Maybe it was the breeze, maybe it was Shelly’s see-through chiffon, maybe it was island life, or maybe it was the sight of my fortieth birthday not too far in the distance, but as we stood outside that store and museum, I actually heard myself say these words: “Doesn’t hurt to look.”
I pushed open the door. Shelly eyed the CUSTOM-MADE JEWELRY sign and said, “Doors like this are usually one way. Once you go in…” She held my gaze and waited.
I led her to the counter where the rings were displayed beneath the glass. She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned over the counter, the gold glistening off her eyes. She was waiting on some signal from me. I struck up a conversation with the man who lifted the trays from the display case and shared with us the stories of his treasure hunting. Shelly listened with one ear, but her focus was wrapped around her finger. We tried a few, thanked the man, and then walked out. The following day, while she napped in the hotel, I returned to his store and buried the resulting purchase in the bottom of my pocket.
I enjoyed Shelly’s company and I liked her a lot, but I can’t tell you that I spent a lot of time dreaming about sharing the rest of my life with her. I didn’t dream that way with anyone. I know how that sounds, and no, I’m not real proud of it. I enjoyed her company and I wanted to be with her, but I wasn’t looking so much long term as I was short. My motive was simple: I didn’t want to live without her. Not because I couldn’t. I’d been alone a long time. I was good at it. But because of what “being without her” ultimately said about me.
The moon was high. Bright. Clear. Full. Trailing out across the water. I picked her up and she swung her arms around my neck. The vein in her neck throbbed. Her body might have been relaxed, but her heart was pounding. I walked her out through the waves to the clear, warm calm water just beyond the break. “Shelly?”
Years of shattered dreams and a painful first marriage were dissolving with every word. Her face lit. I slid the ring from my pocket, pulled her hand from around my neck, and placed the band in her palm. “Marry me?”
Looking back, it was probably not the proposal she wanted. No girl, no woman, wants a half-spoken, somewhat guarded proposal. The whole down-on-one-knee thing? The whole all-in thing? It matters. She smiled, closed her palm, and kissed me. I can still taste the saltwater. I didn’t see it then, but she had resigned herself there—to take what she could get.
* * *
Sometimes I wish the story ended here.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that my half-fast proposal had cheated Shelly out of a marriage proposal that lived up to her hopes and closed the door on the pain of the first. That brought healing. Her first husband had not been faithful, not cherished her, and not been truthful until caught. He’d left a bitter taste. While never spoken or expressed, she was hopeful that I would remedy this. And that remedy started with a proposal that lived up to her idealized and romantic notions of marriage. Notions that I fed and encouraged.
I had cheated her of this.
It would not be the last time.
* * *
Just off the northern tip of Bimini, some two hundred yards from the beach, a huge, flat piece of limestone—about the size of a fishing boat—rises up out of the water some six or eight feet. Some believe it’s included in the Atlantis formations. On several occasions, Shelly and I had swum out to it and rested or hunted for lobster, then swam back. Following my lame proposal, Shelly stated she wanted a beach wedding. Barefoot. Preferably on that rock. We’d meet on the beach and swim out together. Small. Just “family.” In the time I’d known her, Shelly had grown close to Hack, Colin, Marguerite, and the kids—who weren’t really kids anymore. She’d grown especially close to Maria. Even taught her how to French braid her hair. Given their inclusion in our lives, it was important to her that they share that moment with us. We booked a justice of the peace and set a date for a month in the distance.
My fortieth birthday.
* * *
The following morning I walked to Hack’s shack at daybreak to share the news. Normally, I walked around the corner to the aroma of coffee and a lit cigarette. This morning, I experienced neither. “Hack?”
No response.
“Hack?” I said a bit louder.
I found him in bed. No shirt. His feet sticking out from underneath the sheet. He was staring out across the water. He was not smoking. Not drinking coffee. Just staring east across the Atlantic. I knew when I saw him that Hack had folded his cards. He was done. He would never leave port again.
I sat and his eyes moved while his head did not. He whispered with a forced smile, “’Bout time you got here.” He tried to whisper again, but doing so dislodged something in his chest, causing a coughing fit he was too weak to fight. His lips were tinted red. His mouth dry. I fed him a sip of water and he asked for a cigarette. When I started to argue with him, he whispered, “What? You think they’re going to kill me?”
I lit it and hung it from his lips where it dangled. Hack was pale and his breathing labored. I think he’d hung in there as long as he could. Long enough to have one last talk with me. I repositioned the pillow behind his head and then slipped my hand inside his. He smiled and nodded. The muscles felt deflated. The decades’ worth of calluses not so thick. Life was fading. Draining out. Only a trickle remained.
His voice was weak when he spoke. “I’d like to ask a favor.”
I leaned in. Closer. “Anything.”
He was staring out beyond the sheet of glass that had rolled up nearly to his back door. “I want you to”—he gestured with his right hand—“bury me at sea. With my wife.” A pause.
I swallowed. Then nodded.
He tapped two sheets of paper next to him. “Instructions.” He closed his eyes and rested the papers on his chest. “Signed. Made it legal.” He shook his head once. “Nobody’ll bother you.” His eyes turned to me. “You’re all the family I’ve got.”
I lifted the cigarette, flicked the ash, and returned it between his now blue lips. He drew, held it, exhaled, and spoke. “Don’t let that girl slip away.” A single shake. “Lonely is no way to live.” He tapped me on the chest. “And you been lonely since the moment I met you.”
I nodded. The thought of one more loss was sinking in. Another someone I loved being taken from me.
He continued. “You, me, her. We need each other.”
A tear trickled down my cheek.
He noticed it and one side of his mouth turned up. “Glad to know you’ve got a heart.”
I thumbed the tear, lit a new cigarette with the glow plug end of the other, and hung the new one from his lip.
A slight smile, he filled his chest and focused on his breathing, the smoke trailing out his nose. Finally, he handed me the papers, closed his eyes, and then reached for my hand. Held it between his on top of his chest. A few moments later, he drew in half a breath, stopped short, and then his body relaxed, his hand fell limp, and he exhaled long and slow, filling the air around us with a cloud. When he didn’t inhale, and he didn’t move, I sat back, breathing in the cloud.
I crossed his arms over his chest and pulled the sheet up over him. As I did, I noticed something in me hurt. Deeply. Something I’d not felt in a long, long time. It was my heart. And it was aching.
* * *
I buried Hack at sea, as detailed in his last will and testament. Strangely enough, it’d been witnessed by the island doc who’d come to check on Hack the night before. Turns out he’d been making house calls the better part of the last few weeks, upping Hack’s morphine each night so he could handle the pain from the growing mass in his chest. He later told me that when he’d signed the papers, he was pretty sure that Hack would not live out the night. He was surprised he’d hung in there as long as he did.