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Time heals all wounds. The phrase was a good one, and probably true, but as Felicity King stared at the water that lapped against the Avonlea shoreline, she found it unconvincing and hurtful—hurtful to Gus’s memory.
All those years, she thought as the sun cast its first light of the day on the world. Gus Pike had loved her for years and years, even before he’d probably realized it himself. She couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been there for her. She’d barely known him and he’d taken her to that silly old dance to see David. When she’d gotten lost in the snowstorm looking for Lucky, he’d come to find her. He hadn’t given up on her at all, ever—not even when he probably should have.
She smoothed her fingertips over the Queen Anne’s Lace she’d picked on her way to the shore, the bumpy texture of the flowers a small distraction in this moment of waiting. She held her breath as the sun splashed color over the farms and fields and rocky shores of Avonlea, the light slowly spreading out to wash over the sea.
The horizon was bare but for the color of the sky reflected in the water.
She slowly let her breath out. Of course there was nothing there. She hadn’t expected anything else, and yet…how could she keep herself from hoping?
How was she supposed to forget about Gus? The thought of packing up his memory and setting him on a shelf to dust off every decade or so was unimaginable. She thought about him every day, and about his selflessness every minute. All those years of their lives together and he’d always looked out for her…but when he’d needed the help, she hadn’t been there.
She knew it wasn’t her fault, but there was a small corner of her mind where guilt had sown its seeds.
The water looked so calm as it brushed against the sand at her feet… It was hard to believe that same water, miles and miles away, had taken hold of Gus and had dragged him down, down, filling his lungs and choking him until all the air had been stolen from his lungs.
She’d failed him, hadn’t she.
Her heart said he wasn’t dead, that she’d know if he was. Wouldn’t she feel it, deep inside her bones? Wouldn’t the very core of her being have felt something the moment he’d left this world?
Her mind said that line of thinking was reserved for romantic fiction. Of course she couldn’t know. The mere idea of Knowing was absurd. Surely, if Gus had lived, he would have returned to her by now.
So he must have drowned with the rest.
All hands lost. How many other young women had lost a betrothed in that wreck? How many mothers had lost a son? Wives a husband? Children a father?
How terrible had it been? Had the ship overturned? Had it exploded the way poor Mr. Grier’s fishing boat had, all those years ago?
Felicity let a few wilting stalks of the Queen Anne’s Lace slip from her fingers. How frightening it must have been to be on board the Maid of Calais as it sank. Gus had never seemed afraid of anything, but death had a way of frightening the most stalwart of men. Surely he’d died scared. How painful was it to drown? Had he called out for her with his final breath, or had it happened quietly, softly?
It made her chest feel tight to think about.
All hands.
Calais […] went down.
Gus was drowned.
It still felt surreal, sometimes, on mornings like this, dawn breaking over a sleepy world, the promise of a warm, new spring morning in the air. It was easy to imagine the Maid of Calais appearing on the horizon, sailing slowly toward the Avonlea shoreline, the sunlight hitting the hull so brightly it looked like a lighthouse at sea.
Felicity tore her eyes from the empty horizon and watched the water slowly lap at her flowers until they had been swallowed by the sea. Like Gus had been. It was difficult to drop the rest of the Queen Anne’s, but she did, the stems warm and crooked when they hit the sand. Her fingers ached from holding them.
The morning breeze had tangled her hair, so she tucked it back where it belonged, more for something to do than because she really cared. As she lowered her hand again, the morning light caught the ruby on her finger.
Tears were in her eyes before she could process this new wave of grief. Hold it up, she almost heard him say. Make it sparkle.
She couldn’t move. She just stood there, frozen, feeling almost as if she herself were drowning. The last time she’d seen Gus still felt recent, like they’d parted just the other day instead of months and months ago. The color of his skin, the warmth in his eyes, the feeling of his calloused fingers covering hers as he pressed his ring into her hand. Her heart had been fluttering madly when she’d slipped it on her left hand. That made it a promise. Official.
And surely he’d seen it when she waved goodbye to him, the morning light at the port catching the ring like it had all those years ago when she’d held it high above her head and danced with Sara while Gus played a jaunty tune on his fiddle.
She’d kept him waiting too long, a regret she’d have to live with for the rest of her life. How could she have known that waiting would be the biggest mistake she’d ever made? She didn’t even have his name to remember him by.
There was only his ring and a promise, now. A promise that would never be fulfilled. She turned from the ocean, twisting the ring on her finger. The breeze dried her face.
If only she could go back and change things. If only she would have known enough to accept his proposal the first time.
But she hadn’t.
And now she was stuck like this, hoping and yearning and waiting, though for what she couldn’t say.
For something to change, maybe; for Gus to come home and prove her stupid sensible mind wrong, for the sun to rise on a day where she would wake up and find that her heart didn’t ache quite so much anymore, for time to heal and soothe this deep and open wound she carried with her.
But until one of those things happened, until she could think about Gus without pain, until the world felt soft and real again, she would continue to live in moments and memories like this.