I smiled at my husband in the light of the half-moon, returning a heartfelt grin he gave me, not knowing in that fleeting moment that our lives were about to change forever. The item stirring around in my coat pocket could be the very object that would either make or break our relationship in the next few minutes. I glanced away, wondering how such a tiny thing could generate the most powerful of reactions.
“Cappuccino for Grace,” shouted a man from the coffee truck we were standing by.
John accepted the hot beverage on my behalf and handed it over to me a moment later. I welcomed the warmth of the cardboard and wrapped both hands firmly around the cup, taking a much-needed sip.
“How is it?” John asked me as we stepped out of the way of the other night owls who were out lurking about in the streets of our small town on a Saturday night.
“Perfect, thank you,” I said with a smile. I realized he had only ordered a cappuccino for me. “Why didn’t you order one for yourself?” I asked.
“I’m full from dinner,” he said.
It was unlike him to skip getting a coffee when we went out for dinner. We always stopped by at Trevor’s coffee truck after a meal. And this particular night out wasn’t just an excuse to hit the town and spend some money; we were celebrating our five-year wedding anniversary.
“We should probably get going,” he said. “It’s getting late.”
“Are you sure? We could head over to one of the bars and grab a drink if you’d like?” I was trying my best to delay what I was desperate yet scared to talk to him about: the final anniversary present I had for John in my coat pocket.
John ran a hand over his chin for a moment in thought. “No, it’s okay. I’d rather get you home and to bed—if you catch my drift.” He raised his brows at me and leaned in to kiss me on the cheek.
I playfully nudged him sideways as we walked along the street. “Is that right?” I asked him before I took another sip of coffee.
“Yeah,” he said with a boyish grin.
“And what makes you think you’re getting lucky again, huh?”
John’s arms outstretched wide. “Come on. It’s our wedding anniversary. Twice in one day is pretty much guaranteed.”
“We’ll see,” I said as I drummed my fingers on my coffee cup while staring into John’s eyes with a coy grin. I’d missed this side of him so much. We continued to stroll down toward his car. The powder-blue street lights above guided our way along the sidewalk. A planted tree took up a portion of the path every hundred feet or so along the cozy street.
My evening bag hung from my wrist with a gift inside that John had given me. He’d decided to ignore the traditional wood gift that was customary for celebrating five years of marriage. Instead, he got me a gold watch with a light gray leather band he’d knew I’d like. The time had frozen on the clock at ten past ten, so I didn’t bother to put it on just yet. John promised to get it fixed for me the next day.
It wasn’t the kind of gift I was expecting, but I loved it all the same. Besides, I was more concerned about what I was giving him than anything else. It was all I could focus on.
Our night wasn’t exactly going perfect—a long week of draining work had made us argue over nothing, as per usual—but we’d pushed through and managed to make it into something of a good time overall. The last few months we’d drifted somewhat apart with our busy lives, but everything was back on track. It had to be. Now was the perfect moment to ask him the very question that was dying to come out of me. I looked up into the clearing sky to the stars above and drew in some air, letting it out again a moment later.
We came to a stop in the street level with our car. It was parked across the road. Once we crossed over, we’d be back in John’s sedan and headed for home. I was running out of time to ask him my question. I should have done it back in the restaurant but something kept interrupting me enough so I’d lose my nerve.
John took a step out into the street. “John, wait,” I said, almost in a panic.
He turned around and headed back to me. “Yeah, what is it?” He stared down at me, his breath visible in the cool night air.
I tried to speak as I returned his gaze, but my mouth just opened and closed with no words coming out. Not now.
“What is it?”
I grabbed the small box in my pocket. I tried to pull it out and use it as a way to communicate exactly what it was I was trying to ask him, but something made me freeze. Why couldn’t I ask him? I already knew what his answer would be. Was I more nervous about how I felt about this than anything else? My brain chose the worst times to stop working.
“I forgot what I was going to say, sorry,” I said. It was all I could blurt out.
He flashed me a smile. “That’s okay. I do that all the time. I’m sure it’ll come to you.”
“Yeah, hopefully.” I lowered my head away from his eyes. I couldn’t hide my embarrassment.
“Come on. We better get moving,” he said with an outstretched hand.
Half crippled and unable to maintain a conversation, I reached out to grab hold when John’s cell chirped out loud. His hand withdrew and reached into his pocket as his phone continued to ring. I frowned at him for not having his cell on silent during our anniversary dinner.
“Sorry, honey. I just need to take this. I’ll be one second.”
