An Unfinished Story(4)

Eschewing anything too popular, David had been one of the holdouts and showed no interest in reading it until Fate played her part. A couple of years after the release of Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters, Whitaker had begun showing up at her café to write his second novel. Claire hadn’t wanted to bother him but had loved his book and couldn’t help but approach him to say thanks. As they’d talked, she’d admitted her frustration with her husband, who had not yet read the book. She’d joked that David must be the only one along the Gulf who hadn’t. The next time he came in, Whitaker had given Claire an inscribed copy to pass along.

The hardhead he was, David hadn’t picked up the book for a few more years but finally gave it a chance. He’d finished it one night while they were lying in bed together, and he’d rolled over and said, “I can’t believe you didn’t make me read this book! Life changing, really.”

“I know!”

“Makes me want to write again, Claire.”

“You should.”

A month later, she’d heard him muttering in his office, a sound that drove her crazy at the time, but now it was all she wanted to hear. If only she’d recorded him so that she could replay it while lying in bed on the sleepless nights.

Claire smiled sadly at the memory and set the book aside. The little bungalow she’d just bought on Pass-a-Grille didn’t have room for all of David’s books, but she’d certainly find a spot for this keepsake.

After filling and taping up a few more boxes, she turned back to the desk. It was time to face the music. Claire approached David’s ergonomic chair and sat down. His muttering grew louder in her heart. She touched the dark wood of the desk and again felt his presence.

A sound nearly knocked her out of the chair. A cuckoo bird poked its head out of the clock on the wall to signify with a loud chirp that noon had arrived. Another memory fired, and she could see David’s giant grin as he’d unwrapped his Valentine’s Day gift one year to find this absurd clock. The chirp reminded her that she needed to get back to her café to close. She was a manager short.

With gnawing trepidation, Claire rifled through his drawers. When she pulled open the bottom one, she found the composition books resting next to a collection of pencils held together with a rubber band. Her heart kicked at her chest. She’d asked many times if he’d let her read what he was writing, but he’d stood firmly against it. “Only once I’m finished,” he’d said. “Promise me.”

Though she did make the promise, she’d constantly teased him, sneaking into his office and peeking over his shoulder while he was distracted by his craft. It became a game of sorts and always ended with David twisting his head, dropping his chin, and lowering his reading glasses to the tip of his nose, then looking at her with eyes the color of graham crackers, gently reminding her of the promise.

Surely, that promise didn’t hold up in death.

Or did it? What would he have wanted? For her to toss the pages away unread? He’d want her to enjoy his last words, no matter what they might be.

Unsure of how to proceed, Claire hesitantly reached down and shuffled through the stack. There were three composition books, parts one through three of the third draft. She chose Saving Orlando #1—3rd Draft, which was written on the line in the white space in the middle of the cover. With her heart racing, she opened to the first page. She wondered what the title meant, what David knew about Orlando, why he would write about it.

Being an architect and a lover of design, David had handwriting that would be better termed as calligraphy and would rival John Hancock’s finest letters. In his tight black script, it read:

Claire, you’re busted! I knew you’d try to read it. Seriously, you made a promise to me. It’s not ready.

A brief relief from the sadness graced her, thinking of all the times she’d teased him with her clumsily covert attempts to read a line, and the way he snapped his composition book shut and explained that he didn’t have much more to go.

She fingered the letters, felt the indentations in the page. David’s hands had been here. His heart had been here. She bit her bottom lip and held back a cry. “What am I supposed to do now, baby?” she asked silently. “There’s no way I’m not reading it.”

Firm on her decision, she turned the page and read the first line:

The boy first came to me in a dream, a bolt striking from the sky.

Not the typical entry into a whodunit. Claire kept reading. Though there were still corrections and erased passages, the sentences were easy to follow. As her eyes bounced from word to word, beautiful images appeared in her mind. She flew through the first chapter and, at once, felt sad that David wasn’t here but also glad that he had left this treasure. David had written something far from a mystery, taking a piece of his soul and putting it onto the page.

He wasn’t writing about the city of Orlando. Set in modern-day Sarasota, the story began with a single man in his late thirties named Kevin catching an eleven-year-old boy breaking into his car. The boy’s name was Orlando.

How had David never mentioned this story? She was desperate to keep reading, desperate to find out what happened. But she had to get back to the café, the only stable piece of her life. If she let that slip, she was sure she’d lose her last, white-knuckled grip on life.





Chapter 2