"What if she turns me down?"

She pulls my face back towards her and stares deeply into my eyes. "You'll never know unless you try."

Her hands drop from my cheeks and she leans up and kisses both of them before giving me a smile and heading back towards the kitchen to finish dinner.

"The ferry leaves in twenty minutes," she yells over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.

I don't even hesitate before racing out the front door and down the steps of the porch to my car. I peel out of the driveway and make it to the ferry on the other end of the island just as the sun begins to set over the water. Jumping out of the car, I jog along the dock filled with people heading back to the mainland, my eyes peeled for brown curly hair and bright blue eyes in the sea of faces.

I spot her standing by the roped off area next to the moveable walkway that will be hooked up to the ferry as soon as it docks. She's got a suitcase clutched in both of her hands and one at her feet. I take a few moments to stare at her from a distance as she watches the boat slowly make its way towards the dock. She's so beautiful it takes my breath away. She's been my whole world for as long as I can remember and I can't imagine spending even one day without her here to share my life. I shouldn't have waited so long to tell her how I feel and I'm scared to death I might be too late.

Pushing my way through the crowd of people, I stop right next to Bevy, lean down and pick up the suitcase from the ground. She turns and looks at me in surprise, gasping when I s.n.a.t.c.h the second suitcase out of her hands. Without saying a word, I turn and walk away from her, weaving in and out of the crowd of people waiting for the ferry as fast as I can.

"TRIP! What are you doing? Will you get back here, the boat is almost here!" she shouts after me.

I pick up my pace until I'm jogging down the dock and I hear her footsteps pounding behind me.

"PUT DOWN MY SUITCASES RIGHT NOW, TRIP FISHER!" she yells as I jump off the dock and onto the sand.

I move down the beach hurriedly until I feel her hand wrap around my arm and yank me to a stop. Tossing her suitcases to the sand, I turn around to face her. She's got her hands on her hips and she's really angry.

"Trip! What has gotten into you? Give me my suitcases!" she demands.

She leans down to pick them up and I block her way. When she stomps her foot, I can't help but laugh.

"Do you think this is funny? The ferry is going to leave without me, Trip. This is NOT funny!" she shouts.

She moves towards her suitcases again and I put my hands on her upper arms, stopping her.

"Don't leave."

Bevy stares at me like I've lost my mind and I can't blame her.

"What are you talking about? I have to leave. I have a meeting with the record producer tomorrow," she reminds me.

"Don't leave," I beg again, moving closer to her.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't leave?" she challenges, lifting her chin and glaring at me.

"Because you just can't leave. You need to stay here, with me."

She huffs and pulls out of my arms, shaking her head at me before turning and heading back towards the ferry.

"Not good enough. Forget the suitcases, I don't need them. I'll just buy new clothes with all of the money I'm going to make when I sing on my first record!"

She's walking away from me and I start to panic. This is not how this was supposed to go. I'm messing everything up and she's still going to leave me.

"I LOVE YOU, BEVY! PLEASE, DON'T LEAVE!" I shout after her.

She stops in her tracks, but doesn't turn to face me. I jog over to her and stand right behind her, wanting more than anything to put my arms around her, so I do. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pull her body back against mine. I rest my chin on her shoulder and put my lips close to her ear, telling her everything I should have told her a long time ago.

"You can't leave because I'm in love with you, Bevy. I've probably been in love with you since the first time you threw sand at me, and I am a fool for not telling you before now. I love you. I love everything about you. I love that you challenge me and I love that you can run faster than me. I love that I can tell you anything and you won't judge me. I love that you're my best friend and I love that you make me laugh. I love you, Beverly O'Byrne, and I don't want to spend even one day without you. I know this island is filled with sadness and bad memories for you, but if you give me a chance, just give me one chance, I will erase all of those bad memories and replace them with good ones."

She turns in my arms and I see tears falling down her face. I'm not sure whether they're happy tears or sad tears, but I don't allow myself time to second guess what I've done. Instead, I follow my dreams, exactly like my mother told me I should do. Grabbing both of her hands, I drop down on one knee on the sand at her feet and stare up at her beautiful, tear-stained face.

