An Unfinished Story(3)

Each step toward his office was like wading through emotional quicksand. She climbed the stairs with heavy feet, her footfalls like a ticking clock. She glanced into the empty master bedroom on the left and could still see their modern Scandinavian bed. Her imagination offered a quick glimpse of David and her cuddling in the sheets, watching one of their favorite shows on the television hanging on the wall.

A bitter taste hit her tongue. Damn him for leaving her.

Swallowing the rage that loved to surprise her at times, Claire passed the guest bedroom and reached the door to his office. Eyeing the aged bronze doorknob that had swollen to ominous proportions in her imagination, she stopped and listened. So many times toward the end she’d come to knock on the door, and all she’d heard was David muttering as he wrote his next book. Sometimes, in the quiet, she could still hear him reading his words out loud in a sort of whisper.

Claire briefly fell back in time and almost knocked on the door. “David, dinner’s ready.”

“Okay, honey. Let me wrap up this chapter.”

“Please don’t let it get cold.”

“Just a few more words.”

Those were great days. Somehow they’d dug themselves out of the darkness of being childless and had rediscovered themselves and each other. The same year Claire opened her café, David had committed to run his first marathon, and a chase to get in the best shape of his life ensued. Then he was biking, too, and training for triathlons. The mouthwatering sight of David peeling off his shirt was still etched into her mind.

Then one day, having found motivation in a novel that he’d recently read, he’d started writing again. Rediscovering the passion of his college years, he’d become as obsessed with words as he had with road bikes. His writing was one reason why Claire hadn’t cleaned out his office yet, why she hadn’t sold the house. She hadn’t found the courage to read what he’d been working on the last year of his life, and she knew it was in there waiting for her. His final words. The only words he had left to say.

The identity of the guest to the dinner that had never happened was one of a few questions that had plagued her in the silent moments she hadn’t filled with distractions. Maybe that answer was waiting.

Claire finally turned the knob and pushed open the door to the office. Nothing had changed in three years. Claire had demanded that no one touch David’s stuff. She would do it when she was ready. Her parents and friends had advised her many times to move on, but she’d stood strong against them. Selling the house now was forcing her to do something she still wasn’t completely ready to do.

A framed and signed photograph of David’s favorite Tampa Bay Rays player, Fred McGriff, hung on the wall straight ahead. Fred was lifting his batting helmet toward the crowd, a thanks for their applause after a home run. His uniform read “Devil Rays.” It wasn’t until 2007 that the Rays dropped “Devil” from their name. Thinking about the Rays, she couldn’t help but ponder the other big question still lingering after three years. As much of a Rays fan as David was, why had the police found a New York Yankees hat with the tag still on it in his car when he’d died?

Though Claire’s eyes often glazed over when his talk turned too “inside baseball,” she was well aware how much he disliked the team he called the Evil Empire. “How can you support a squad that buys their way to the World Series?” he’d said on more than one occasion.

Several feet away from the floor-to-ceiling window, his Victorian pedestal desk faced the water. Claire choked up but then broke into a smile when she saw the sepia-colored globe next to the computer monitor. They’d once committed, in writing, to let it decide their next vacation destination. Claire was to spin the globe, and with his eyes closed, David was to place a finger on the spot. His pointer had landed on Ohio. True to their word, they’d booked a trip to Cincinnati to watch the Rays beat the Reds. She barely knew what a curveball was, but they’d ended up having one of the best trips of their marriage.

Claire lowered her eyes to the drawers with thick iron pulls. The novel David had been writing—the one she’d promised not to read until he’d finished—was probably in one of them. Not that this novel was such a big deal. He’d penned a couple of amateur whodunits after graduating from the University of Florida as an English major. Finding himself frustrated in attempting to get published, he’d gone back to school to learn architecture, a more lucrative profession. His writing had fallen by the wayside. Still, these were his last words, and no matter how insignificant they might be from a literary perspective, they meant something to her.

Letting apprehension get the best of her, she couldn’t quite muster the bravery to go to the desk. Not yet. She retrieved several boxes from the hallway and taped them together. Returning, she began stacking the books from the bookshelves into the boxes.

Claire stopped when she reached a first-edition, signed copy of Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters by Whitaker Grant. The cover featured a man staring at a palm tree that had been snapped in half in a hurricane. She opened the book to the inscription.

To David. I hope you pick up your pen again. The finest words always come after breaking through the barriers. ~Whitaker

Though he hadn’t written anything in years, Whitaker was a local celebrity. After they’d turned his award-winning book into a movie, it would have been difficult to find anyone in Florida who didn’t have his or her own strong opinions of whether or not the movie had done justice to his miraculous piece of fiction.