At dinner, Ben finally shared the secret ingredient in his famous spareribs—grape jelly—after years of the Perrys guessing what made them so good. Goldie recited a Shel Silverstein poem the kids all loved from childhood, but which seemed to have a deeper meaning now that they were grown, and their father was dying. Sharon cried when she spilled her iced tea, something they all knew had nothing to do with staining the tablecloth. Lucinda led Tom, Goldie, Sharon, and Ben in a Silent Night sing-a-long when Tom said he wished he could have one more Christmas.
Upstairs in bed, Goldie gave Tom two more pain pills and kissed him goodnight. A few minutes later, he tapped her shoulder and when she turned to face him, he reminded her there was a part of their love story she left out. “I’ve thought and thought about it,” she said, sleepily. “I can’t think of anything I forgot.”
“You didn’t forget,” he whispered. “You didn’t know about it. It’s part of our story that only I knew all these years.”
Goldie sat up in bed and turned on the lamp on her nightstand. She said if Tom had cheated on her, this wasn’t the time to clear his conscience. She said he could take that secret with him to wherever he was going. He laughed, but his breath caught in his chest when the pain from earlier returned. He patted his shoulder—Goldie’s spot—and she lay back down beside him. “I didn’t cheat on you. You were the equivalent of ten wives, trust me. You were enough.” He cleared his throat and started telling Goldie about the final piece of the puzzle that was their life together. A piece she never knew he’d been keeping from her.
When Tom’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Marla, gave him an ultimatum—get married or break up—he kissed her on the cheek and wished her luck. He didn’t love Marla and couldn’t bear to marry someone he merely tolerated. She stormed off, which freed him up for the poker game his buddies invited him to, and he declined. Marla didn’t like him coming home smelling like cigars, so he’d often made one excuse or another to get out of the weekly game.
At the game, an old friend—Fred McLean—was there, shooting his mouth off like he always did in college. When Fred lost all his money during a hand, he offered an island resort as collateral. When he lost, Tom inherited the beachside bungalow business Fred promised was “a little slice of paradise.” That night when he went home to an empty apartment, he took a leap of faith, resolving to move to Turtle Island—a place he needed a map to locate. The next morning when he went to the diner for his morning coffee, his eye immediately caught a beautiful woman sitting in a booth, crying and telling her life story to Tom’s favorite server, Alvin.
Tom quietly took a seat nearby and listened as the woman talked about wanting adventure, needing to start her life afresh, and how she couldn’t bear to marry someone she didn’t love. “I want the love you see in the movies, Alvin,” she sobbed into a wad of napkins.
Tom decided in that moment that he was going to marry the woman, and give her the love story she dreamed of all her life. He didn’t know how—especially since he was leaving town soon to become a hotel magnate on an island named after a tortoise. If I can’t get her to go with me, he thought, I’ll stay here. Who wants to hole up alone on some remote island, anyway? He motioned for Alvin to meet him by the front door of the diner and told him to suggest to the girl to check the bulletin board before she left. “Do not let her leave without someone here finding out where she’s staying,” Tom told Alvin. “Promise me that either you or Ernie will find out where she’s headed when she walks out that door—just in case she doesn’t bite on the ad I pinned to the board.” Alvin nodded and clapped Tom on the back.
The next day—to Tom’s delight—the beautiful woman from the diner called and agreed to meet him about a job opportunity. Somehow—and he never could figure out how he’d been that clever—Tom tricked the heavenly creature into running away with him, and giving him the best thirty-five years of his life. No matter what crummy things life threw their way, Tom got to live out the rest of his days knowing that some things—like till death do you part—were sacred. Some things lasted forever, and that was good enough for Tom.
Goldie’s tears had soaked through the shoulder of Tom’s sleep shirt, which was the only way he knew she was crying since he’d lost his sight again. He didn’t tell her. He didn’t want to ruin the moment, or to alarm her. There was nothing she could do, nothing anyone could do. He’d reached the end. He’d had a wonderful life with a perfect woman. Raised three children who all turned out okay in his opinion. He even got to share one last dinner with his family—despite having to choke down every bite, fighting against the gnawing nausea that had become a part of his daily life for the past few months.
Goldie told Tom that what he’d confessed only made their story that much sweeter. She squeezed his arm, and whispered, “I have no idea how I’m going to breathe without you, Tom.” He held her tight with one arm and gripped the quilt with the other, bracing against the pains that were growing more intense. When he could finally speak, he said, “All I want is for you to be happy, baby. Just know you have my blessing to live your life any way you see fit. Never wonder if I would approve or be hurt because I’m telling you now: I give you my blessing.”
They fell asleep intertwined shortly after Tom said those words, and when Goldie got up to go to the bathroom at two o’clock in the morning, Tom was gone. She knew it was morbid, but she climbed back into her spot and slept until her daily alarm went off at five. She wanted one more full night in Tom’s arms. At five, she turned off the alarm, called Morty on the landline in the hall, and went downstairs to break the news to her children, who had camped out on the living room floor.
A few days later, Tom was cremated. There was a beautiful memorial on the beach with the family—including the grandchildren who all flew in for the occasion—and many of Tom and Goldie’s friends and acquaintances.
After the guests left, Goldie, Lucinda, Sharon, and Ben quietly took his ashes out on the boat, let down the anchor, and shared their fondest memories of him before scattering his ashes at sea. When a flock of seabirds flew overhead, Goldie said, “Tom used to say, ‘Someday when I die, I hope I come back a seabird. They seem to have all the answers—and whether they do or don’t, they certainly have the prettiest view of the island, don’t they?’”