Larkin's Letters (15 page)

Ryan gasped for air as his eyes opened. He could still feel her lips against his, but he couldn’t see her. The bright light was gone, and he could make out the ceiling tiles that were laid out above him. He rolled his bloodshot eyes down and could barely read the words
RN: Rachel
and
CNA: Rita
on the white board that hung on the wall across the room in front of him. He looked to his left and could see snow falling outside the double window. To his right, he could make out two figures, but their faces were too blurry for him to construct any idea of who they may be. The beeping from the IV machines and the vital signs monitor that he had been hooked up to for the past three days echoed off the white, barren walls that surrounded him.

He reached up and touched his lips, still feeling Larkin’s against them. “Larkin?” He looked erratically around the room. “Where’s Larkin?” He was calling out to anyone who could possibly hear him.

“Ryan. Calm down.” Sarah grabbed his hand. “Ryan. It’s okay.”

It took a moment for him to realize it was Sarah. “Sarah? Where’s Larkin? Where is she? She was just here.”

“No, Ryan. No, she wasn’t. You must have been dreaming.”

“No! I wasn’t. She was right here. I was talking to her. I touched her.” His anger resonated off the walls.

“Ryan, please calm down,” Sarah pleaded.

Justin approached Ryan, standing up from the chair he had been sitting in across the room and held him down as he resisted Sarah’s attempts to calm him.

“Ryan. Calm down. Larkin’s not here. She’s gone. She’s not here.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Justin hesitated. “She’s
gone
, Ryan. You’re in the hospital. You were hit by a car crossing the street three days ago. You were on your way back from the flower shop, and a driver ran the red light and hit you. She died later that day, Ryan. She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

“No.” He shook his head, not wanting to accept the news he had just been given. “No, you’re lying, Justin. She was just here.”

Justin grabbed his wrist. “Ryan,” he said sternly, “I’m sorry. I am so sorry, but she is gone.”

…I wanted to die, Lark. I wanted so badly to be able to go back to you, back to where we were dancing and singing. When Justin told me you were gone, grief and guilt overcame my body, and that feeling was far worse than the pain I had been feeling. I hate myself for leaving you that morning. I should have never left. I am so sorry, Larkin. I broke my promise to you that morning. I promised you I would be back. I promised you I would never leave you alone. I promised to be there till the very end. And I broke that promise to you.

I miss you so much it hurts. I miss your taste. I miss the sound of your voice. I miss the way the sunshine hits your face. I can still see your face in the shadows. I can see your reflection inside my tears. The sound of your words upon the paper on which your letters were written is the loudest thing in my head.

You came to see me twice today, and we danced together. You forgave me and assured me you weren’t alone that morning. Larkin, I finally remember. When you sang to me earlier today out on the boat, I remembered. I was waiting for you in heaven. I do remember, Lark. I remember being there and seeing you. You were so beautiful. You were so healthy and happy. You weren’t hurting anymore, and you smiled at me. You touched my face, and your touch was so magnificent, so magical. I couldn’t even feel your fingertips. They were inside of me, and the sensation that overcame my body was ethereal. You embraced me, and I led you into a dance. I sang to you our song as we swayed together. I remember you looked into my eyes, and you told me you loved me, and you thanked me for being there with you like I had promised. Then you cradled my face in your hands and you whispered “wake up” to me, and then you kissed my lips.

Thank you. Thank you for helping me remember.

I never really knew if heaven existed. I believe in God and that He created humankind, but I never could fully grasp the concept of heaven and hell. How can you know it exists if you have never been there? How can anyone know? But now I know, Lark. I know it exists, and I know you are there. That brings me such overwhelming peace.

Ian came to see me two weeks ago, and he told me something I wish he would have told me sooner…

Ian had seen the unsealed envelope resting on the living room table.

“Ryan?” Ian had joined Ryan on the back deck that morning as he nursed his cup of coffee. “Ryan? What is this?”

Ryan immediately took notice of the envelope in Ian’s hand.

“You know what they are, Ian.”

“You haven’t opened them yet?”

Ryan hesitated. “It’s not that easy, Ian. What would you do if it was Linda?”

“I would open and read them, Ryan.” Ian replied firmly. “Anything to give myself closure. Did you spread her ashes yet?”

“No,” Ryan whispered back. “I’m not ready yet.”

Ian sat down in the patio chair next to Ryan and placed the envelope down on the patio table that separated them.

“Ryan, you need to know something. I don’t know if it will, but maybe this will help you get some sort of closure.” He wavered for a moment. “That morning when she died, I was with her. I held her as she died, and the entire time, she thought I was you. She was so delirious from the morphine. She had no idea it was me. She would say, ‘I love you, Ryan,’ and she would keep saying it.”

Ryan looked over at Ian and could tell he was struggling with reliving that moment over again.

“I made sure she didn’t know it was me, and every time she would say ‘I love you,’ I made sure I said it back. I made sure she knew you loved her.”

Ryan never broke his stare out into the inlet as Ian explained to him about that morning. It was harrowing for Ryan to listen to Ian describe Larkin’s last minutes of life.

“I want you to know she died peacefully, Ryan. I don’t think she was in any pain. She had a hard time breathing, but she never asked for anything. She put her hand on my face and said you were beautiful. Those were her last words.”

As Ryan began to break down, Ian placed his hand on Ryan’s forearm and held onto it while Ryan fought to gain control.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I know I promised I wouldn’t go see her, but I didn’t know what to do. You were lying on the street, and I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. I knew Sarah and Justin were with you, so I went to Larkin. I knew you didn’t want her to be alone. I didn’t want her to be alone.”

