked their ordeal, their reminiscences were not always rosy. But when all was said and done, Keith Clayton would be remembered by her with unequivocal gratitude. She could never forget how he’d carried her when she fell that day. Or that in the end, he’d died trying to save their son.
That counted for something. That counted for a lot, and despite his other failings, that would always be how she chose to remember him. She hoped for Ben’s sake that he would also come to remember him that way, without guilt and with the certain knowledge of Keith’s love for him, so elusive in his life to that point.
As for her, Logan would be waiting when she got back home. He’d offered to go with her to the cemetery, but somehow she knew he hadn’t really wanted to go. It was the weekend, and he preferred to spend the morning puttering around the grounds in solitude, repairing things and working on Ben’s new tree house in the backyard. Later, they planned to decorate the Christmas tree. She was getting used to his rhythms and his moods, recognizing the quiet signals that telegraphed who he was. Good and bad, strengths and faults, he was hers forever.
As she pulled into the driveway, she spotted Logan coming down the steps from the house, and she waved.
She was his forever, too—imperfect as she was. Take it or leave it, she thought. She was who she was.
As Logan walked toward her, he smiled as if reading her mind and opened his arms.