The Nights Were Young Page 19

  XXVI

  There were more than a hundred people at Crossfalls Baptist Church the next morning. It seemed like the whole town had gathered to say farewell to Travis. They moved slowly inside the church, dressed in black, talking quietly among each other. They made their way to their seats in the pews. In front of the audience was an empty coffin, and behind it a picture of Travis and the family he had when he died.

  He seemed so much older than Marie remembered. In the picture, his hair was short, and he had facial hair neatly groomed into a goatee. He was wearing a nice, button up shirt, and his smile was so genuine that it struck Marie. It was not the flirtatious smile he had worn through the halls of school. It was the smile she saw when they had been alone together, unforced and sincere. Jenny was in the photo next to him. She was a beautiful woman, long brown hair, dark skin, dark eyes, and long eye lashes that their little girl also had. Their baby girl, Lauren, was in a pink dress and sat in her mother’s lap. Travis was behind Jenny with his arms around her. It was a beautiful picture.

  Marie sat with Kate and her family near the front. There was not a dry eye in the room as the eulogies were read, as the hymns were sung by the choir, and as the scripture was read by the preacher.

  “We will remember, and miss Travis,” the preacher said. He took a moment for silence. “At this time, anyone who has brought something they wish to place in the coffin may come and do so.” He stepped back.

  The pianist began another hymn. People moved forward gradually. Marie almost reached into her purse to get her object, but something stopped her. It suddenly did not seem right to her.

  Kate stood and asked Marie, “Are you coming?”

  “I don’t think I want to,” Marie said.

  Kate touched her shoulder. “Okay.” She and Joey walked forward with their children.

  Marie looked onward and watched as everyone else brought something forward to give to Travis.

  **********

  After the ceremony people stayed and talked. Marie remained quiet and stood near the back of the room. She caught the eye of Travis’s mother, who stood next to Jenny. They were near Travis’s coffin.

  His mother had aged, but she looked better than when Marie had last seen her. She seemed healthier, and was standing straight without swaying. She was staring at Marie, and Marie knew she would not rest later without talking with this woman.

  “Hi,” Marie said nervously when she approached them.

  Jenny looked at her and smiled. The woman was not wearing make-up and was still gorgeous. Her cheeks were puffy from crying. On her hip was little Lauren, too young to fully understand what was happening.

  “Hi,” Jenny said.

  “I’m Marie.” They shook hands. “I was… a friend of Travis’s from high school.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Jenny said.

  “I’m…” Marie fought back tears. “I’m so sorry – for - for your loss.”

  Jenny nodded and spoke kindly. “Thank you.”

  The preacher tapped Jenny on the shoulder and stole her attention.

  “Excuse me,” Jenny said to Marie.

  Travis’s mother held Marie’s hand. “He talked about you,” she said quietly. “He said you were one of the best things that ever happened to him.”

  Marie did not know what to say.

  “Marie, I am so sorry for the ways that you saw me when you came over those days. I truly am. I want to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  She hugged Marie, and with a crying voice said, “For being there for him when I wasn’t.”

  Marie put her arms around his mother, and said nothing.

  “Come with me, please,” his mother said.

  She led Marie to the back of room and sat down in the pew. Marie sat next to her. His mother insisted on being physically close to her, which made her uncomfortable. She folded her arms for a moment, but then she realized how cold she was acting, like her mother. She forced herself to hold out her hands and allow his mother to hold one of them while she spoke.

  “Travis and I,” his mother said. “Our relationship, wasn’t great when he was young.” She choked back tears. “You – you saw that. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  Marie nodded.

  “We got closer after we both were – well, after we both got sober. And I asked him how he lived with me, how he survived in that ‘home’ with me.”

  Marie looked down and stayed still.

  “I put him through a lot, you know. And he said that you, Marie, were what helped him stay as long as he did.”

  Marie laughed sadly. She wiped a tear from her cheek. “He still left. He left because I was too scared to actually help him.”

  “No, no,” his mother said quickly. “It wasn’t you, sweetheart. It was – it was me.” She burst out and cried for a moment, but she calmed herself and continued. “The month before he left, things started getting really bad. I was with a man who, oh God please don’t judge me, Marie.”

  “He hit him,” Marie said, remembering the bruises Travis had.

  His mother closed her eyes and nodded.

  They sat quietly while his mother gathered her enough composure.

  “It happened a lot,” his mother said. “When he was older, he told me that he had tried once to stay sober, for you, but he couldn’t because of how bad he felt at home. Because of how bad I made him feel. You weren’t what drove him away, Marie. It was me.”