"I'm sorry, I love you, please forgive me. I should've told you this sooner. I never should've wasted one minute of my time with you. Marry me, Bevy. Stay here and marry me. Please, don't leave me," I beg.

The loud horn of the ferry echoes in the distance and Bevy closes her eyes. I'm scared to death she's going to say no. My hands are sweating as I clutch tightly to hers and pray to G.o.d that I'm not too late.

Bevy finally opens her eyes, smiles down at me and sniffles.

"It's about d.a.m.n time, Trip Fisher. I love you, I won't leave you, and of course I'll marry you."

My mouth drops open in shock and she laughs at me. The sound fills my heart with so much joy that it feels like it might burst right out of my chest. I jump up from the sand, pull her into my arms and lift her off of her feet. She wraps her arms around my shoulders and I swing her around in the sand as we both laugh. I finally stop twirling and set her down on her feet. She stares up into my eyes and tilts her head to the side.

"Say it again," she whispers.

I smile down at her and move my face closer to hers. "I love you."

Leaning even closer, I do something I've been dreaming about for longer than I can remember. I press my lips to hers and I kiss my Bevy for the first time. She kisses me back and it's like the whole world stops. The ocean waves crash against the sh.o.r.e at our feet and she sighs against my lips before she pulls away.

"I love you more," she tells me softly.

"Just remember who said it first," I tell her with a smile. Everything we do together seems to be a compet.i.tion and it makes me feel good that for once in our life together, I beat her to the finish line.

She smacks me lightly on the chest with a laugh, bringing her lips back to mine.

Chapter 12.

Bevy and I grabbed her suitcases and ran as fast as we could to jump on the ferry before it left, laughing the entire way. We took that last ferry off of the island back to the mainland, applied for a marriage license and got married by a justice of the peace in the city before the ink was even dry. We celebrated our honeymoon with a single night at the Beaufort Inn, and it was the most wonderful night of my life up to that point. My parents were a little upset about us getting married without telling them, but we made it up to them by letting them throw us a huge wedding reception the following weekend. The entire island crowded into my parents' home to wish us well, with the notable exception of Mr. O'Byrne, who was just "too busy" to make it. Bevy brushed it off with a shrug, but I hugged her tighter than ever and promised her once again that I would replace all the bad memories with good ones. Bevy pushed aside her disappointment and convinced me to finally tell my father I couldn't work at the bank anymore once our guests departed. As my mother predicted, he smiled and told me he didn't care what I did, as long as I was happy.

I flip through the next few pages in the alb.u.m, swiping angrily at the tears as they fall down my face. So many years of being happy and building a life together on this island. Pictures of our wedding reception, pictures of our first home, pictures of family picnics and holidays, pictures of me working out in the sunshine with a huge smile on my face...so many years and so many memories, but it wasn't long enough. It was never long enough.

The sun has come up and I take a few minutes to stare at the empty chair in the corner of the room. Upholstered in a heavy, red fabric, it was Bevy's favorite chair and it's never moved from that spot right next to the window. I can still see her sitting in that chair with her legs curled underneath her, writing in her journal. That woman loved to write things down. Every morning, she'd sit in that chair with a cup of coffee and write about her life. I always teased her about the horrible things she wrote about me, since she never allowed me to read the journals. She kept them in a s...o...b..x in the back of our closet, and to this day, I have never touched them. They were her private thoughts, her dreams, her memories and I had no right to snoop through them, even though I wanted to. I wanted to know if she ever regretted staying on this island. If she ever looked back on the night I proposed and wished she had gotten on that ferry without me instead. No matter what I said to her in anger and fear, she really could have been a huge star. She could have lived the high life, never worrying whether there was enough money in the bank to buy groceries or to pay the mortgage. Whenever my insecurities got the best of me and I'd ask her if she had any regrets about not following her dreams and being stuck here with me, she would just shake her head and say "You silly man, how could I regret anything when I'm already living my dream?"

