Impossibly, his smile widened. “I had the same thought. Damn lucky I went blind; my old self would have fallen over in shock to hear this version of myself say it.” He laughed. “Life sure can change quickly and in unexpected ways. Don’t you agree, Chief?”
“I do, Burt.”
For a few moments we sat in companionable silence, me staring out at the water, Burt staring inward at whatever sights were there.
“Betty used to be a writer,” he said.
“Did she? I didn’t know.”
“It was a long time ago. Stories are her passion.” His expression grew solemn and I cocked my head, curious about where this was going and why he’d brought it up. “But she had an accident and suffered a head injury that causes her to lose words.” He paused for a moment. “You’ve probably noticed it happen. It distresses her. Writing became frustrating and upsetting and so she gave it up, turned her family home into a B and B to support herself…” He trailed off, the weight of Betty’s pain obviously a burden he now carried too.
And I suddenly realized something. “She narrates for you,” I said, thinking of all the times I’d watched Betty describe something that was going on so that Burt might picture it, watched the focus and the wonder on his face as he obviously did just that.
“She does.” He smiled. “And she does it so beautifully, and with such detail, it’s almost like, for those moments, my sight has been returned.”
Wow. A fish jumped and the water rippled out around the spot where it’d returned to the water.
“As for me,” he went on, “I spent my life as a fisherman. There’s no place on a fishing boat for a man with no sight. It was part of the reason I felt my life was over when I went blind.”
“I’m sorry, Burt.” He’d lost everything that meant anything to him. That’s how it must have felt.
“Being a fisherman provides some amount of downtime, often quite a bit depending on the weather and other factors. I filled that time with crosswords. I got pretty damn good at them too, moving from one level to the next. I even entered and won a few contests. Words. They’re all about words. Name six different words that mean congenial.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think I can. Not off the top of my head.”
“Affable, convivial, cordial, jovial, pleasant, sociable. If you know enough words, you can solve any puzzle out there.”
And it dawned on me.
Betty had lost her words, and Burt had spent years collecting them.
I’d watched her become upset when the one she’d meant to use suddenly became unavailable to her, tapping her head in distress, trying to bring back what had once been hers. Batty Betty. No wonder Burt always seemed to provide just the one she wanted. He knew so many words. Right off the top of his head.
And Betty, his storyteller, drew such vibrant pictures in his mind that, in essence, she’d given him back his sight.
I swallowed down a sudden lump.
“It’s meant to work that way, isn’t it?” Burt asked. “All the things that have brought us pain carve a distinct hole in our heart, and there’s someone else out there with the perfect something that will fill the void. And in turn, we get to do the same for them. And suddenly, it all makes sense. It all fits. Because we haven’t been forsaken. We’ve been prepared.”
Haven’s words from the night before came back to me. Maybe the terrible truth about love is that when it’s gone, it leaves a hole in your heart so big it feels like nothing will ever fill it.
Something expanded inside me, something nameless that made my ribs ache. I moved my eyes and my mind back to the man sitting next to me. “Burt…that head injury Betty suffered…did it have anything to do with her deceased husband?”
Burt paused. “Well now…perhaps. But that part of the story is Betty’s to tell.”
I nodded, his meaning clear, a sharp pang joining the internal ache. Batty Betty. The screen door opening on a squeak broke the moment and a breath whooshed from me, relieving some of the building pressure. I turned, looking behind me to where I could see Haven exiting the house.
“That’d be your cue,” Burt said, smiling and bumping his shoulder to mine.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, it is.” The dock swayed slightly as I pulled myself to my feet and tapped his shoulder so he knew I was offering a hand.
But he shook his head. “I’m going to sit out here awhile longer. I promise not to fall in.”
I hesitated. “You sure?”
“Very much so.” He nodded in Haven’s direction. “Go on now and enjoy this beautiful day with that lovely girl.”
***
We drove to the antique fair with the windows down and the radio on, talking about the area and laughing and fighting over which songs should be turned off immediately and which ones were classics.
She had terrible taste in music.
But I was willing to look past that, considering she had the smile of an angel and the hair of a goddess. And other things I didn’t want to think too intently about at that moment and make it tempting to pull my truck over and do lewd things to her on the side of the road.
“I can’t believe you talked me into going to an antique fair,” I muttered.
She laughed. “Me? You forced me to go! You said we might as well make our lie the truth. That someone who knows Gage might be there and mention it to him. What in the world am I going to do with an antique anything?”
Hearing Gage’s name caused my mood to sour momentarily, but she was right. I’d used that lame argument, half-jokingly, to convince her to spend the day with me.
She’d seemed to need a justification, even after we’d spent the night together. Naked. Very, very naked. And entwined. I’d never had to convince a woman to spend time with me after sex before. If anything, I’d had to devise ways to shake them loose.
I probably deserved this. To know what it felt like to beg.
It sucked. And now I understood just how much.
The antique fair was already packed with cars, and after finding a spot, we made our way to the gate, entering with the others filing into the large, open area packed with side-by-side booths and hundreds of rows to wander down.
“Wow,” Haven said, her head swiveling. “This place is huge. Have you been here before?”
“A few times when I was younger, with my mom.” Whatever she’d heard in my voice made her eyes linger on me for a moment before she looked away, back to the miles of vendors, people chatting and laughing as they moved from booth to booth.
We began strolling, stopping here and there, Haven leaning closely toward this or that, moving past one thing and lingering at another. I stood back, fascinated as I watched her, realizing that it was possible to get to know someone better just by watching the things they were drawn to at an antique fair.
My mother had always headed straight for the Tiffany lamp or the Chippendale desk. Phoebe had never expressed any interest in antique fairs at all, preferring more modern decor over anything used. Preferring to spend money rather than save it.
Haven, apparently, liked old photos.
I trailed behind her, observing her move from one table of photos to another, bypassing the knickknacks, the furniture, and even the jewelry.