Ryan gathered his emotions and looked over at Ian. “Thank you, Ian. Thank you for being there with her. I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else.”

“Ryan, read her letters. She wrote them for you to read.”

…
I am thankful that Ian was there with you in my place. It makes me feel a little bit better, but I am still angry at myself that it wasn’t me that had been there. I never got the chance to say good-bye to you. Even though I had seen you in heaven, I didn’t know that was where we were, and I didn’t say good-bye then either.

I would give anything to have been able to say good-bye to you.

In your letters, you often ask me why I was so good to you. Larkin, all I did was love you. It was always like you to never assume one’s kindness toward you, to never think you were worthy of love. If anyone wasn’t worthy of love, it was me. I still don’t know what I did to deserve someone like you. I have led a life of luxury, of fame, of fortune. I didn’t always make the best decisions with regards to spending time with my family and friends, but no matter what, you were always there for me. You never not answered a late-night phone call, and you never missed any of my movie premiers. Not one. You were there for me anytime it meant something to me. You always knew what to say. You always did your best to keep me grounded. You always had a smile for me whenever I needed it. You defined friendship. You should have been the poster child for what a best friend is. So I ask you, Larkin, why were you so good to me? I can only hope I was as good to you as you were to me.

You taught me how to love with all that I am. I refer back to your letter no. 6. I did what you asked of me. I fell so in love with someone that I couldn’t imagine living without her. I found love. I caught it. I held onto it. I nurtured it. And I will never let it go. I will fight as hard as I can to continue to hold on and never let go. You spoke of time in one of your letters, and you were right. Time can be timeless. At least, for me it has. I feel as if time has stopped moving since you left. I feel as if I am living inside of a broken clock, and the second hand will never start up again. I am sure this is not what you meant when you wrote about wanting time to become timeless. You meant us. You wanted our time together to have no ending. That’s why you left me these letters. You left them for me to remember the important times in our life together. I have finally realized these letters are what makes time timeless, and I thank you with all my heart for that.

You were right about me needing Ian, Sarah, and Justin after you died. I guess, technically, you got what you wished for. For Ian to carry you to the gurney. The three of them have been nothing short of amazing in helping me to mourn. Justin has come to see me a couple of times since you died, and he sits with me and doesn’t say a word. He just listens whenever I am ready to talk. Ian pushes me to honor your memory. And Sarah, when she comes to see me, she holds my hand as we sit on the couch in front of the fireplace watching a movie. I keep finding myself saying you were right, but I am not surprised. You were always right, and you were right about two more things. One, when Sarah does hold my hand, I do feel a little bit better. And two, the three of them will never let me fall.

Since you’ve died, nothing much seems to matter to me anymore. I don’t read the newspaper anymore, and I don’t even think I have turned the television on once. I know life is going on all around me, but I don’t seem to care too much about that. All I want to do is remember you, remember us, but I can feel you slowly slipping away from my mind’s grasp. I am starting to forget how you feel, how you smell. I am starting to forget the sound of your voice. My lullaby.

I pray every night you will come to me so I can remember all these things, but I know I need to let you go. It would be so much easier if I truly knew you were okay. I wish I could see you were okay.

As I try to let your ghost go, please don’t think I am forgetting you or that I will stop loving you. Please don’t think I don’t miss you anymore or that I will never think of you. That is unthinkable. Not a minute of my day goes by that I am not thinking of you. I want you to know that from here on out, everything I do, I am doing for you. Every decision I make, every accomplishment I may achieve is all for you. I want you to know I will never leave our home. I am going to stay in Longport and honor your memory to the best of my ability. Even though you are gone, I will continue to be as good to you as I possibly can be.

My dearest Larkin, thank you for loving me. Thank you for giving me something to live for. I don’t know how I am going to live without your smile, without your touch, without your smell, without your lullaby. But I know I will somehow find a way. You may be gone, but I know you are now my guardian angel. I know you are with me wherever I go, and as long as I know that, I will have the strength to face anything. Knowing you loved me, I feel as if I could live on forever.

Thank you for being so good to me, blue eyes.

All my love, your husband, Ryan

The sun was setting just below the Longport Bridge that sat in the distance from Ryan’s bedroom balcony. He sealed the letter inside a white envelope and penned “My dearest Larkin” on the front. He felt a sense of freedom after he sealed the envelope closed, but he still felt as if something needed to be found.

Ryan was scared her ghost would no longer come to him. He was afraid that if he moved on, she wouldn’t want to come back. She wasn’t real. She was just a ghost, and he understood that, but she seemed so real to him. He could feel and smell her when she came, and she gave him an overwhelming sense of peace.

He entered back into the bedroom, closing the French doors behind him. It was 6:45 p.m. It had been only four hours since he had seen Larkin on the boat, and he already longed for her to come back to him. He placed the envelope in the nightstand drawer.
Tomorrow
, he thought to himself.
I’ll take care of that tomorrow.
He sat on the edge of the bed thinking about the past twenty-four hours and what her letters had meant to him, and as he tried to absorb everything she had written, he felt a gentle caress upon his knee.

Larkin.

Turning to look, all he could focus on was her smile. Her smile was brighter than the sunset, and her touch upon his knee was warmer than the sun. He wrapped his hand around hers and smiled at her for a long while.

“Lie down with me?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied, guiding her into his arms as they tangled themselves together on the bed.

“Thank you for the dances earlier today.” He smiled at her. She just buried her head in his chest. He could feel her crying.

“Lark? What is it? Why are you crying?”

“Because you’re suffering, Ryan. I can’t bear to see you suffer anymore.”