The End of All Things Beautiful (23 page)

Her eyes fill with tears as she looks up at Benji and me and
then back at Thomas. It feels like we stand in silence forever. None of us
saying anything, the air between us heavy and any words we’d once spoken are
now lost. I can feel the shift, the change in what was once a hopeless
relationship, has somehow been altered with just a photograph.

“Thomas,” she whispers weakly, and he cocks his head to the
side. His little mind wondering why she’s crying again, I’m sure. I can’t
imagine what he’s seen over the last few weeks and how much his world has
changed. “Daddy gave this to you?” she asks, and he nods.

“He did, but it was a secret. He told me that even if he wasn’t
here, you and Grandma and Grandpa and these people,” he says looking at Benji
and me again with that perfect smile on his face, “will always love me.”

She pulls Thomas into her embrace as she begins to cry a little
bit harder. I don’t know what has changed or what about the picture has made
her change her mind about us, but something is different.

She lets go of Thomas, but as she does, she whispers something
in his ear and he nods his head, leaving the three of us alone as he makes his
way up the stairs.

Samantha wipes at her cheeks and swipes under her eyes as she
wets her lips and hands the picture to me.

Benji steps closer to me, his hand resting on the small of my
back. I can feel the warmth of his touch through my coat and it’s enough to
relax me. I find myself leaning against him as we both finally look down at the
picture.

It’s a picture of Benji and me that had to have been taken shortly
before the accident, probably only a few weeks before. I remember it well. My
head is resting on Benji’s shoulder and he’s smiling at the camera while I’m
looking the other way. I remember Tommy had called my name just before Kelly
took the picture, and I looked over at him. He mouthed the word ‘smile’, but it
was too late, Kelly had already taken it.

Before I realize it, my body is flush against Benji’s, his arm
now wrapped around my waist and that’s when I turn the picture over. My hand is
shaking; actually my entire body is shaking. Without Benji this close, I don’t
think I could stand, but as Benji’s arm tightens around my waist, I realize
he’s feeling the same way.

It says,
These people love
you and they don’t even know you.

It’s written in Tommy’s handwriting and what he’s written is
completely true. I don’t even know Thomas, but I love him with everything I
have. He’s all I have left of Tommy and when I look up and take in Benji’s
face, there’s a love there for Thomas, too.

I hand the picture back to Samantha and she smiles gratefully.
It’s the first smile I’ve seen since meeting her and while it’s not authentic,
it’s better than the scowl she’s worn. She steps aside, pushing the door open,
she gives her head a quick flick as if to tell us to come in and then she says,
“I think I’m ready to hear what you have to say.”

Samantha leads us into the kitchen and as I walk through the
house, I see pictures of Tommy with Samantha and Thomas. Baby pictures and
pictures of smiling faces, happiness and joy and all the things that should
grace a home. But underneath it all, the happiness is just lying on the
surface. While the house is immaculate and beautiful, there is so much tragedy
and sadness that fills it. I want to believe that when these pictures were
taken and this house was purchased, when Tommy married Samantha, and when
Thomas was born, that those days held true happiness; that Tommy’s life wasn’t
always a desperate attempt to escape and forget the past.

I begin to get choked up when I see pictures of Tommy holding
Thomas, kissing him and hugging him. It breaks my heart that his child will
grow up without a father, that he will never know all the love and kindness
that radiated from Tommy. What was left was a broken shell of his former self,
wounded and scarred with nothing left to give.

Judging by his house and his wife and the fact that they had a
kid together, he tried to recover, tried to carry on, but if anyone knows the
difficulty in that, it’s me and clearly he wasn’t able to do it.

I can hear Thomas playing in his room and I’m overcome with
emotion. I feel the tears well up in my eyes, wondering if he has any idea what
has happened, what is happening. His life will never be the same. I find myself
wondering if Samantha were to remarry quickly, would Thomas even remember his father?
I hate myself for thinking it. It’s a horrible thought. Tommy was one of my
best friends and in the end I should be doing whatever I can to ease some of
this stress that has taken over his family.

“Campbell,” Benji says, and I realize I’ve disconnected, lost in
my own depressing thoughts.

“Huh?”

“Are you coming?” he asks, as he looks back from where he’s
standing in the kitchen; Samantha watching me with a sad look on her face. A
permanent reminder of what she’s going through.

As I take in her face, I’m suddenly reminded of Tommy’s funeral
and the two women I was seated next to and their discussion of Tommy’s suicide
and Samantha and Tommy’s flawed marriage. “
She never would’ve married him if she hadn’t gotten pregnant
with Thomas,” the one woman had said, and something about the comment hurt. I
hated that Tommy wasn’t in love with his wife, that he married her out of
obligation, but above all, that it ended this way.