I stood there on my own, frustrated as hell, as John said hello and wandered off while he spoke to the person on the other end. Who would be calling him at this hour? It wasn’t terribly late in the night, but it was well after business hours. Was the world against me today?
John walked almost a car length away from me as he spoke on the phone. He was mostly saying yes and nodding to the person on the other end of the line. The call didn’t sound personal in the slightest, more as if he were talking to his boss. He glanced back at me for a moment and then looked away.
I turned from him and placed my coffee cup down on the arm of a bench seat that sat along the sidewalk. I pulled out the final gift I had for John from my pocket. I stared down at the bagged present, knowing it held a felt box big enough to house an engagement ring. I slid it out of the bag and opened its lid. There inside sat a wooden pacifier I’d had custom made to ask John the one question I’d been dying to say to him all day and now all evening: will you start a family with me?
I ran my finger over the smooth grain surface and wondered if it was the right time to ask him such a question. We were both so busy with our careers at the hospital. John especially. A baby had the potential to throw everything out of balance and upset our relationship. But we’d spoken at length about having kids one day. John more so than me. This wouldn’t be a shock at all for him to hear. In fact, he’d be over the moon. I was the one dragging my feet a little on the subject. But we’d been married for five years and were in our mid-thirties. Now was the time to do this. If not, when?
I closed the lid and returned the gift to its bag and my pocket. I drew in a lungful of the cool night breeze and let it flow back out again as I closed my eyes and generated the courage needed to ask John the question the moment he got off his cell. I had to stop messing around and finally do this.
I turned around and saw him walking across the street toward his car, still on the call. Was he about to get in the car? My moment was slipping away. I wanted to do this while we were out to dinner and not at home. Things would get awkward if I had to ask him to come back over to me. I dashed out into the empty street and went to call his name, but he stopped suddenly before I got the chance.
“What the hell?” I muttered as confusion set in. What was he doing? A bright glow suddenly bathed the side of his gray coat and drew my eyes toward the source of a loud disturbance. John turned his head toward the light and sound. My brain took a moment to fathom what it was I was seeing when a light-blue pickup truck slammed into my husband and rolled right over the top of his body in one blinding moment. The driver screeched his brakes hard and came to a sliding stop more than a few hundred feet away. I stared at the truck, frozen on the spot like an icicle, as the driver hit the gas and sped off into the night.
My body went slack. I felt my knees lose all of their strength and I stumbled. I dropped the gift and heard it clatter onto the sidewalk. John lay in the street a good distance from where I had just been speaking to him. Terror gripped me from all sides. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t think straight until I saw a few people rush over to his side. They had come racing out from the nearby restaurants.
I closed my open mouth and charged toward my husband, remembering how my legs worked. “John,” I shouted, louder than I ever thought was possible. I dropped to my knees next to him and reached out both of my hands toward his bleeding face. “John?” He responded to my movement and tracked my eyes. He would get through this. He just had to keep fighting.
He stared up at me, his breath gasping through blood-stained teeth. “Grace, I have to tell you—” He coughed and choked as his neck strained to hold his head up.
“Tell me what?” I asked as I grabbed hold of the back of his head.
John’s skull fell back to the ground with a thud, squashing my fingers a little. His eyes glazed over and stared out into space without blinking. His chest no longer rose and fell. I was witnessing him giving up.
“No,” I muttered. “Come on, John. Not now. Not like this.” I swiveled his head toward me as a crowd gathered around us. I prayed and begged for him to respond to me, to blink, to breathe, but he didn’t move. The light in his eyes faded out before me.
It was our five-year wedding anniversary, and I had just witnessed my husband die.
It’s been six weeks since John died. Six long weeks of pain, denial, and guilt since my life changed forever. Had someone told me when I was younger that I would be burying my husband of five years at the age of thirty-five, I would have thought they were insane. But here I am, precisely forty-two days after witnessing the love of my life’s gruesome death at the hands of a hit-and-run driver, about to bury him six feet under the soil of our quiet town of Sherbrook, Oregon.
This technically wasn’t John’s first funeral. The closest people in his life had already paid their respects by throwing an informal funeral mere days after an aging light-blue pickup slammed into him only a short distance in front of me and shattered his body into an unrecognizable, broken mess. As anyone could imagine, I was in no shape to attend the funeral let alone emerge from the dark void I’d fallen into when the arrangements were made, so the proceedings moved embarrassingly forward without me.
Now, I am standing in an early spring rain that refuses to ease up, staring down at John’s grave wondering how this all came to be.
I read his tombstone over and over.
Beloved by family. Cherished by friends.
