The Best of Me

  The old man's friend snorted. "He was always an odd one, that's for sure."

  It sounded nothing like the Tuck she'd known, and after paying for her coffee, she got into her car and retraced the almost forgotten dirt drive that led to his house. They ended up spending the afternoon sitting in rockers on his collapsing front porch, and since then she'd made a habit of dropping by whenever she was in town. At first it was once or twice a year--she couldn't handle visiting her mother any more than that--but lately she'd visited Oriental and Tuck even when her mother was out of town. More often than not, she cooked dinner for him as well. Tuck was getting on in years, and though she liked to tell herself that she was simply checking in on an old man, both of them knew the real reason she kept coming back.

  The men in the diner had been right, in a way. Tuck had changed. He wasn't the mostly silent and mysterious, sometimes gruff figure she remembered, but he wasn't crazy, either. He knew the difference between fantasy and reality, and he knew his wife had died long ago. But Tuck, she eventually decided, had the ability to make something real simply by wishing it into existence. At least it was real for him. When she'd finally asked him about his "conversations" with his dead wife, he'd told her matter-of-factly that Clara was still around and always would be. Not only did they talk, he confessed, but he saw her as well.

  "Are you're saying she's a ghost?" she asked.

  "No," he answered. "I'm just sayin' she don't want me to be alone."

  "Is she here now?"

  Tuck peered over his shoulder. "Don't see her, but I can hear her puttering around inside the house."

  Amanda listened but heard nothing other than the squeak of the rockers on the floorboards. "Was she around... back then? When I knew you before?"

  He drew a long breath, and when he spoke, his voice sounded weary. "No. But I wasn't trying to see her then."

  There was something undeniably touching, almost romantic, about his conviction that they loved each other enough to have found a way to stay together, even after she was gone. Who wouldn't have found that romantic? Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once, too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kinds of what if questions that could never be answered. What if Bea hadn't died? What if Frank hadn't become an alcoholic? What if she'd married her one true love? Would she even recognize the woman who now looked back at her in the mirror?

  Leaning against the car, she wondered what Tuck would have made of her musings. Tuck, who ate eggs and grits at Irvin's every morning and dropped dry-roasted peanuts into the glasses of Pepsi that he drank; Tuck, who'd lived in the same house for almost seventy years and had left the state only once, when he'd been called to serve the country in World War II. Tuck, who listened to the radio or phonograph instead of watching television, because that's what he'd always done. Unlike her, Tuck seemed to embrace the role that the world had laid out for him. She recognized that there was probably wisdom in that kind of unflinching acceptance, even if she'd never be able to achieve it.

  Of course, Tuck had Clara, and maybe that had something to do with it. They'd married at seventeen and had spent forty-two years together, and as Tuck talked to Amanda, she'd gradually learned the story of their lives. In a quiet voice, he'd told her about Clara's three miscarriages, the last of which came with serious complications. According to Tuck, when the doctor informed her that she'd never be able to have children, Clara had cried herself to sleep for almost a year. Amanda learned that Clara kept a vegetable garden and had once won a statewide competition for growing the largest pumpkin, and she saw the faded blue ribbon that was still tucked behind the mirror in the bedroom. Tuck told her that after he'd established his business, they built a small cottage on a small plot of land on the Bay River near Vandemere, a town that made Oriental seem like a city, and they spent weeks there every year, because Clara thought it was the most beautiful spot in the world. He described the way Clara used to hum to the radio when she was cleaning the house, and he revealed that every now and then he used to take her dancing at Red Lee's Grill, a place that Amanda frequented during her own teenage years.

  It was a life, she eventually concluded, that had been lived in the middle ground, where contentment and love were found in the smallest details of people's lives. It was a life of dignity and honor, not without sorrows yet fulfilling in a way that few experiences ever were. She knew Tuck understood that more than anyone.

  "With Clara, it was always good," was how he'd once summed it up.

