Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (31 page)

“How was Tank’s mom?”

I’d asked her to come with me today. Mrs. Kragler should know the girl I was in love with, but Nora had thought this first visit I should go alone.

“I mean, how is she even surviving? Is she able to walk and talk? How could she have had him as her son and then lost him?” Nora began to cry again.

I laid down on the bed next to her and pulled her toward me. The seagulls squawked outside our window as if they had something that needed to be said. Some message they were delivering.

The complete despair in Mrs. Kragler’s voice rang in my ears. At the funeral, she’d been stoic, but today, without the crowd surrounding her or the acts of the funeral, she’d been heartbroken. She was traumatized by Tank’s death. From the minute I’d entered her kitchen, she’d stayed in motion. She’d fixed me a glass of iced tea and cut me a slice of cake she’d just baked. The house was full of food. She must not have stopped cooking since the day he’d left us. The only time she’d sat down was to show me the letter Nora had written her.

“Read this,” she’d said and handed me the card. There was a single blue bird soaring above the gray ocean on the front. I had no idea what it was. There was a stack of cards next to an endless line of drooping flowers on her kitchen counter. I’d have thrown them all away, but Mrs. Kragler could never waste a thing, including flowers.

“What is it?” I took the card and ran my hand over the raised bird.

“A girl Thomas knew gave me a bag at the luncheon. This”—she grabbed Tank’s Thomas the Tank beach towel from off the couch and carried it to the kitchen table—“was in the bag with the card.” Mrs. Kragler wrapped her arms around the towel and held it close to her face the same way Nora had done the day we’d heard Tank died.

I forced myself to open the card.

Dear Mrs. Kragler,

I spent exactly twenty-four days with your son. Not even the time it takes to exhale in the course of an entire life, even one as tragically short as his. He’s gone, and I have this undeniable urge to say something. If you knew me, you’d know that’s an uncommon inclination. I rarely say a thing. I’ve spent the last few years observing life, rather than living it.

To Tank, this was a tremendous waste. He lived fully. Every second he was on this earth, he was present. He forced me to speak, and I told him things I’d never told anyone. He did it just by being himself. He taught me to laugh, to explore, and to believe in the world. With only a few words, he made me understand what I have and what others live without. He forced me to feel things, but now he’s gone, and all I feel is empty. It’s as if he taught me to love the ocean just in time to drown in it.

Your world without him is unfathomable. If in twenty-four days, he changed my entire life, yours must have been permanently swirling around the amazing aura of your son. His absence, I’m sure, is a thousand times harder to bear than what I’m feeling now. I can’t imagine how you’ll go on.

Tank had his own notion of the afterlife. It was insightful, and merciful, and full of wonder—like his ideas on most subjects. He believed that when we die, our soul returns to those who loved us while we were alive. That it fills in the holes left by our departure and heals our loved ones enough to survive until we see each other again.

Tank also believed that every person we meet is for a reason. I think he met me so I’d send this letter to you. I loved him very much, and I can’t wait until I see him again. My heart goes out to you and your family.

May peace find you.

Nora Hargrove

Tears blurred my vision. I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself next to Tank’s mom.

“At first I thought it was a joke. After all, I’ve read every Nora Hargrove novel ever written,” Mrs. Kragler said. I couldn’t help but laugh. Nora would have laughed, too. “But after I read the letter, I knew this was a different Nora. Do you know her?” I could only nod. “Well, she’s lovely.”

“She is,” I said and finished my iced tea.

Nora turned in my arms and pulled my attention back from my visit with Tank’s mom. “She’s doing okay. She showed me the letter you wrote her.”

Nora stiffened and sat up to face me. “Was she angry? Did I overstep?”

I shook my head. “No. No. I think it helped. She really appreciated it. It was kind.”

“I just felt like she should know what he thought on some of those things. Life things, you know?”

“I do.”

“Hey,” Mila said and waltzed onto the porch like it was her room. “I want to do . . . something.” Mila paused, and my mind flew from a cruise in Tank’s honor to a poetry reading on the beach tonight. Mila’s ideas could be anywhere and everywhere at the same time. She was torn apart by her own thoughts. “I feel like we need to do
something
. We can’t just let him go.”

“I know what you mean,” Nora sat up and said. I stared at her, wondering if the words had come from someone else. I was used to her quietly letting everyone else speak, not contributing. Especially on a matter as sensitive as Tank. “I do. I feel like we should erect a statute in his honor or start a religion with the teachings of Tank. He can’t be lost to the entire world.” She really did love him as much as I did.

Mila reached over and pulled her into a hug. I wanted to hold her. I needed her to make me whole again, because Tank’s soul had apparently not made its way back to me yet. All I wanted was Nora. Mila caressed Nora’s hair, and I realized she loved her, too.

“I was thinking about a scholarship fund in his honor. Maybe something to do with science,” Mila said causing me to shut down.

Who the fuck wants a scholarship set up in their honor?

I wasn’t even sure Tank thought college was a worthwhile experience for people. He was so much more about learning from others as we
floated
through our existence. Mila should know that. I hid my disdain from my face. She was only trying to help.

“Maybe funding for children to receive swim lessons who otherwise cannot access them.”