She told me writing things down helped her focus on the blessings in our life instead of the bad things, but I often wonder if she said that to placate me. Still, I saw day after day how good Bevy felt after an hour of journaling and I figured I'd stop worrying about what she might be saying about me and just focus on the fact that she was happy.

When Fisher was younger and constantly fighting with his father, I handed him one of Bevy's blank journals and urged him to get his thoughts out of his head and onto paper. I told him if he wrote them down, he could close the book and walk away from those troubles, rather than bottling them up and letting them fester. I know Fisher has kept up with his writing through the years and it was one of the most helpful things for him during his year in rehab for PTSD. It makes me feel good knowing he inherited something from Bevy even though he never knew it.

My Bevy and I spent so many years living happily together before everything changed. Why couldn't I be enough for her? Why wasn't my love enough? I'll never understand those men who have such a burning desire to be fathers. I never had that, even after I became one. I loved my son more than I thought possible, but nothing could surpa.s.s the love I had for my wife.

If I knew then what I know now and all that other bulls.h.i.t...I don't even know if I'd have done things differently. How could I? I loved Bevy to distraction and I would have done anything in my power to give her the one thing she wanted. I prayed harder than I'd ever prayed before and it was a d.a.m.n miracle G.o.d listened to me. Do I regret those prayers I wasted begging G.o.d for a baby instead of saving them for something more important further down the road? Sometimes. Most of the time.

It's getting a little harder to breathe and my chest feels tighter than it did when I woke up, but I push through the pain, just like Bevy did when she gave birth to Jefferson. I think back to the night he was conceived, wondering if I should include it in my story. Will Jefferson really want to read about his parents' s.e.x life? Will Fisher be embarra.s.sed to know that his old grandfather was a h.o.r.n.y devil when it came to Bevy? Probably, but it's an important part of this tale.

Chapter 13.

July 1959 Bevy hasn't spoken to me for almost two weeks. It's the longest we've ever gone without speaking and it's about to kill me. Each time I try to apologize, she walks right past me with a huff. I'm getting a little tired of sleeping on the couch. I want to be back in bed with my wife. Shoot, at this point I'd take her yelling and cursing at me again over the silent treatment. I know I shouldn't have said what I did to her, but I needed to be honest with Bevy. After seven years of failed pregnancy attempts, I can't take the disappointment on Bevy's face each month anymore. The doctors told us that there's nothing medically wrong with either one of us from what they gather, it's just something that happensor doesn't happen, in our case.

Even with the doctors flat out telling Bevy that we will most likely never have a child of our own, she won't give up. She still talks about how she'd like to decorate the nursery and she still daydreams about the child that she is so desperate to have. I don't understand her desperation. We have a good life together, just the two of us. Why does she want to ruin it? I don't want to share her with anyone else and it hurts my heart that she doesn't think of it that way. She says that we have enough love to give a hundred children.

After a long day at work helping to build a new restaurant that is going up on Main Street, I walk into our house and the first thing I notice is the eerie quiet. Just like my parents did when I was little, Bevy always has music playing. There's no better welcome home than watching my beautiful bride dancing around the living room, singing like an angel. The silence is unnerving.

I quickly wash the grime off of my hands at the kitchen sink and go in search of Bevy. I find her standing in the spare bedroom, staring out the window.

"Hey, is everything okay?" I ask softly as I move closer to her.

She doesn't turn around or answer me, but I refuse to be ignored anymore. I love her, I want her to be happy and I just need her to understand that.

"Look, Bevy, I'm sorry. I never should have said the things I did. I just can't take you getting upset month after month. Seeing you get your hopes up and watching your spirit die when you find out we aren't going to have a baby.... I don't want you to go through that anymore. Can you understand how much it's killing me?" I ask as I gently rest my hands on her shoulders and turn her to face me.

There are tears streaming down her cheeks and her face is flushed from the crying she must have been doing for quite a while before I came home.