  Maybe it was the intimate nature of his stories, or maybe her growing loneliness, but over time, Tuck became a sort of confidant to her as well, something Amanda could never have predicted. It was with Tuck that she shared her pain and sadness about Bea's death, and it was on his porch that she was able to unleash her rage at Frank; it was to him that she confessed her worries about the kids, and even her growing conviction that she'd somehow made a wrong turn in her life somewhere along the line. She shared with him stories about the countless anguished parents and impossibly optimistic children she met at the Pediatric Cancer Center, and he seemed to understand that she found a kind of salvation in her work there, even if he never said as much. Mostly, he just held her hand in his gnarled, grease-stained fingers, soothing her with his silence. By the end, he'd become her closest friend, and she'd come to feel that Tuck Hostetler knew her, the real her, better than anyone in her current life.

  Now, though, her friend and confidant was gone. Missing him already, she ran her gaze over the Stingray, wondering if he'd known it was the last car he'd ever work on. He'd said nothing to her directly, but thinking back, she realized that he'd probably had his suspicions. On her last visit, he'd given her an extra key to his house, telling her with a wink "not to lose it, or you might have to break a window." She'd tucked it in her pocket, not thinking much of it, because he'd said other curious things that night. She could remember rummaging through his cupboards, looking for something to make for dinner while he sat at the table, smoking a cigarette.

  "You like red wine or white wine?" he suddenly asked, apropos of nothing.

  "It depends," she answered, sorting through cans. "Sometimes I have a glass of red wine with dinner."

  "I got me some red wine," he announced. "Over yonder, in that cabinet over there."

  She turned. "Do you want me to open a bottle?"

  "Never did much care for it. I'll stick with my Pepsi and peanuts." He tapped ashes into a chipped coffee cup. "I always got fresh steaks, too. Have 'em delivered from the butcher every Monday. Bottom shelf of the icebox. Grill's out back."

  She took a step toward the refrigerator. "Do you want me to make you a steak?"

  "No. Usually save those for later in the week."

  She hesitated, unsure where this was leading. "So... you're just telling me?"

  When he nodded and said nothing more, Amanda chalked it up to age and fatigue. She ended up making him eggs and bacon and tidied up the house afterward while Tuck sat in the easy chair near the fireplace with a blanket over his shoulders, listening to the radio. She couldn't help noticing how shriveled he looked, immeasurably smaller than the man she'd known as a girl. As she prepared to leave, she adjusted the blanket, thinking that he'd fallen asleep. His breaths were heavy and labored-sounding. She bent down and kissed him on the cheek.

  "I love you, Tuck," she whispered.

  He shifted slightly, probably dreaming, but when she turned to leave she heard him exhale. "I miss you, Clara," he mumbled.

  Those were the last words she would ever hear him say. There was an ache of loneliness in those words, and all at once she understood why Tuck had taken Dawson in so long ago. Tuck, she figured, had been lonely, too.

  After calling Frank to let him know that she'd arrived--his voice already sounded slurry--Amanda hung up
with a curt few words and thanked God that the kids were otherwise engaged this weekend.

  On the workbench she found the garage clipboard and wondered what to do about the car. A quick perusal showed the Stingray was owned by a defenseman for the Carolina Hurricanes, and she made a mental note to discuss the matter with Tuck's estate lawyer. Setting the clipboard aside, she found her thoughts drifting to Dawson. He, too, had been part of her secret. Telling Frank about Tuck would have entailed telling him about Dawson, and she hadn't wanted to do that. Tuck had always understood that Dawson was the real reason she'd come to visit, especially in the beginning. He didn't mind, for Tuck more than anyone understood the power of memory. Sometimes, when the sunlight slanted through the canopy, bathing Tuck's yard in a liquid, late summer haze, she could almost sense Dawson's presence beside her and she was reminded again that Tuck had been anything but crazy. Like Clara's, Dawson's ghost was everywhere.