  She held both Marie’s hands and looked her in the eyes.

  “You were there for him,” his mother said. “As much as you could be – when I was bad, a bad mother. And I’ll be forever thankful for that.” She pulled Marie closer and wrapped her arms around her. She cried softly. “Thank you, Marie.”

  **********

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Kate said.

  Marie put her last bag in the car and hugged her. Joey was standing beside them and their children were next to him.

  “Trust me,” Marie said. “I won’t. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Marie hugged Kate’s children, and then she hugged Joey. She hugged Kate one last time. “Thank you so much for calling me.”

  “You’re welcome, and Marie,” Kate said softly. “Really, if you ever need a place to stay, for any reason, you can come here. You always have a home here.”

  Marie held her hands and nodded.

  Marie drove away, but she was not leaving town. There was something left she had to do.

  **********

  She drove to Crossfalls Estates. She went past the two and three-story homes. They looked less lovely now, and the yards seemed more unkempt. There were numerous for-sale signs. It seemed the life in the neighborhood was leaving, just like she had left seven years ago. She drove past her old house, stopping only for a few moments to look at it. She could imagine the day she had moved in there, and she could see the night Travis picked her up at the front door for their first date. She moved on, carrying further down a few more streets. Soon enough she came to the dead end of a road that led to a boat dock on the edge of the water on the lake, a few minutes from any of the homes in the neighborhood.

  Marie paused and gazed through the car windows. The water was calm. The sky was covered in gray clouds. The road was beaten with potholes here and there. The land around it was mostly dirt now with a few patches of grass.

  She got out of the car and walked forward until she was near the shore of the lake. She stopped and breathed. It was silent except for the soft waves of the water, pushed gently forward in the breeze.

  “Travis I - I came here,” Marie said, “because this was our spot. Those nights when you’d show up in your truck – those were the nights that I fell in love with you.”

  The wind blew softly.

  “This was our spot,” she said. “And it’ll always be our spot.”

  She hung her head.

  “I remember one night; we were talking about everything we wanted out of life. I remember what you said. Yo
u wanted a family, and to be a better dad than yours was and… just to have a good life.” She choked up. “And I’m so glad that you got that. You had a good life, and I’m happy for you.”

  She looked out onto the water. It felt strange, waiting to hear his voice answer her.

  “Life is short, and you knew that. I don’t think you’d be happy if you saw my life now. I’m not, I’m not happy. And there are just so many things that I wish… I wish I wasn’t going back to James… and I wish you were here. I really, really wish you were here.”

  She wiped tears from her face.

  “I was mad at you for a long time because you left, and I wanted so much to never think about you again. I thought I could just forget you, because you hurt me, and maybe we hurt each other.”

  She took a deep breath and looked out over the horizon.

  “And I’m so, so sorry! I’m sorry for the way that things – ended between us. I loved you, and I should’ve told you I loved you, and I know it’s wrong because you found Jenny and had a baby, but I should’ve given us a chance. Because we could’ve had something good. And we could’ve lived that good life that you had together.” She paused. “I was just scared. I was just scared, and I’m sorry.” She breathed deep. “I’ll keep loving you, for the rest of my life. But I’ll let you go.” She closed her eyes. “Finally, I’ll let you go.”

  She came back to her car and got two things, one from out of her purse. She walked back to the end of the road, where the dirt began, and kneeled. Into the ground she dug a hole that was nearly a foot deep. She picked up her object, one that she had retrieved from the jewelry box in the bottom drawer of the dresser from her closet. It was a thin, silver chain with a music note charm dangling from its end; after all those years, she still had the necklace Travis had given her. She placed it in the ground, and then covered the dirt back over it. Over this she laid a flower, a lily.

  She stood and gazed back out over the water. His spirit was somewhere, maybe there with her, maybe a million miles elsewhere. No matter where, she knew he heard her. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered. “Goodbye, Travis.”

  XXVII

  The drive back to the house that James and Marie shared was long, very long. Marie half considered driving past the exit she needed on the highway and going anywhere else. The thought rolled around in her head the entire trip, the thought of a choice she could make. Travis had made his choices. He had chosen to enjoy life the only ways he knew how when they were young. He had chosen to make his life better when the partying had gotten the best of him. Marie had followed him, when they were younger, into that world of freedom and choice. Where was that world now? It was not where James was, where her mother was, or where she was heading.

  She arrived that evening. James was watching TV and drinking. Marie came in with her bags. He did not get up.