But
I’m hit with the realization that what was said is probably not the full truth.
None of this is, there’s still so much hidden and after seeing Samantha, I know
we all have a lot to talk about. No one grieves for someone they didn’t love, and
the way I see Samantha suffering, I know she loved him.

We’re
now sitting at the kitchen table, although none of us has spoken yet. The
silence is hanging heavy in the air and when the first words are spoken,
they’re loud and I immediately draw my words back to a whisper.

“I’m
not sure where to begin,” I repeat, but this time I’m quieter. I shake my head;
I never imagined meeting with Samantha would be this hard.

Whether
Tommy loved Samantha or not, there is now another life involved in all this, a
child who never asked for any of this. And while I fight with this thought, I
also wonder what would’ve happened if Kelly hadn’t killed herself. Did Tommy
love Samantha as much as he loved Kelly? How do you even explain any of it?

I’m
now holding the picture of Benji and me that Tommy had given to Thomas, and as
I turn it over in my hand, re-reading the words and looking at the picture, I
begin to speak.

“I’m
really sorry, Samantha,” I tell her, but I know those words will do nothing to
ease her pain. They’ve been said to me more times than I can count and quite
honestly, all they did was add to my hatred of the situation. What are they
even sorry for? And those words will never bring back what was lost.

“Thank
you,” she replies, giving the obligatory response, and already this
conversation is off to a bad start, fake and contrived.

I
look over at Benji who has been pretty much silent since all this began and I
realize up until this moment, this is the first time we’re meeting with someone
who has a connection to what occurred. She was more directly involved than I
ever realized.

He
takes a few seconds and begins the conversation I should have started.

“So,
Tommy, Campbell,” he says motioning to me, “ and I all grew up together. I
don’t know how much he’s told you, but there were actually five of us.”

As
he speaks Samantha shakes her head as if to say she knows nothing, which I know
is true. She admitted it to me when we first met and all she’s known up until
this point is speculation and ideas that have been created by her mind; bits
and pieces of information she gathered from Tommy while he was still alive. Yet
none of it is whole and none of it is the truth.

Benji
keeps talking, “There was Sam and Kelly, too. We were inseparable. But when we
were nineteen, it all ended.”

I
reach over with my hand and cover Benji’s hand that is resting on the table. My
touch stops him and I immediately pick up where he left off. I don’t want him
to do this alone, especially since it’s me that Samantha blames.

“We
were in a car accident that killed Sam and instead of staying, we left. We left
Sam and the family in the other car dead. Tommy was the one who witnessed most
of it.”

I’m
not sure how much more to say. There are secrets that Benji and I keep still
between us for a reason, but I don’t know if they’re necessary for Samantha to
understand the turmoil that plagued Tommy’s life.

I
look over at Benji and with a small shake of his head I know to leave off the
fact that the two of them watched that young boy die in the car.

“At
the time, Tommy and Kelly had been together for about four years,” Benji adds,
but he pauses as he tries to figure out exactly how to explain Tommy’s
relationship with Kelly.
 
“A week
after the accident, Kelly killed herself. It devastated Tommy and that’s when
things slowly started to unravel.”

Samantha
has yet to say anything and I’m not certain how much further we should take it.
It still doesn’t give her an accurate description of the trouble and horribleness
that we would all come to face at the hand of our decision. I can only hope
it’s enough to allow Samantha to forgive me and forgive Tommy for what he’s
done.

“This
explains a lot,” Samantha finally says. “I always thought it was you he was
hung up on,” she states, looking over at me. “But it wasn’t. It was the other
girl. It makes more sense now. Her death and the accident, his drug use and the
response he had to his parents death.”

“What?”
Benji practically shouts, and if he hadn’t beaten me to it, I would’ve said the
same thing. “Tommy’s parents are dead?”

“I’m
sorry, I guess I have a lot to share with you too,” Samantha says, as she takes
a deep breath. “I always thought this was something that was between Tommy and
me, that our relationship was just shit because of how we got back together,”
she says, as she adds quietly, “Not like we were ever really apart.”

I
give her a confused look, not understanding exactly what she’s saying. Like
Samantha, Benji and I know nothing about Tommy’s life after the accident.

“We
met after he transferred to the University of Wisconsin, but I never really
knew much about his life before that. He told me he needed a change and I never
questioned it.” She runs her hand through her hair and lets out a sigh as she
continues. “We were young and I guess I never realized how out of hand his drug
problem was. It was college. We all drank and did drugs, but as the years went
by, Tommy didn’t stop like most people did. We graduated, got jobs, moved in
together, but as much as I loved him, I’m not sure we were ever happy.”