  Although she knew it was pointless to wonder how different her life might have been if she and Dawson had stayed together, lately she'd felt the need to return to this place with increasing regularity. And the more she'd visited, the more intense the memories had become, long-forgotten events and sensations resurfacing from the depths of her past. Here it was easy to remember how strong she'd felt when she was with Dawson, and how unique and beautiful he'd always made her feel. She could recall with utter clarity her certainty that Dawson was the only person in the world who really understood her. But most of all, she could remember how completely she'd loved him and the single-minded passion with which he'd loved her back.

  In his own quiet way, Dawson had made her believe that anything was possible. As she drifted through the cluttered garage, with the smell of gasoline and oil still lingering in the air, she felt the weight of the hundreds of evenings she'd spent here. She trailed her fingers along the bench where she used to sit for hours, watching as Dawson leaned over the open hood of the fastback, occasionally cranking the wrench, his fingernails black with grease. Even then, his face had held none of the soft, youthful naivete she saw in others their age, and when the ropy muscles of his forearm flexed as he reached for another tool, she saw the limbs and form of the man he was already becoming. Like everyone else in Oriental, she knew that his father had beaten him regularly, and when he worked without his shirt, she could see the scars on his back, no doubt inflicted by the buckle end of a belt. She wasn't sure whether Dawson was even aware of them anymore, which somehow made the sight of them even worse.

  He was tall and lean, with dark hair that fell over darker eyes, and she'd known even then that he would become only more handsome as he grew older. He looked nothing like the rest of the Coles, and she'd asked him once whether he resembled his mother. At the time, they were sitting in his car while raindrops splashed over the windshield. Like Tuck's, his voice was almost always soft, his demeanor calm. "I don't know," he said, rubbing the fog from the glass. "My dad burned all her pictures."

  Toward the end of their first summer together, they'd gone down to the small dock on the creek, long after the sun went down. He'd heard there was going to be a meteor shower, and after spreading out a blanket on the planks of the dock, they watched in silence as the lights streaked across the sky. She knew her parents would be furious if they knew where she was, but at the time nothing mattered but shooting stars and the warmth of his body and the gentle way he held her close, as if he couldn't imagine a future without her.

  Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learned all too well that love wasn't always enough.

  Still, as she looked out into the yard beyond the garage, she couldn't help wondering whether Dawson had ever felt such passion again, and whether he was happy. She wanted to believe he was, but life for an ex-con was never easy. For all she knew, he was back in jail or hooked on drugs or even dead, but she couldn't reconcile those images with the person she'd known. That was part of the reason she'd never asked Tuck about him; she'd been afraid of what he might have told her, and his silence only reinforced her suspicions. She'd preferred the uncertainty, if only because it allowed her to remember him the way he used to be. Sometimes, though, she wondered what he felt when he thought of that year they spent together, or if he ever marveled at what they'd shared, or even whether he thought of her at all.

  3

  Dawson's flight landed in New Bern hours after the sun had begun its steady descent toward the western horizon. In his rental car, he crossed the Neuse River into Bridgeton and turned onto Highway 55. On either side of the highway, farmhouses were set back from the road and interspersed with the occasional tobacco barn that had fallen into ruin. The flat landscape shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, and it seemed to him that nothing had changed since he'd left so many years ago, maybe not even in a hundred years. He passed through Grantsboro and Alliance, Bayboro and Stonewall, towns even smaller than Oriental, and it struck him that Pamlico County was like a place lost in time, nothing but a forgotten page in an abandoned book.

  It was also home, and though many of the memories were painful, it was here where Tuck had befriended him and it was here where he'd met Amanda. One by one, he began to recognize landmarks from his childhood, and in the silence of the car he wondered who he might have become had Tuck and Amanda never entered his life. But more than that, he wondered how differently his life might have turned out had Dr. David Bonner not stepped out for a jog on the night of September 18, 1985.

