Hope - Levy, Marc (web ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Bart was forcing her to sleep longer and longer with each new day.

Stepping out of the lecture hall, Josh hopped on his bike and pedaled as fast as he could to get home to her. Every afternoon, they ate lunch together. If Hope was having a good day, she jumped on the back of the bike and Josh pedaled her downtown, where they would order lunch on a terrace and Josh would imitate Flinch giving one of his morning lectures. Hope loved those moments. On the way home again, they would put the bike on the bus and travel home in comfort.

Although her appetite was dwindling, one October day, Hope wanted seafood. She had been craving salt for a while now. Bart had his preferences, and she needed to satisfy them to stop him from flaring up.

Luke offered to lend Josh the Camaro, but the interior was too narrow for Hope to lie down in as they drove, so Josh rented a station wagon instead.

He packed a small suitcase, refusing to answer Hope’s pleas for clues as to where they were going. He even turned down the striptease she offered in exchange. As she gathered her things together, Hope noticed that some of her flea market trinkets were missing from the shelves, and although she interrogated Josh, he kept his silence.

They set off in the late morning, heading south.

Hope only discovered their destination when the car pulled into Hyannis on Cape Cod, rolling onto the ferry that would carry them across to Nantucket.

The crossing took about three hours, and it wasn’t long before Hope started to feel nauseated.

“I’ve always gotten seasick,” she assured Josh. She didn’t want him to worry.

They left the cabin to take in the sea breeze that was whipping at the deck. Hope watched as the coast faded into the distance, and raised a hand as if to wave off Bart, deciding she would abandon him there, like an old shoe left on the quayside.

In the distance, flocks of gulls pirouetted off the cresting waves, so small they looked like petals tumbling off cherry blossom trees in the hundreds, lifted by the breeze to be carried over the water.

Nantucket was a stunning island, more beautiful than Hope had imagined. Josh had booked them a room in a cottage on the port, and Hope thought the stilts peeking out of the water gave it a lazy, pleasant air.

They took their bags to their room, and read through a brochure they had borrowed from the reception desk over a cup of tea before setting out.

Hope insisted they visit the island’s three lighthouses, and they headed straight off. She liked the lighthouse at Brant Point best of all, because it was made entirely from wood, as was its beautiful walkway. It was squat and humble, and yet indescribably elegant. She found it less lonely looking than the red-striped design of the Sankaty Head Light, while the third one, at Great Point, struck her as less gracious because of its bloated middle and gritty walls.

As the afternoon ended, they settled down in a pub, at a table far from the stage where a jazz band was playing its heart out.

Josh ordered a beer, and Hope wondered if it would bother Bart if she did the same. Since he wasn’t there to join them, she decided one well-deserved glass couldn’t hurt.

The band began playing “I Will Still Be Dead,” which made Hope smile. You could find a little humor anywhere if only you were prepared to look, she thought.

“Do you believe in life after death?” she asked Josh as the singer hit the high notes with reckless abandon, relentlessly hammering home the point.

“Some days, when I get really scared.”

“You’re scared of dying?”

“I’m scared of you dying,” Josh replied. He had promised to always be honest, after all.

“Let’s get the facts straight, Joshy. I’m going to die. I do have one advantage over you, though. If there really is a life after death, I’ll be starting very young. You’ll roll in all crumbling like an old man.”

“Who says I’ll die very old?”

“Because life is wonderful, and I order you to.”

“We said no lying, remember? Plus, I hate to tell you this, but when you’re not here anymore, life will be shit, and I won’t feel like doing what you say.”

“You’ll do it anyway, and I forbid you to think of that kind of thing when we’re here. Agreed?”

“Loud and clear.”

Hope gulped down a mouthful of beer and prayed the singer would collapse before the end of the song. A simple rip of the vocal cords would do the job too.

“You need to go and see him, you know.” She turned to look at Josh. “Before you know it, he’ll be the only family you have left. The first step is always the hardest, so take it. The others will follow without your even realizing.”

“Didn’t you just say we shouldn’t be thinking of things like that while we’re here?”

“Okay.” Hope nodded. “As soon as this song is over. If he starts up the chorus one more time, this glass is going flying. What are we doing tonight?”

“Dinner at a seafood place? Are you still in the mood?”

“I could eat a whole crab, shell included, if it meant getting away from this guy.”

They retraced their route through town and to their cottage, catching glimpses of the sea at the end of the street. Hope wished they were back in June, before Bart had announced his return, when the summer sunset wasn’t yet over. But then it occurred to her that a blushing sky over a golden beach would have looked sickeningly picture-postcard perfect, and that nothing about this trip to Nantucket could be a cliché, not a single second of it.

“Bring on the fall!” Hope cried, and she kissed Josh on the cheek to reassure him. “Don’t worry, Joshy. It’s just an inside joke I have with myself.”

Back in their bedroom, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She poked a head