No matter how many times the doctors told Rebecca that the baby would be okay, she refused. They waited until Zoi was at a perfect weight before inducing Rebecca. Zoi had to stay in the NICU for a couple of weeks before Lucas was able to take her home. While Rebecca stayed a bit longer because of her surgeries. The doctors were hopeful and optimistic they’d removed all that cancerous cells, but it had spread further than they had originally thought.
Even with rounds of chemotherapy, Rebecca seemed only to get sicker. Everyone knew she was going to die, the only one that did not want to believe it, was Lucas. He still held out hope that she would come through everything fine and they would go on with their lives and raise their daughter. It hurt Lucas that Rebecca accepted her fate and was giving up on trying to live for him and their daughter. He did not want to live without Rebecca, who had become more than just his wife.
She was his best friend. Lucas realized that he was trying to keep her alive even though he knew she was ready to stop hurting. But in his mind, he was trying to make Rebecca live for Zoi so that she would have her mother around. Lucas missed Rebecca more than words could say. She was his center, and it was as if those long months of him trying to keep her alive were silenced in a blink of an eye.
After her death, he was crushed and didn’t know how he was going to cope. He leaned on his mother more than he cared to admit. But she was happy to help him. Lucas had never seen himself falling in love and getting married, but Rebeccacaptured his heart. When Rebecca died, Lucas closed his heart and mind off to dating again. Rebecca was the only woman for him. He loved her too much to let another woman take her place.
“I love that about you,” Rebecca said. Lucas turned his head to look at his wife.
She had a scarf wrapped around her head and she looked smaller and thinner than normal. She lifted her hand to caress his cheek with the tips of her fingers. Lucas closed his eyes. Her hand was cold on his cheek. “You need to let me go, you know,” she whispered.
“I can’t,” Lucas told her opening his eyes. “I love you too much.”
Rebecca smiled. “You were always too damn stubborn for your own good. You will love again, Luc.”
“Never,Becs, you are it for me,” he told her, turning his face to kiss her cold palm.
“Don’t close off your heart, Lucas. Promise me when you realize it, you won’t turn your backon love. Zoi needs to see what love looks like.”
“She sees it every time she’s around our family.”
Rebecca smiled. “She needs to see it from you.”
Lucas closed his eyes and turned his head, looking away from Rebecca, her hand fell away from his cheek. “I can’t promise that to you, baby.” She giggled, and it was good to hear that sound coming from her.
“You’re so stubborn, give in this once, Luc,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and looked back to Rebecca to find her spot empty.It was a dream, another one like all the rest he’d been having a lot more of lately.
Lucas closed his eyes again taking a deep breath and wrapped his arm around Zoi. It had only been two years since Rebecca died, but to Lucas, it still felt like yesterday. He still loved her deeply. Moving Zoi’s hair from her forehead kissing her gently, he thought about one of the last promises Rebecca asked of him. To take care of Zoi and make sure she grew up to be a young lady with a kind and loving heart.And most of all he should not give up on love, ever. He could not promise the last one to her then, andhe could not do it now. She was the woman he wanted from the moment he met her, and no other woman could take her place.
* * *
Tucker Stevens openedthe door of his home, dropping his case at the side of the door. Stepping into the room, he took off his suit jacket and threw it over the back of the sofa. He loosened his tie as he walked further into his home.
“You work too much; I’ve been tellingyou this for years, Tuck. When did you become such a workaholic?”
Tucker ignored the voice because he knew for sure that the person speaking wasn’t real. It was a figment of his imagination. It was the same voice that spoke to him for the past fourteen years, every time he walked through the door of his house. Tucker long ago figured out that he was either crazy or delusional. He refused to seek a diagnosis, in fear that he could be mental. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge pulling out a beer. Twisting the top off, he took his first swig sighing at the bitter cold liquid.
“Don’t ignore me, TuckerStevens.”
Pulling the bottle from his lips. “If I ignore you, then I know you’re not real,” he whispered.
Walking out of the kitchen, he took the stairs two at a time heading to his bedroom. He refused to look at the pictures lining the walls depicting the happy moments he shared with Rochelle and their daughter, Laura. He’d lost his wife, daughter, and his sister on the same day in a tragedy he will never get over. Tucker walked into his bedroom, throwing his tie on the bed. He put his beer bottle on the dresser then started undressing. He threw his shirt in the direction of the hamper and missed the thing completely. Not caring, he walked into his bathroom, switching on the lights and then the shower.
Another lonely night, accompanied by another lonely weekend. He got under the hot scalding water, letting it loosen his tightly wound muscles.I’ve spent the past few years alone, another night won’t hurt.He took his time showering, purposely bypassing his erection. Getting out of the shower he dried himself off, ignoring the presence in the room.Tucker didn’t want to admit that he might be crazy seeing and talking to his dead wife.
“I’ve always enjoyed staring at you. You are so beautiful.”
Tucker would have moved long ago, but it was the house he and Rochelle had bought together when they’d found out she was pregnant with Laura. He’d updated it over the years, but those updates didn't remove all that was embedded in every room. The first time they made love, the first time they brought Laura home from the hospital,the joy of seeing Laura taking her first steps. Tucker couldn’t at the time and still cannot force himself to get rid of his little girl'sthings.
Laura’s room was still the same as when he and Rochelle decorated it. He couldn’t walk past her room door without choking up. Laura would have just turned fifteen.A teenager. Tucker wasn’t sure how he would have handled being the father of a teenager. He wondered if Laura would see herself as his little girl. Tucker closed his eyes shutting off his thought and tried not to think about what could have been. They were dead, and there was nothing he could do to change things.
Tucker opened his eyes and stood in front of the mirror staring at himself.Using his fingers, he brushed his blond hair from his face noting that it felt good going back to his natural color. Tucker’s hair was longer than it should be considering the bureau had regulations when it came to hair lengths for both men and women.
He’d started dyeing his hairback in college and wore it as a brunette for years wanting to appear a bit older to attract a more mature woman. In his younger days, he had a thing for older women, which was what attracted him to his wife. The other great thing about dyeing his hair blond, it hid the gray hairs which made him look older than he really was.
He continued to stare at his reflection in the mirror, on the outside he looked like a man with confidence. But on the inside, he was still a broken man trying to hold his shit together. He worked more than necessary, simply because in the office he didn’t need to think about how lonely he was. He’d lost so much the day his wife and daughter died.Becoming a shell just going through the motions of life. Tucker was numb, unable to feel any kind of emotions. He’d almost withdrew from society and was on a road of self-destruction.
