Eternal Hearts (Incurable Hearts 2)

Looking around my living room, the fire blazing, the lights twinkling reminding me of Jas, and the sound of excitement in the air. This is what I need to make my life complete, watching my family smile, having something to look forward to, something worth living for.

  Christopher…

  Thank heavens the rain had subsided, I hated coming here at all, getting wet would just add insult to injury.

  This year marks the sixteenth anniversary of her death. If I closed my eyes and cleared my mind, I can still see the way she used to smile at me when she first opened her eyes in the morning. I could hear her laugh and feel the same way when I told myself I was the luckiest guy in the world because I was the one she loved.

  Everyone around me tells me to move on, that it’s okay because Jas wanted me to. How can I make them understand that I no longer feel like it would be cheating on Jas, but cheating on whomever I settled down with? Because that is what it would be like, dead or alive, Jas is the only woman I want, just because she isn’t alive doesn’t mean anything. This is me and it is my life, everyone thinks I need a woman in my life to be happy, there wrong. Not having the pressure they put on me sometimes would make me happy.

  “Hey babe” I greeted the air around her headstone, placing the flowers I had brought her in front of it.

  “It’s been a long year since I last spoke to you”

  Not a year had passed that I didn’t feel like an idiot talking out loud to thin air. Yet however stupid I felt, I couldn’t stop myself.

  I felt a years’ worth of release flow through me whilst talking to her.

  “Our Ava is married and we have our first grandchild on the way. Can you believe it, were going to be grandparents”

  I went on to tell her about all the minor events over the year, leaving Henry till last.

  “I hope he did find you, I don’t like the thought of you alone up there, or where ever you are”

  I’m under no illusion when I see her, that I think she is real or a ghost. I know it is my mind playing tricks on me, I can live with that, obviously I keep this to myself, otherwise everyone would think I was crazy.

  That’s how she makes me feel, crazy, in a good way, always in a good way.

  I watch how other people live, move on and get on with their life, that’s their way, my way suits me just fine.

  Jas is my happy ever after just like I was hers.

  One of the coldest months of the year, yet I feel warm, she’s with me. Opening my eyes, a trick of the mind in progress, I see her perched on top of her headstone. She doesn’t look ill, she looks happy and at peace, smiling that secret smile she had just for me.

  My Jas, as beautiful as ever, she is perfect.

  One day I tell myself, one day I’ll hold her in my arms again. I couldn’t wait.

  For now, there is my grandchild to look forward to and my family who need me.

  PART THREE

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ava 50 Years on….

  “He is getting worse, he won’t admit it though,” I said to Layton as he read the morning paper on his electronic device.

  “You know what your dad is like, it is where you get your stubbornness from” he smirked.

  “I am not stubborn,” I pouted.

  He looked at me raising his eyebrows in disagreement.

  “Of course you’re not darling” he said sarcastically, “At his age there isn’t a lot you can do for him. He isn’t ill as such but he is eighty-one years old” he added.

  “I know his age, he is my dad. I wish I could do something for him though” I said dejectedly.

  He rounded the table and wrapped his arms around me, apart from with my family, I have never felt as safe as I do with Layton. Next month we will have been together for thirty-four years, at some points we both wondered if our marriage would survive, especially after Sheena Gracie was born, the sleepless nights and her suffering from Colic didn’t help, but we survived, needless to say we didn’t have any more children. Looking at her is like looking in a mirror, she definitely takes after my mother and myself.

  “I don’t think he would let you if there was, he feels like he hasn’t got many days left and he is content with that”

  I pulled away slightly to look at him, my father and Layton are mainly civilised towards each other, my dad warmed to him more after Sheena was born but not much, so how he knew this was beyond me.

  “Explain,” I said sternly.

  “He called me yesterday and asked if I could go round. He wanted to make it clear I was to look after you and Sheena and if I didn’t he would come back from the grave and bury me in his place…alive” he said, turning white as if he thought that was possible.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, we had our ups and downs but Layton has been nothing but good to me. I stood my ground in arguments and ninety per cent of the time, I won. After thirty-four years together, my dad still didn’t trust him.

  “I hope you placated him”

  “Of course,” he smiled, but it soon vanished, “Maybe you should go and stay with him for a while?” he offered.

  “You mean until he dies?”

  “You lost out in the beginning, you don’t want the same at the end. I think you are the reason he has held on this long,” he said, pulling me in close once again.

  I couldn’t help the tears that began to fill my eyes. We have been a family for so long now, I hardly remember the days I didn’t know him. Layton is right, I don’t want to miss a moment with him. Plus, I’m all he has now, it is up to me to be there until the last second, the way he was for my mother.

  “Dad…Sarah?” I called out, letting myself into my dads’ house.

  I threw my keys into the bowl on the side cabinet in the main hall and walked through to the living room.

  Dad was asleep in the chair while Sarah was nowhere to be seen. I made sure his blanket was covering his legs and went in search of his nurse. Sarah is his live in nurse who cares for him full time, I found her in the kitchen putting a tray in the oven.

