Between Hello and Goodbye(78)

I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.

At some point—I don’t remember when or where—strong hands gripped my shoulders. Captain Reyes. “Hey. Talk to me, Ash. Don’t take this all on yourself. Don’t do it.”

I stared at him, perplexed that he didn’t understand the simplest truth. “Cap,” I said. “I have to keep moving or I’m going to die.”

He got out of my way, then.

Faith was there. Helping, managing, organizing. Crying. She was in that sequined evening dress for almost twenty-four hours before Paula, my nurse friend, brought her shorts and a T-shirt. One of Faith’s bosses—Terrance—had texted her. She’d won the Clio. Instead of celebrating her win with a glitzy party, Faith was in borrowed clothes, making phone calls to tell people my brother and his beautiful wife were dead when I didn’t have it in me to say it one more time. When she wasn’t working, she was sitting with Momi. I don’t think she left her side for longer than a few minutes at a time. Whenever our eyes met, she shot me furtive, agonized glances.

I always looked away. I couldn’t look at her because when I looked at her, I saw a future that no longer existed. Married to Faith, living in Seattle, visiting Morgan and Nalani at summer and Christmas time, having Kal come for a visit in the city to play with his cousins…

That was over. And very soon, the planning and the visits and the condolences and the people moving in and out we’re going to stop too. Life was going to get really quiet, and it was just going to be me and Kal. He was mine now, though I didn’t actually believe I was the right guy for the job. How could I trust myself when I failed Morgan so fucking badly?

I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.

The memorial service to put Nalani and Morgan’s ashes in the ocean was coming up. Captain Gary and his wife Cindy organized a flotilla of boats because their one schooner couldn’t hold all the people who wanted to pay their respects.

I remember in college, reading a CS Lewis book that he’d written after he lost his wife. He said no one had told him how much grief felt like fear.

No one had told me, either.

A deep, dark dread filled me at the idea of going to that ceremony, to see the mourners’ tears and hear their cries and put my brother into the ocean…

No fucking way.

But I’d deal with that later. Until then, I had things to do. I didn’t sleep; I just kept doing, directing, controlling…

Control. What a farce. A cruel joke.

On the morning of the memorial service, Faith put on a long Hawaiian-style dress and a flower in her hair, and I wondered how it was possible to love someone so much and yet still have to tell them goodbye. But then again, that’s what I’d been forced to do with my brother. I hadn’t been ready to say goodbye. Not even close. But I didn’t have a choice.

Except this time, I did. This goodbye, I could control. Another task that needed to be handled.

The grief in me was like a volcano that had not yet erupted. Tectonic plates of pressurized strain that hadn’t yet slipped. Worse, when I looked at Faith there was a storm of anger and guilt and resentment that wasn’t fair to her but was there anyway. And it all boiled down to that one sentence. That one unrelenting fact.

I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there because I’d been with her.

Her soft touch fell on my shoulder. “Asher? It’s time to leave for the marina.”

The day had come, but I was not going to put my brother in the ocean. Not today. I’d made a decision. Why was everyone in such a fucking hurry? Funerals and memorials only days after the fact? As if everyone were eager to be done being sad and get back to their lives. They had that option. Some of us didn’t. I was going to keep Morgan a little longer.

But not Faith. I had to let her go.

I couldn’t bring Kal to Seattle, away from his home after he’d lost everything. He’d lost more than any of us. And Faith couldn’t be with me. Not here. She might try to make a go of it for my sake, but I couldn’t take her away from the life she loved and strand her in the wreckage of mine. She didn’t have to make that choice. I could do that for her, at least, when I’d failed everywhere else. I failed in my duty. Took my foot off the gas. Relinquished control. The alarm had gone off and I was across an ocean and hadn’t heard it.

They said there’s nothing I could have done, but I’ll never know.

Because I wasn’t there.

I looked up at Faith, her eyes were red and puffy from crying but still so beautiful and full of love for me. My vision blurred but I couldn’t cry or I’d fucking splinter in a million pieces. I reached up and touched her hand that was on my shoulder, feeling her skin for the last time, holding it.

Then I let go .





Chapter Twenty-One



“It’s time for you to go home,” Asher said.

We were alone in the backyard where I’d found him staring at the ocean, arms crossed, feet planted in the grass. His face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot and ringed with dark circles—I don’t think he’d slept more than a few hours in the four days since we’d been back. I’d hardly had a moment alone with him, and now I kicked myself for not seeing how badly he was doing. I’d handled what he needed me to handle and had given him space, but that was a mistake.