I
often find myself wondering what our lives would’ve been like had the accident
not happened. Would I have ended up with Benji? Would Sam, Kelly and Tommy have
stayed together or would they eventually have realized their arrangement just
wasn’t possible? Each of them realizing one loves the other more; Kelly loving
Sam more than Tommy and Tommy loving Kelly more than anyone. Would Tommy have
eventually asked her to choose?

I
feel sorry for Samantha because I know Tommy didn’t love her like he loved
Kelly. It just wasn’t in him to replace her and not that that’s what I think he
was trying to do, but I do think he was trying to numb the pain.

I
give Samantha a weak smile, hoping she sees we understand what she’s going
through, how difficult it must have been for her to live all these years
without an explanation of why Tommy behaved the way he did. And even after now
knowing what he dealt with, I’m not sure it eases any of her years of trying to
help him and the suffering she still feels.

“I
wanted to save him,” Samantha says, laughing a little but there’s no humor to
her tone. “You know, like the love of a good woman can save anyone. But even I
knew it was a lie.” She shakes her head at her comment, but I understand. She
wanted to see the good in Tommy and at some point she must have or she wouldn’t
have stayed. He was an amazing person, kind and generous, his personality was infectious.

Benji
and I say very little as she keeps talking. I imagine most of this she has kept
hidden from her family and friends, because the more she talks the more that
comes out. Like she’s wanted to say it for years. There’s a comfort factor with
us that she hasn’t found with anyone else. We understand what she’s been dealt
and we would never judge her choice to stay with him. Had things between the
three of us not ended badly, I know Benji and I would’ve stood by Tommy, too.

“I
finally tried to give him an ultimatum. I tried to tell him it was drugs or me,
but there was a part of me that just couldn’t leave him. I had moved back in
with my parents, but I still couldn’t cut him out of my life. I worried about
him constantly and spent just as much time with him as I always had. Then I
found out I was pregnant.”

“What
changed?” Benji asks, and I already know. I’ve had this talk with Samantha and
while I know it wasn’t something she wanted to share at the time, she still
did. But as she tells it now, I can see she’s more comfortable talking about it
than she was before.

A
simple smile crosses her lips as if she remembers the moment and discussing it
has brought back all those feelings and emotions. “He stopped everything as
soon as I told him. No more drugs. It was unreal how easily it all ended.” She
stops, and I see the tears form in her eyes. “We were normal for like five
minutes.” Samantha looks away and mumbles, “I’ll never know normal again.”

I
want to tell her that we all make our own normal and not to live with what
people expect you to be and do. One day her life will be normal again, normal
to her. It might not be the mom and dad with the two kids living in the perfect
house with the perfect marriage. Her and Thomas’ life will always be flawed,
but what happens in the future is up to them. And as I sit here and listen to
her talk, I know I want to be part of that future. I want to be part of Thomas’
normal.

 
“I thought it was all over,” Samantha
starts before I can even begin to console her. I want to, I want to tell her
how both Benji and I understand what she’s going through. The loss can be
debilitating. “But then…” she begins, looking at Benji and me. “What you’ve
told me explains his reaction to his parents’ death. I just wish he would’ve
told me,” she whispers, the tears now falling down her cheeks. “They were
killed by a drunk driver.”

Samantha
buries her face in her hands. It’s hard to make out her words, muffled and
through the sobs. Benji squeezes my hand tightly, both of struggling to get
through another loss. Another loss that hits far too close to home.

“It
was about six months ago,” Samantha mutters. “It tore him apart.” She wipes at
her tear-streaked cheeks with her hands as she looks at us. “I think all those
memories from the past returned. He was haunted and restless. He became distant
and withdrew from everything. I thought he was using again, but he began to
obsess over finding Campbell.”

Again
Samantha looks at me, her eyes sympathetic. She stops speaking as if she’s
trying to choose her words wisely.

“I
hated you and I’m sorry for that,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine.

“No
apology necessary. I can imagine how all of this looked to you. I have so many
regrets, Samantha, and I never expected you to apologize to me. It should be me
apologizing to you for all the stress this caused you.”

“I
realize now that his need to find you had nothing to do with being in love with
you, but everything to do with coping with the death of his parents. He needed
to find both of you. You two were the only people who understood what he was
going through.”

“Why
didn’t he find us?” Benji asks. “He was able to get the letters to us. Why
didn’t he just reach out to us?”

“I
don’t know. I found the letters with his body. I guess it became too much.” And
again Samantha is crying. I want to hug her, tell her it’s going to be okay,
but I’m sure those words will be pointless. “How do I ever explain this to
Thomas?” Samantha asks, almost begging someone for an answer. “How do we ever
move on?”