  “Hello Sarah, how has he been today?” I asked, pouring a fresh coffee.

  “Hey, I didn’t hear you come in” she said, blowing her fringe away from her face. She was plain looking with mousy short hair and a plump body shape, I imagine she could clean up nicely with a bit of make-up and a good hair restyle. She takes good care of my dad, and rightly so with the amount he pays her.

  “He is having a good day today, he has been asleep for a while so he should be waking soon”

  “I’ll go through and sit with him after I have had this” I said, holding my coffee cup up.

  “Just to warn you, he has been talking a lot lately of your mother” she said kindly.

  “I know, it’s been fifty years since her death and he still acts as if she died last year” I said, not surprised one bit.

  “Sometimes, he thinks it was last year she died, other times, all he can remember is the good times in his life and they seem to revolve around her and you. As his body weakens, he has kept a tight hold onto his memories”

  I have lived with my mothers’ memory through my father for many years now, and it still stumps me hearing just how much he loved her. To go through life loving one woman so intensely as well as after she died, after spending five short months with her is amazing, heart breaking but amazing at the same time. No one could understand that he was happy to be on his own, that he didn’t want to be in a relationship, not because they weren’t Jasmine, but because he knew he could never love anyone remotely on any level he did my mother.

  He admitted to me once he didn’t want to spend time getting to know another woman, the only time he did was with Megan and he tried, he tried so much it was painful to watch.

  I walked through to the living room and sat on the sofa, the fire was still ablaze in the hearth. I remember sitting here in the winters reading for hours with dad around in the house somewhere.

  As the years passed I saw the lines around his eyes and mouth gradually appear, and gradua
lly those lines got deeper and deeper. He has been a part of my life for so long now, I can’t imagine a life without him in it. The missing sixteen years of our relationship is a distant memory, he promised I would know my mother through his and our family’s’ accounts of her life, filling me in on everything about her, it has taken forty-seven years but I feel like I know all there is to know about her. Now I’m older, I understand his love for her, his pain and his sorrow.

  I would sit for hours when I was younger and wonder how one woman could hold a man for so long without being around? Sometimes we would go months without mentioning her name, I knew he still thought of her but over the years I thought it got easier for him to move on.

  I looked around the living room, it had hardly changed since the first time I arrived here, the only difference was the photographs he had added over time.

  “You always pick that one up,” he said, as I picked up the framed photograph next to the sofa.

  I turned around to see he had woken up, I smiled at him receiving a smile from him back.

  “It is my favourite,” I said, looking at the two of them on their wedding day.

  “You always wanted to know why I kept the pictures everywhere…” he started, but the cough he had been stuck with for the last few weeks took a hold of him.

  As I went to go to him and help in some way, he held his hand up for me to stop. Once he finished, he continued.

  “I can hardly move these days, but looking around at the photos, I can go back to any time in my life I choose”

  I put the photo back in its place and sat back down on the sofa.

  “Have you been happy at all?” I asked, hoping he was still having a good day, mentally.

  “When?”

  “Since my mother died?” I pushed on.

  He looked at me for so long I didn’t think he was going to reply.

  “I have had my moments of happiness and all of them because of you. Is that what you think, that I haven’t been happy” he said.

  “Sometimes” I admitted, “Even when I think you are happy, you still have this haunted look in your eye, like you still holding onto her after all these years”

  I hoped he was taking this in, if Layton was right and he didn’t have long left, I wanted to be certain I knew every last thing about my father.

  Call it, closing the last chapter.

  “I never let go of her once, I tried to hide it and obviously not very well” he began coughing again.

  “Don’t speak if it is causing you pain” I said, getting up to rub his back, trying to soothe him somehow.

  “I’m fine,” he sputtered.

  This coughing fit was lasting much longer than the others.

  “I’ll go and get Sarah,” I told him.

  I made it to the door before he tried to speak,

  “You make me just as happy as your mother” I turned to face him, “You are my world, don’t forget that”

  That is all I needed to hear, to know his life wasn’t a complete void, empty of love and happiness.

  After a late dinner, I helped Sarah put him to bed, it took time to get him up the stairs. I had been on at him to turn one of the downstairs rooms into a bedroom, but he was adamant he was more than capable of walking up the stairs he had built. He may be eighty-one but he looked no older then sixty-five. I didn’t have to sit with him for long before he fell asleep. I turned the lamp off, and quietly left his room. I was staying in my old room, which was the same as the rest of the house, no change. Everything was still in the same place as it was when I lived here, the only difference in here was the empty bookshelves, which I took when I left. It’s like time stands still when you walk in to this house, it is frightening yet comforting at the same time.

  It was frightening to see my dad this weak, I remember the first time I saw him, he was strong and physically fit.