"Oh, Bevy, my Bevy, please don't cry," I plead as I pull her into my arms.

She puts her hands on my chest and pushes away from me angrily.

"How do you expect me not to cry, Trip? I can't have a baby! WE can't have a baby. My heart is broken and you just don't get it. You keep telling me to forget about it and just be happy with what we have but how am I supposed to do that?" she argues.

I throw my hands up in the air in frustration. "Because we ARE happy! I love you and you love me. You get to teach choir up at the elementary school and do what you love, surrounded by children. Why can't that be enough for you? Why can't what we have together be enough for you?"

"BECAUSE IT'S NOT!" she shouts back. "Those are OTHER PEOPLE'S children, Trip, not ours. They aren't a piece of our heart and soul. They don't have your c.o.c.ky att.i.tude and my blue eyes. Don't you want someone to carry on our traditions and our family long after we're gone? Don't you want a little piece of you and I combined together walking on this earth? I want that, Trip. I want that so badly that I can hardly breathe with wanting it so much."

She takes a step closer to me and rests her palms over my chest, close to my heart. "I want a piece of this heart, that I love more than anything, to be in another human being. I want to create something beautiful and amazing together and I want you to understand how much it means to me. I want you to understand that I feel like a failure because I can't do this one thing. This one, simple thing that thousands of women do every single day and I can't do it! Why can't I do it?" she cries as the tears start to flow again.

"You are NOT a failure, Bevy. You're my wife, my best friend, a friend to everyone on this island and someone that people look up to because of your strength and determination and fearlessness. I don't understand this because it's turning you into someone I don't know. It's making you sad all the time and it's making you scared," I tell her, grabbing her hands in mine and bringing them up to my lips. I kiss the tops of her hands and then hold them tightly against my chest. "My heart belongs to you and it beats for you and seeing you like this is breaking it in two. Don't you think I feel like a failure, too? I'm letting you down because I just can't make you happy anymore. I can't take away your pain and make things better and it kills me. Tell me how to make this better, Bevy, please."

She pulls one of her hands out from under mine and swipes angrily at the tears on her cheeks. "I don't know, Trip. I don't know how to make this better. I don't know how to make the sadness go away. I don't know how to stop wanting something that I can't have."

"Why can't I be enough for you? Why can't what we have together just be enough?" I ask sadly.

"Oh, Trip. You are more than enough for me. I love you more than I ever thought possible. I love you more today than yesterday. Every day, I'm amazed by how much more I love you, but this is different. This is a different kind of love that I need. I love our life together, but I just need something more. It has nothing to do with not being happy with you or with the life we've built together. I just want to be a mother. I want to prove to myself and everyone else that I can be the kind of mother mine never was. I want a child that I'll never ignore, a child that I'll be proud of, a child that I will make sure knows, every day of his or her life, that they are wanted and loved and cherished."

I've always wondered if Bevy's need to have a child stemmed from her own disastrous childhood and she just confirmed my beliefs. I hate her parents now more than I ever have for the way they ignored her after Benjamin died. Even now, as an adult, her father barely speaks to her. I always thought that when her mother killed herself, her father would finally wake up and realize that life is too short and embrace the only family he had left, but that wasn't the case. He became even more focused on work and pushed Bevy even further away.

I wrap my arms tightly around Bevy's waist and pull her against me. "You would never, EVER be the type of parent that yours were. You have so much love to give, Bevy, and I envy that in you. Any child would be blessed to have you as a mother. I'm sorry I can't give this to you, Bevy. I'm sorry I can't give you the one thing you need."

Bevy sniffles and finally gives me a smile, something I've been desperate to see again for the last few weeks. She leans up on her toes and presses her lips to mine. It's a quick peck on the lips, not nearly enough after not touching her for fourteen days.

"I love you, Trip. I love you and I'm sorry I've been such a rotten wife. You give me more than I need and I'm sorry for making you feel like it's not enough."

I squeeze her tighter and my heart beats faster as her fingers slide through the hair at my nape. I press my forehead to hers and let out a deep sigh.

