AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He did all that she asked. He drove her home. He waited outside her house in his truck while she changed into sweats and flip-flops and gathered everything she needed, including a beach blanket, into a large tote bag.
He kept his thoughts to himself, even after she gave him their destination. Just like a man, she thought, a little burst of amusement catching her by surprise. Their lack of curiosity about people and their motivations could sometimes astound her.
But she didn’t want to answer questions anyway. And so she kept quiet, too, as she led them down the beach at Zuma, past a couple of concrete circles roaring with bonfires and ringed by revelers. When the flickers of the flames were far away, when the only light came from the big, fat harvest moon overhead, she reached into her bag for the blanket and spread it on the sand. Then she reached in again and brought out the container of Wayne’s ashes. Hand-crafted from recycled paper, it was shaped like a clamshell and colored the same blue-green as the Pacific waters. With careful hands, she set it on the olive-drab wool of Wayne’s old army blanket, the one that had accompanied them on dozens of beach trips and just as many forest picnics.
“Oh, Juliet.” From the mix of resignation and concern in Noah’s voice, she realized he’d guessed why she’d wanted to come here from the instant she’d mentioned the place. Likely he’d been silent on the trip over because he’d been wishing so hard he was wrong.
But this was right.
The time was right.
The place was right.
And this was the way she’d achieve what she needed.
She kicked off her sandals and then pushed the elastic hems of her sweatpants up past her knees. Now in knickers, she stepped onto the cool, silky sand.
Already she was feeling something.
Noah was nothing more than a dark statue as she bent to retrieve the ashes. “Juliet…” He whispered her name into the darkness.
She crossed her arms to hold the container against her chest, close to her heart. It was beating…beating…beating, yet it felt more like a death knell than a sign of life.
And she wanted to live again.
She couldn’t do that with this task still left unfinished. Wayne had never wanted to be her burden, and now she had to set them both free.
“Juliet…” Noah whispered again.
But she couldn’t let the ache in his voice stop her. With that moon shining overhead, its color the orange marmalade shade of the cat that had adopted her and Wayne in the first year of their marriage, she took resolute steps toward the surf. The water washed over her ankles, her shins, tickled her knees, and then wet the cotton of her pants as she waded farther out.
She hesitated a moment. She listened hard for Wayne’s voice and she breathed deep, hoping to catch the scent of his presence one last time. But the shush of the waves was the single sound she heard and the sole scent was the salty wet that smelled only of eternity.
Now.
Now.
Obeying her instincts, Juliet lifted the clamshell away from the cradle of her body and flung it from her and into the cradle of the sea. The shell settled with a gentle splash, and rocked there on the surface of the water.
Snippets of images flipped across the movie screen inside her head: the shiny button of a dress uniform, the cover of the original diary, navy blue pajamas hanging without a slouch from a hook in the closet.
For another five minutes, more images joined that inner slideshow as she watched the shell float on the surface of the Pacific. Then, as it was designed, as Wayne had wanted, it slowly sank, where over time it would become part of the ocean and part of some child’s sandcastle and—most important of all—part of the whole.
She focused on the last place she’d seen the shell, not blinking for fear she’d lose it. Five minutes more passed or fifty minutes, she didn’t know.
“Juliet,” a voice called from behind her. Called her back to shore.
She turned. Noah was wading out to her, his rolled-up pants already trailing in the water.
“I’m coming,” she called. “I’ll be right there.”
Her hot, salty tears found their own eternal home as she made her way back to the beach. The breeze was brisk, the ocean arctic, her hair whipped across her eyes and caused more tears. By leaving the shell of Wayne’s ashes in the water, she knew that just as she’d hoped, she’d left her own shell behind, too. It was gone for good this time.
Noah grabbed her as she stumbled out of the low surf, keeping her upright and pulling her against him. He was warm and strong and so alive that she cried harder at the pain of it, as if her icy feet had been plunged into heated water.
With her still in his arms, he dropped to the blanket and wrapped its ends around them. Her back to his chest, she sat between his legs, and buried her face in her hands, shuddering against the raw ache that reached her now that there was no longer any shield but the tattered blanket and Noah’s body.