  Layton’s words sprung into my mind, about my dad holding on because of me. I want my dad to be around forever, I understood that isn’t possible, but I don’t want to imagine my life without him in it. I strived to be with my biological family for so long growing up, I never wanted to be apart from them. Slowly over the years I have said goodbye to most of them, Henry first, then my grandma Fiona, shortly followed by Rose then my Auntie Nat, she was more than my aunt, she was my best friend. My Uncle Alex died from a heart attack three years ago, I hated him for so long for his affair, but now I find myself not hating him at all. I would do anything to have them all back. All the good times we spent together were the best times of my life, and now my dad is the last remaining piece of those times. Both of my cousins were still around, I don’t see Jack or Jasmine-Lily as much as I would like, I suppose the next time I’ll see them will be at the next funeral. My dad’s.

  Just thinking about it crushes my heart, I know it is selfish of me to ask him to continue holding on for me but I can’t say goodbye yet. I won’t say goodbye yet. I got ready for bed and switched off the bedside light.

  Even now, when I’m nearly sixty-three, I close my eyes and I feel like I’m back staying in this room for the first time all those years ago.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the rain hammering on the window or my stomach growling that woke me. It was gone nine am when I looked at the time, I dragged myself out of bed and quickly showered and got dressed.

  Sarah had already prepared breakfast, my dad had told her he was staying in bed today, so I went to his room to say good morning.

  “Jas?” his voice full of hope that I was my mother.

  “No dad, it’s me, Ava”

  It should have hurt when his face fell in disappointment that I wasn’t who he wanted to see, but between his old age and me having the look of my mother, I knew it wasn’t his fault.

  “Yes Ava, come and sit with me,” he said.

  He looked extremely tired, he was perched up against the pillows, I sat on the bed beside him.

  “How are you doing today?” I asked him.

  “Tired. You know I love you and if I had my way I would stay and protect you and Sheena Gracie always?”

  “I know dad”

  Suddenly, I couldn’t see through the tears filling my eyes, he was beginning to say goodbye. I could feel it. I wanted to run. All I could think was not yet!

  “We sure made up for the lost years haven’t we?” he said trying to lift his hand to wipe away my tears.

  I quickly wiped them away myself and held his hand in mine.

  “Sure did” I choked out.

  “I want you to know, the only regret I have in my life is not being your father since you were born, you have been the only good thing in my life since your mother and there isn’t a single day I would change”

  “Dad…don’t” I couldn’t hear anymore.

  If he didn’t say goodbye then he wouldn’t be able to leave me.

  “I have to sweetie, I need you to know, I have been happy, not in the normal way, I never needed to remarry or fall in love because I have always been in love, she just hasn’t been around for a while.”

  I couldn’t reply, he meant every word, his life is proof of that. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of her death and he still loved her the same as then, not one year had passed where he could find solace without her.

  “When you came into my life, you brightened it up, you’re all I ever needed to get me through”

  “We got each other through”

  “We did, I just wish your mother could have seen the woman you became, she would be just as proud as I am of you” he said fondly.

  “I’m sure she would have”

  I wanted to tell him not to leave, to stop saying goodbye, to make our lives go back to the beginning so we could live it all again, but it was time to say goodbye. It was time to let him go.

  “I love you dad, I want you to know I am glad I came to find you, I wouldn’t change a day either” I smiled weakly, “I know your tired and you want to be with mum, if your holding for me…then you can…let go now” I
sobbed.

  I couldn’t hardly control my ragged breaths saying the words. I was trying with all my might to be strong for him, but I was failing miserably.

  “Shhh, don’t cry” he said squeezing my hand, waiting patiently while I calmed down, ”You won’t be on your own, you have Sheena and Layton, I know he will look after you now” he said, trying to make better of it.

  “I thought you didn’t trust him?” I laughed.

  “I don’t trust anyone who could hurt you, but I have to trust he will do right by you when I’m not around”

  “He has done for over thirty year’s dad,” I reminded him.

  “That is because I have been around and you have kept him in line” he said, trying to laugh but ending in a coughing fit.

  “Why don’t you rest, I’ll get Sarah too…”

  “No, I have plenty of time to rest soon” he interrupted.

  “And you say I get my stubbornness from my mother?” I said sternly.

  “You do, the two most stubborn women I have ever known”

  If I had a pound for every time I had heard that comparison over the years I wouldn’t have needed my inheritance from my mother.

  “I know you think my life has been wasted pining over a dead woman, I want you to believe me when I say, that couldn’t be further from the truth”

  “I do believe you now, at first I thought you were crazy but I was young and I didn’t understand, but I do now” I said truthfully, “You will be with her again soon”

  “She has been away too long” he said, releasing a single tear.

  “You will have eternity together soon” I soothed.

  “I’ll never be ready to leave you, but I am ready to see her again, I have been ready to see her for fifty years”

  How could I be selfish to want him alive at his age? He deserved to be truly happy, to finally be at peace.

  “I’m ready to let you go,” I said, only half meaning it.

  He gave a small smile, I know he could see straight through the lie but he didn’t say anything.