John Dalton
1982—2018
I didn’t pick the words. That task, among many that I was beyond capable of achieving, fell to his friends. It seems awkward to me to say that John was “Beloved by family.” Apart from me, he had none. He came from a series of group homes in Portland and knew nothing about his mother or father. He had no idea if he even had any relatives at all out there. I was the closest thing he had to family. But John had many friends, friends that did what they could to put together an informal funeral his wife should have taken care of. It’s a failure on my part that I can never undo and am forced to live with for the rest of my days.
The pouring rain is set in for the day. I feel every drop against my skin as it penetrates my black trench coat and soaks through to my long black skirt suit. In my hands, I hold a closed umbrella that I refuse to open. It doesn’t seem right that I get to be the one to stay dry and comfortable when my husband’s body lies in a wooden box about to be lowered into the wet earth.
“Mrs. Dalton?” a voice says to my right. It sounds distant, but I know it’s right there. “Mrs. Dalton? Grace?”
“Yes?” I ask as I snap out of my trance to glimpse over to the pastor. It’s just the two of us out in the cold, lowering John down to his final resting place. I don’t want a single person out here other than myself and the pastor John requested to bury him. I have to face this day on my own despite the numerous offers I’ve had for people to accompany me.
My closest friend, Jennifer, was the first to put up her hand the way she always did to join me, but I had to decline. I should have been strong enough to bury John when he was killed and not have hidden away in a dark bedroom in my home for all this time like a coward. I would have stayed in that room forever if it wasn’t for Jennifer. During my attempt to hide from the world, I received an unmarked package at my front door. I assumed it was yet another care package from Jennifer. I almost didn’t bother to open it, but when I did, I found a box of chocolates with a message written in cursive that read, “It’s time to move on.” I was angry at first at the blunt message, but the words got through to me and made me take action.
I couldn’t help hiding away for six weeks, though. I was there when John died—almost as close as the pastor stands near me now when my husband’s life was snuffed out. I watched the light extinguish from his eyes. People didn’t understand what that kind of experience did to a person’s soul.
“Are you ready to proceed?” the pastor asks.
I turn my head away and lower my stare to the casket. It’s not a question you want to ever have to answer. I never thought I’d see this day until I was at least eighty years old. Instead, I am a widow at thirty-five. How does this kind of hell come to be?
“Grace?” the pastor urges again. His schedule is overloaded, and I am taking up too much of his time. I never realized how precious a commodity time was until now.
“Yes. I’m ready,” I say. I’m not, though. How could I ever be?
“Very well.” He clears his throat as he probably had a thousand times before this day to say the words that were meant to comfort people in their time of need. “We are gathered here today to show our love and respect, and to say our goodbyes to our brother, a man of God, John Dalton.”
I try not to shake my head as the pastor mentions God. John was barely religious. He never went to church or so much as said a prayer when it came down to it. His only connection to God was via one of the Catholic group homes he grew up in. John rarely spoke of the place or showed any belief in the religion, yet still, he told me countless times to make sure he was buried by a Catholic pastor. Maybe, deep down, he did believe, but he didn’t want to tell me so.
I attempt to avoid hearing the next string of words out of the pastor’s mouth as he continues on to deliver more religious lines to me like I’m ripe for converting. I don’t have the heart to tell him it won’t work. Ever. Not after seeing my husband struck down for no real reason. Not after losing everything.
“John was a beloved husband to his wife, Grace Dalton. For five wonderful years, John supported, loved, and cherished his wife until his life was cut tragically short.”
Five years. It isn’t a rough length of time we’d been married; it’s the exact amount of time we’d been married. Why did John have to be killed on our anniversary? It seemed like an additional punctuation mark on top of the pain his death generated. The cruelty of that night never ceases to amaze me.
The pastor begins to quote scripture at me again, trying to relate the old words to my situation. I try to understand where he is coming from, but I can’t absorb the dogma he is so desperate for me to ingest. Not after that night. Not ever.
The night, as I call it, comes to me in waves, slowly building up until the point of no return to crash hard into the forefront of my mind with an unstoppable force. I wish I could forget, but I see that moment, over and over, that brief second when time slowed down, and I saw that faint recognition in John’s body language when he knew he was going to die. I often laid awake at night wondering what his last conscious thought was before the pickup struck him down in the quiet street. Did he think about past regrets or the future he would never see? Did he think about us?
“But this will not be the end of John’s existence, because he will forever live on in our hearts until we meet him again.”