Mila and I turned to Nora. It was perfect. Tank would have taken each and every person in the ocean one by one if he could. He’d spent the summer forcing us all to go in. He’d taken Nora in the middle of the night. Tank had some connection to it that was different than the rest of us, but that was true about everything with Tank. Not just the ocean.

“Tank equated swimming to flying for humans,” Nora continued. “He said, ‘It’s the only time you can soar through time suspended above the earth.’ He felt it was a tragedy some children would never get to feel what diving through the water is like.” Nora took a deep breath and exhaled. She was taking my breath away.

“That’s beautiful,” Mila said, never taking her eyes off Nora.

“That was Tank. The only other idea I have is . . .” Her words trailed off. I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly say that she feared might offend us. “Maybe something to do with mental illness.” “Illness” was barely audible. She was the only person to ever suggest there was something wrong with Tank. Something more wrong with him than the rest of us. She was brave. She was as strong as Tank thought she was.

The shame washed over me. I could have done something different to make sure he was still with us, but no one had dismissed normal faster than Tank. I thought he was just different, and troubled, and brilliant, and
not
normal.

“But I think Tank’s mom would find the most comfort in the swim lessons, and it’s a great way to honor his teachings.”

“It’s brilliant,” Mila said and hugged her again. Nora relaxed in her arms. Her expression turned from fear to acceptance as she closed her eyes. “Don’t you think, Jack?” She released Nora and turned to me for my approval. It wasn’t mine that mattered, though.

I nodded. “Tank would love it.”

Mila left us alone on our porch, and I pulled Nora back down to me.

“I need you to quit your job and move to DC with me.” I waited for a shocked expression, but Nora barely blinked.

“Done.” She kissed me. I forgot it was broad daylight and we were lying together in a room of windows. “I need you to adopt a dog from the animal shelter.”

She waited for my refusal, but all I wanted was her. If she came with three dogs, a cat, and a lion, that was how I’d take her. “Done.”

“I love you,” she said. The words fell from her lips without hesitation. She didn’t pull away or stumble over the expression. She was mine. Forever.

I
t was as if Tank had given his life for mine. That he’d sacrificed whatever time he’d had left on the earth to force me to participate in the time I was here. Such an arrogant thought. That someone’s death was to benefit another. That Tank could even impact the universe in such a way, but I blamed him for that, too. He’d made every person he’d laid eyes on the center of his world. The captain of their existence. He’d forced me to accept I had a place here the day he’d given up his, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

My sweet angel walked over and plopped down next to me. He ran his hand across the sand. I knew from every other thing he’d ever touched that he loved the way the granules felt on his fingertips. He was this tiny bit of joy the world had bestowed upon me. He was a part of me. In my mind every second of the day, stealing my heart from his father who I thought could never be displaced. Unbelievably, there was room for this little being, too.

He watched me as he stood and toddled across the sand in front of me, completely unaware that it was the middle of the night and not the height of the day. He reminded me of the other person I’d loved who’d had such an intense light within, but that light had been accompanied by darkness. This little one only knew peace. He was enamored with the world around him and truly kind. He was a gift.

“Mommy,” he said and handed me the remnants of a broken shell he thought were still beautiful. He never differentiated the broken ones from the whole ones. They were all perfect in his mind, and he’d leave piles of them next to the leg of my beach chair every day we brought him here.

I’d been to the shore every summer since I’d met his father. I found myself among the crashing waves and scorching sunshine. For fifteen weeks, I’d been trapped in a too-small cottage with housemates who were larger than life. It saved me.

“Thank you,” I said. My voice overflowed with love. I put the shell next to me on the blanket.

Jack laid on his back, staring at the black sky, believing the answers to all his questions resided there. “It’s good there’s no moon tonight,” he said and kept looking up.

“It’s going to be spectacular. I wish we could be out on the water, but I don’t want to take him out until he’s bigger.”

“He shouldn’t be in the ocean without a lifeguard.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “And neither should you.”

I rolled over and kissed the man who’d found me, lost and alone, some five years ago. “I love you for being here.”

“I know.” His words gave me a chill. He knew everything. I’d stopped wondering if he’d helped me find myself or just happened to be standing next to me when I’d made the discovery. Jack was the foundation I’d built my life upon. He was more than I’d ever thought was possible, and now I had him and our son. “You’re going to be amazed.” He pointed to the sky. I looked up in time to see the last bits of a shooting star. “Ahh. It’s starting.”

“Come here,” I said to my little shell hunter. “Come watch the falling stars.”

Without any understanding of what I was talking about, he came over and snuggled between us. He cuddled close to me. I put my arm across him and touched Jack’s stomach. I was a million miles away and right there all at the same time. I was a girl who knew no one, including herself, and found her voice in a chaotic mix of words spoken by strangers she’d come to love. I was a mother and a wife.

I was the luckiest girl in the world.

We waited in silence. My eyes searched the endless night, and I remembered the first shooting star I’d ever seen. At the time, I’d dulled myself down to no longer wanting a thing but to be left alone. Now, I wished for those in heaven to be patient and give us time together here on Earth and for the two guys lying next to me to stay with me forever. However long forever turned out to be.