  Dr. Bonner had moved to Oriental in December of the previous year with his wife and two young children. For years, the town had been without a physician of any kind. The previous physician had retired to Florida in 1980, and Oriental's Board of Commissioners had been trying to replace him ever since. There was a desperate need, but despite the numerous incentives that the town offered, few decent candidates were interested in moving to what was essentially a backwater. As luck would have it, Dr. Bonner's wife, Marilyn, had grown up in the area and, like Amanda, was considered to be almost royalty. Marilyn's parents, the Bennetts, grew apples, peaches, grapes, and blueberries in a massive orchard on the outskirts of town, and after he finished his residency, David Bonner moved to his wife's hometown and opened his own practice.

  He was busy from the beginning. Tired of traveling the forty minutes to New Bern, patients flocked to his office, but the doctor was under no illusion that he'd ever become rich. It simply wasn't possible in a small town in a poor county, no matter how busy the practice was and despite the family connections. Though no one else in town knew it, the orchard had been heavily mortgaged, and on the day David had moved to town, his father-in-law had hit him up for a loan. But even after he'd helped his in-laws with money, the cost of living was low enough to allow him to buy a four-bedroom colonial overlooking Smith Creek, and his wife was thrilled to be back home. In her mind, Oriental was an ideal place to raise children, and for the most part she was right.

  Dr. Bonner loved the outdoors. He surfed and swam; he bicycled and ran. It was common for people to see him jogging briskly up Broad Street after work, eventually heading past the curve on the outskirts of town. People would honk or wave, and Dr. Bonner would nod without breaking stride. Sometimes, after a particularly long day, he wouldn't start until just before dark, and on September 18, 1985, that was exactly what happened. He left the house just as dusk was settling over the town. Though Dr. Bonner didn't know it, the roads were slick. It had rained earlier that afternoon, steadily enough to raise the oil from the macadam but not hard enough to wash it away.

  He started out on his usual route, which took about thirty minutes, but that night he never made it home. By the time the moon had risen, Marilyn started to get anxious, and after asking a neighbor to watch the kids, she hopped in the car to search for him. Just beyond the curve at t
he edge of town, near a copse of trees, she found an ambulance, along with the sheriff and a slowly growing crowd of people. It was there, she learned, that her husband had been killed when the driver of a truck lost control and skidded into him.

  The truck, Marilyn was told, was owned by Tuck Hostetler. The driver, who would soon be charged with felony death by motor vehicle and involuntary manslaughter, was eighteen years old and already in handcuffs.

  His name was Dawson Cole.

  Two miles from the outskirts of Oriental--and the curve he'd never forget--Dawson spotted the old gravel turnoff that led to the family land and automatically found himself thinking about his father. When Dawson was in the county jail awaiting trial, a guard had appeared suddenly and informed him that he had a visitor. A minute later, his father was standing before him, chewing on a toothpick.

  "Runnin' off, seeing that rich girl, making plans. And where do you end up? In jail." He saw the malicious glee in his father's expression. "You thought you was better than me, but you ain't. You're just like me."

  Dawson said nothing, feeling something close to hatred as he glared at his father from the corner of his cell. He vowed then and there that whatever happened, he would never speak to his father again.

  There was no trial. Against the advice of the public defender, Dawson pleaded guilty, and against the advice of the prosecutor, he was given the maximum sentence. At Caledonia Correctional in Halifax, North Carolina, he worked on the prison farm, helping to grow corn, wheat, cotton, and soybeans, sweating beneath a blistering dog-day sun as he harvested or freezing in icy northern winds as he tilled. Though he corresponded with Tuck through the mail, in four years he never had a single visitor.

  After his release, Dawson was placed on parole and returned to Oriental. He worked for Tuck and heard the townsfolk's whispers on his occasional supply runs to the automotive store. He knew he was a pariah, a no-good Cole who'd killed not only the Bennetts' son-in-law but the town's only doctor, and the guilt he felt was overwhelming. In those moments, he would pay a visit to a florist in New Bern, then later to the cemetery in Oriental where Dr. Bonner had been buried. He would place the flowers on the grave, either early in the morning or late at night, when few people were around. Sometimes he stayed for an hour or more, thinking about the wife and children Dr. Bonner had left behind. Other than that, he spent that year largely in the shadows, trying his best to stay out of sight.