PART 4 — Fair Winds Forever
Greg finally removed the watch, stared at it for several seconds, and handed it to Alan for return to the estate. When Alan placed it in my hands, I turned it over. Fair winds, Tom, from Sarah. The letters were slightly worn, but unmistakable.
Patricia asked Kelly to return the ring. Kelly reluctantly handed over the broken chain and ring, and I closed my fingers around both. I still couldn’t look at Brenda. “You knew all this,” I said quietly. “And you watched me sell his truck. His tools. Everything.” She lowered her head. “I know. And you deserve to be angry with me.”
We stepped onto a terrace overlooking the bay, where a freighter moved slowly through the channel. “Why did you let me live like that?” I asked. Brenda took a breath. “Thomas appointed me to help manage the transition after his death. He wanted the records secured before Greg could interfere, and Alan advised us to preserve everything while the estate was administered.” “That explains the paperwork. It doesn’t explain why you let me think I had nothing.”
“You’re right. I told myself I was following Thomas’s wishes. But I was also afraid. Greg had access to the accounts, and I thought I could fix it before you had to face another problem.” “You didn’t fix it before I suffered, Brenda. You watched me suffer.” Her face crumpled. “I did. And I’m sorry.”
She told me the groceries and utility payments had come from her personal money, some delivered discreetly through the church. She’d arranged for certain funds to be held pending the estate’s resolution but couldn’t hand me corporate money before ownership was sorted out. “You could have told me enough to give me hope,” I said. “I know that now. I was so focused on stopping Greg that I forgot you had the right to decide your own future.”
That admission mattered more than any excuse. Then she handed me a creased envelope with my name in Thomas’s handwriting. “He asked me to give it to you once the estate questions were resolved. I should have talked to you long before today.”
Thomas wrote that he’d hidden the size of the business to keep our home life ordinary, admitted he’d been wrong, and said Brenda had saved the company and would protect the records from Greg. He apologized for leaving me with questions and hoped I’d someday enjoy the water again in the sailboat we’d dreamed of. The final line read, Fair winds forever, my sweet Sarah. Love, Tom.
I pressed it to my chest. Thomas had loved me, but his choices had denied me the chance to protect myself, just as Brenda’s loyalty didn’t excuse every decision. “I wish he’d trusted me,” I said. “So do I.” Then I hugged her as she cried. “I’m not ready to pretend this was all right,” I told her. “But I don’t want thirty-seven years of friendship to end without us learning how to be honest.” “Neither do I,” she whispered.
Over the following months, Greg was removed from management and a repayment agreement addressed the unauthorized expenses. I kept my house. Martha never apologized, and I stopped expecting her approval. That winter the corrected plaque read The Thomas Adams Memorial Heart Wing — Donated by Adams Marine Survey. I wore his ring on my finger, his watch in my pocket, feeling sad, grateful, and more certain of myself than I had in years.
The next spring, boatbuilder Jim Baker showed us an unfinished cedar sailboat Thomas had commissioned as an anniversary surprise. Brenda smiled without sadness for the first time in weeks. “Well,” she said, “I guess we have a summer project.” We spent Thursday evenings sanding wood, with no secrets between us.
By September we’d painted her navy blue and named her Fair Winds. As we sailed past the harbor wall, Thomas’s watch on my wrist, Brenda pushed up her sunglasses. “Sarah, can I borrow your phone for a picture?” I laughed. “Only if you promise not to call it our last one.” “I promise.”
We leaned our shoulders together, and the camera clicked. “This one isn’t our last picture, Brenda,” I said, looking at the screen. “It’s the first one of our next chapter.”
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real-life themes. Names, characters, places and events are fictionalized, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Images are for illustration purposes only.