"You could never be a rotten wife, even if you tried, Bevy," I rea.s.sure her.

She slides out of my arms and grabs my hands, pulling me out of the spare room and across the hall to our bedroom. Bevy has never been shy when it comes to lovemaking, but the speed with which she removes her clothes and helps me remove mine before pushing me backwards onto the bed renders me speechless. I clutch her hips tightly as she crawls on top of me and leans her body over mine, her hair making a curtain around our faces.

"I've missed you, Trip. I've missed you so much," she whispers.

Making love to my wife is always amazing, but this time it's so much more. We move together quickly, almost desperately. We clutch tightly to each other and whisper words of love as we reconnect in the best possible way. I love the feel of her around me and the sounds she makes, letting me know that she feels as deeply as I do. I love everything about this woman in my arms and I tell her so as she moves on top of me, bringing us both the release that we need to wash away the sadness and the regrets. I hold her tighter than ever, I love her stronger than before and pray to G.o.d that he will give Bevy the one thing she needs more than me to mend her wounded heart.

Chapter 14.

I set my pen down and take a moment to close my eyes and remember the day that our son was conceived. G.o.d answered my prayers that day, and even though I was scared s.h.i.tless when we found out Bevy was pregnant, I was happy that she'd finally gotten her wish. I'd never seen her smile so big, laugh so hard or be so filled with joy as she was during those nine months before he was born. Her excitement was infectious, and even though I wasn't so sure about what kind of father I would be, I threw myself wholeheartedly into preparing for the birth of our son. I painted the nursery, I built a crib and a changing table and I walked around with my chest puffed out, proud of the fact that I was finally able to make Bevy's dreams come true.

Jefferson Junior showed up a week early and Bevy gave birth at home with Doc Wilson and my mother by her side and me pacing like a mad man out in the hallway, listening to her cries of pain and wishing I could take them away.

I open my eyes and stare at a photo of Bevy in bed, looking radiant with baby Jefferson curled up in her arms just minutes after he was born. She's running the tips of her fingers over his chubby little cheek and smiling down at him with such love and devotion. I remember being so relieved that he arrived safely and so proud that Bevy had done something so incredibly difficult and amazing. She grew a life inside of her and brought him into this world all on her own. I also remember feeling a twinge of jealousy when I snapped this photo. All of the love and devotion that had belonged solely to me would now be transferred to someone else. I hated myself for feeling that way, but I couldn't make it stop no matter how hard I tried.

I should have loved him more. I should have cherished all of the parts of him that were so clearly Bevy, but I couldn't do it. Years later, once she was gone, I couldn't handle anything that reminded me of her. With his curly brown hair and bright blue eyes and his infectious laugh, he was my Bevy made over and it hurt to even look at him. I should have done better for my son. I should have honored Bevy's memory by loving him as much as she did, I just didn't know how.

For too many years, I blamed Jefferson for what happened to Bevy. In my grief, I couldn't separate that precious little boy from the monster that stole the love of my life. Every time I thought about how I would never hear her voice or touch her face again, all of the reasons why led back to Jefferson. I hate myself for the way I behaved then.

Tearing the pages I've already written on out of the notepad, I set them aside and start on a clean page. I glance out the window and see that the sun has disappeared and there are ugly, dark clouds hovering over the water. There's a storm brewing and I should probably get up and check on my family, but I need to finish this. The hardest part of my story is coming up next and I need to get through it. I'm starting to feel sick to my stomach and I'm not sure if it's because of the horrible memories floating around in my head or because there is something seriously wrong with me. Rubbing my fist against my chest, I try to soothe the shooting pain, but it doesn't help. Just a little bit more. I only have a little bit more to write and then I can go check on everyone and make sure they're safe.

With a shaking hand, I press the pen to the paper and a little part of me dies inside as I relive the worst time of my life.

I lose a piece of myself every time I think back on that day. Pretty soon, there will be nothing left.

Chapter 15.