I wipe away the flow of tears that have merged with the rain and try not to imagine how bad my makeup must be. I did what I could to look my very best for John, not that it seems to matter. It’s silly to think that I spent extra time this morning making sure I wore something he would have liked and styled my dark brown hair the way he loved it. I never have to worry about that again, do I? The dead can’t be impressed.
The thought sends a stab down into my chest, one I can never stop until my body no longer feels pain. It’s a day I look forward to—one I know is a long way from coming. If at all.
The pastor begins to wrap up and subtly takes a peek at his watch. He has another funeral to attend to today with more than just a single grieving widow. My one-on-one session isn’t holding his attention the way a burial with fifty or more sad people could. Did he feed on grief?
“You can go,” I say to the man, wanting him gone.
“Oh, no, I don’t mean to be rude, Grace, it’s just we are already ten minutes past the allotted time I could spare today.”
“It’s fine,” I say as I turn and face him. “I would like to be alone for what I have to say to John next, anyway. Thank you for your time today.”
The pastor nods at me with a forced smile and slinks away in the rain. I ignore his hastened footsteps in the mud and refocus on John’s casket. When I am ready, I will push a lever and watch as he is lowered down into the ground one inch at a time into the cold damp soil. I don’t want anyone but me to do this task for John. I owe him that much. The company I hired to handle John’s intimate funeral will then fill the grave in.
“John,” I say. My eyes look left and right. It feels strange to be talking to a wooden box that holds my dead husband. “I love you, and I know I always will. You are the one and only man I ever want or will want in my life. That will never change, no matter what.”
I let a slow breath fall out of me as I close my eyes and try to stop myself from shaking as I prepare for the next words I have to say. I can’t believe I’m even going to speak them. I know I won’t get an answer in return, but I have to get them out of my system.
“I have to know something about that night. Something you said just before that pickup hit you and changed our lives forever.”
My eyes begin to sting with tears. I can’t feel the rain anymore. I can’t sense anything.
I huff out a sharp lungful of air. “What were you trying to tell me?”
I woke up the way I always did on the morning of our anniversary: overly excited. But this wasn’t just any wedding anniversary; it was our fifth, marking five years as husband and wife. Plus, there was something even more amazing about it. Something I felt was the perfect time to finally act upon.
As I rolled out of bed and stretched, I thought about the traditional five-year wedding anniversary gift that I’d gotten John. My options were limited to items made from wood, so I went with the best idea I could think of: a custom wooden etching with our names and the date of our wedding. I doubted John would really like or appreciate the gift, but it wasn’t the only present I’d be giving him today. Gifts aside, the milestone was something to be proud of in my mind.
Five years. I shook my head. It was a long time to be married to a person in today’s time of quick divorces. We’d had our share of ups and downs and testing moments the way any couple did, but we’d gotten through them together. Particularly, the last few months we’d fallen into a rut with our rigorous work schedules. John also had to study many hours each night and attend seminars for his residency at the hospital, which only served to drive a wedge between us.
But despite the tests and hardships we’d reached a checkpoint that would only propel us along to the next one.
I turned to John’s side of the bed knowing that he would already be up and ready to leave for his shift at the hospital. By chance alone, I had the day off, but I wasn’t going to sleep in. Not today.
We both worked at Bellflower General Hospital in Portland. We’d met at the facility six years ago and were married only one year later in a whirlwind romance. I’d never fallen in love with someone as quickly as I had John. I couldn’t help myself.
At the time, John was just starting out as an intern, and I worked part-time as an orderly while studying to earn my Bachelor’s degree to become a registered nurse. We were both on our own professional pathways, each with their own difficulties.
It wasn’t the most relaxed life concerning spare time, and our relationship wasn’t always easy, but I loved that we shared the same workplace as well as our home. The hospital demanded attention twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and it always came first. The patients never stopped flowing in and out of the building, no matter how tired or desperate we were for a break from the endless grind.
But we got to where we wanted to be. I worked now as a registered nurse while John was a resident on his way to becoming an attending physician in a large team that worked in the ICU. Both roles had their stresses and difficulties, but we both toiled away with pride nonetheless.
I currently worked in the recovery room and dealt with patients post-op. I went from loving my job to hating it several times per week. Usually, it depended upon what kind of patients I had to deal with, and I’d seen them all. The range was extreme, from your sweet old grandma who was in because she’d had a fall and needed a hip replacement, to your dotty dementia patients who didn’t mind taking a swing at you when they woke up from their anesthetic thinking you were an enemy from the past. Entitled princesses would come in alongside caring mothers. Businessmen who threatened to sue every member of staff they came across co-exis. . .
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