“I felt him go too,” Heather confirmed.
“Yeah, me too,” Lorna agreed.
Vivien dropped to her knees and felt around the sand where Sam had pointed. She laid her hand on the surface, remembering the grainy texture against her naked body as they’d made love.
“What was he trying to tell you?” Heather asked.
“I think he wanted me to remember when he proposed to me.” Vivien smiled, taking a deep breath. “I can still feel him here.”
Heather and Lorna joined her on the ground.
Heather scooped up a handful of sand and let it fall from between her fingers. “I don’t know. There was something about the way he pointed.”
“Hey, Lorna, do you feel anything here?” Heather patted the ground close to Vivien’s hand. “Can you use your finding power to pick up any vibes about what Sam wanted Vivien to find?”
“I can try.” Lorna leaned forward, lifting her hands toward the metal structure. To herself, she whispered, “What did Sam want Vivien to find?”
Vivien sat back to watch as Lorna lowered her palms and placed them on the ground.
Lorna swished her hands over the ground like a human metal detector before finally stopping. She swept some of the sand aside to mark a spot. “Here. Something is buried in the ground. We need to dig it out.”
Vivien’s breath caught in excitement. “He buried something for me?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Heather said. She dug her hands into the ground and tossed the looser surface aside.
Vivien and Lorna joined her. They shoveled the sand out of the hole with their hands. The ground became firmer and wetter the deeper they dug.
Vivien scooped her hands to lift as much as she could with one pass. Dirt packed under her fingernails, chipping them, but she kept going. Suddenly, a sharp pain sliced her finger as her skin slid over something buried about a foot into the ground.
“Ow!” She jerked her hand back. Blood dripped down her finger. “Oh, shit, that hurt.”
“Let me see.” Lorna tried to reach for her.
Vivien jerked her hand back, automatically knowing that Lorna was going to try to heal her and take the injury for herself. “No, you’re not taking my pain. It’s my cut. I’ll deal with it.”
“There’s something buried.” Heather reached into the hole and began digging around and object. “Once second. I think I can get it.”
Heather leaned back on her knees, using her weight for leverage as she rocked back and forth to wiggle it loose. The ground released its hold, and Heather fell to the side. She caught herself with one hand and held a green glass bottle in another. Lifting the bottle toward Vivien, she said, “I think this is for you.”
Vivien held the bottle to the sunlight. A piece of paper had been rolled within.
“A message in a bottle,” Lorna stated.
“I used to look for them when we walked the shorelines. I told Sam that I would never be completely happy until I found one,” Vivien said. “I was joking, of course, but…”
“He always wanted to make you happy,” Heather said.
Vivien’s hand shook. Some twisted metal wire held an old cork in place. It’s what she’d cut herself on.
“Viv, you need to hold your finger up over your heart to slow the blood flow,” Lorna said. “You’re dripping.”
Vivien obeyed, lifting her hand next to her shoulder as she made a fist to put pressure on the cut. She sat on the ground and put the bottle between her thighs as she untwisted the metal tie. The cork fell apart as she tried to pull it out.
Vivien handed the bottle to Heather. “Would you?”
Heather tried to dig the cork out before finally poking it down with her finger. It dropped into the bottle. She turned it upside-down and shook until the rolled paper bound with twine fell onto the ground. Heather pulled the string off before handing the message to Vivien.
“What does it say?” Lorna asked breathlessly.
Vivien unrolled two pieces of paper. On the top of the page in Sam’s handwriting read, “For Vivien.”
“They’re song lyrics,” Vivien said. He used to jot things down all the time in his notebook. She recalled some of them being quite terrible, but occasionally something beautiful came out of his rambling thoughts. Music notes were notated next to each line in Sam’s shorthand to go with the words.
There is only us.
Only our hearts.
Or so it’s been said.
Vivien’s breath caught and she had to look away as she composed herself. She pressed the paper to her chest. She turned her attention back to the page.
But we did not plan on this.
How could we know?
The last moment would come.
I’ll be watching you.
“Oh, Sam,” Vivien whispered. She couldn’t believe this bottle had been here waiting for her all this time. He’d loved the beach and must have hidden the bottle months before he died. The end had come so fast, and he’d never told her to look for it. If not for their new magical powers, she never would have found what Sam had left for her.
Save a piece of your heart for me.
It’s mine for always.
But don’t give up on love.
You have so much of it to give.
I want you to give it.
I want you to feel.
Think of me, and there will be only us.
But you cannot come.
Not yet.
You must live.
“All this time,” Vivien whispered. “I’d misunderstood his last words. He had so much morphine in his system, and he wasn’t making a lot of sense at the end. He must have been trying to tell me to look for this, but he only managed to mumble a few broken lyrics.”
“May we see?” Heather asked.
Vivien handed her the first page. On the second was a short note.
She read aloud, “Dear Vivien, Far be it from me to argue with the women in your family, but now that I’m gone I guess I can have the last word. Our love is great and transcends time. I want nothing more than to stay with you forever, but how can I say I love you if I don’t also wish for you to find what we have again should I not survive? The thought of you with another man is not one I will dwell on. Rather, I think of your smiling face and hope that he will treat you as you deserve. Find someone who can give you everything I no longer can. Settle for no less than everything. I love you, Viv. Forever, Sam.”
Vivien rubbed her eyes with her sleeve to soak up the tears.
“I can’t believe this was here all this time,” Heather said, giving the lyrics back to Vivien.
“He probably thought he had more time to tell me where to look.” Vivien gazed at the water. The sky had darkened, but late afternoon was just now turning to evening.
“I’ll be watching you. Save your heart for me. It’s mine.”
In those last moments, his meaning had been lost. The memory she clung to had been unfinished. He wasn’t telling her to wait for him. He was trying to give her his blessing to move on.
“I’ll order a cab,” Lorna said, nodding at Vivien’s bloody finger. She pulled out her phone and began pushing buttons to bring up the app. “We need to get that wound cleaned.”