  “Where the hell is Crossfalls?” he asked. His face remained fixed on the TV screen.

  “Not here,” Marie said.

  He was surprised by her sarcasm. He looked her way and spoke coldly. “You’re mother’s been calling you for a whole day.”

  “I’ll call her when I get around to it.”

  He turned back to the television and raised the volume.

  “Look… I’m sorry for ruining the party-”

  “Save it,” he interrupted. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say about that, and quite frankly I don’t even really want to see you or have you in the same room right now. So if you wouldn’t mind… just leave.”

  Marie looked to the corner of the room, where the window was. She knew beyond it were the hills and everything beyond them. Her decision was made. Her heart beat faster, and her blood ran quicker. This was it, now or never. She left the bags by the door and ran into the bedroom.

  She was flying. She threw a suitcase on the floor and began throwing clothes inside it. She crammed her jewelry in the pockets. She stuffed every inch of it with anything in the bedroom that was hers – nothing that was given to her by James. Not to her surprise, it only took one suitcase to get everything. The pictures, the furniture, those could stay. For all she cared, those things could simply burn.

  James walked. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Marie ignored him. She rolled the suitcase past him and back through the living room where she grabbed her guitar that was propped against the wall.

  He ran forward and grabbed her arm tight. “What are you doing?”

  “Let me go!” She yanked her arm away.

  He glared at her. “Where are you going now?”

  “Away from you! Away from here!”

  She turned away, but he grabbed her again. She whirled around and shoved him away so hard that he tripped over the nightstand and fell to the floor. The lamp on the nightstand fell and shattered under him.

  “Shit!” he screamed.

  Marie went into the kitchen and dug to the bottom of the drawer next to the sink, where the keys to her Cavalier had been sitting stagnant for years. She turned and marched to the door. She grabbed the rest of her bags and left the house and into the garage.

  She punched the button and the electric door lifted. She marched out of the garage and got to her Chevy Cavalier. She tore the blue cover off, marveling at it. She threw in her bags and the suitcase and the guitar.

  James rushed up and stood behind her, holding his back and breathing heavily. “You’re leaving?”

  Marie stared at her car. “You know,” she said, holding her hand on the door handle of her car, “this is the only thing I own. Took me all those years in college to save up for it. Remember?”

  James was baffled. “What does that have to do with anything? How is that important, Marie?”

  “Because it’s mine,” she answered. “I chose it. And now I’m making another choice.” She looked up at her fiancé. “Yes, I’m leaving James.”

  “Where are you going this time?” James asked. He waved his arms up and down once, and then he put his hands on his hips and sighed. He didn’t understand how serious she was.

  Marie shook her head. “No, James, I’m leaving you… for good.”

  “What are you talking about? You live here. Where are you gonna go?”

  “I don’t care,” she said calmly. “Wherever the hell I choose to go.”

  She opened her door.

  “After everything we’ve been through?” James asked. “You’re just gonna run away like this? What are you? Scared?”

  Marie stopped, and she laughed. She shook her head, and felt the light in her, in her eyes as she looked at James.

  “No,” she said confidently. “If I were scared, I’d be staying. But I’m not scared, not anymore. Life’s too short for that.”

  James was still angry and his face showed his confusion.

  “Life’s too short for me to spend it pretending that we love each other, James, because we don’t.”

  He heaved. He was frowning, and scratching his head. It was something he would not understand that night or maybe in his lifetime. Marie understood him. He wanted the plan, her mother’s plan, the plan of many people, the plan that Marie had almost given herself to, and the plan that had kept her from loving the boy she should have loved.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  Marie was quiet. She turned her head, where in the distance she could see the hills and the space beyond them. She slid off her engagement ring and placed it on the pavement. She looked at the house, the quiet house she had spent so much time alone in. She closed her eyes.

  “Live,” she answered.

  She took a last look at him, then got in the car and left the driveway. He remained there, looking after while she sailed away down the road and out of his reach.

  Marie kept driving. She flew past the hills and then beyond them, further and further on that stretch of road that seemed to lead on into eternity. The night was young, like they had been when she was eighteen, and it was a sight Travis would have loved. She was terrified. Ther
e was no certain destination, no certain answers anymore, but there was freedom – this wild freedom she had felt seven years ago, a freedom she had shared with the young man she would never forget. She was terrified, but she loved it, for she felt alive in the face of the coming night, and she knew that a new day would follow it, and new days would follow after.

  Thank you very much for reading.

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  Sincerely,

  Calvin Wedgefield