A Life Without Regrets Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Marci Bolden

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Okay Creations

  ebook layout by Lori Colbeck

  eISBN-13: 978-1-950348-50-3

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Marci Bolden

  About the Author

  For Jacob.

  Now you can see the world from above.

  One

  Sweat beaded on Carol Denman’s brow. The second week of October in Arizona was unbearably hot, but the dry heat wasn’t the reason for her discomfort. After signing a waiver, she sat motionless, unable to walk the form to the cheerful brunette who had greeted her for this so-called adventure. Carol’s hands had started to shake the moment she’d accepted the clipboard. Ignoring the telltale sign of anxiety, she filled out the blanks and signed away any liability to the company, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to hand the paper back to the woman.

  Laughter drew Carol’s attention to a small group of people she didn’t know. Strangers. She was putting her life and safety into the hands of strangers. Everyone except Harold Chu, but she didn’t exactly know him. She’d met the elderly man the previous afternoon. He was occupying the RV spot next hers at the campground offering the white-water rafting trip she now dreaded. She’d barely parked in her spot before he’d shuffled over and hooked up her RV. Had he been twenty years younger, she would have told him to back off. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. However, the kindhearted aura emanating from the man as he chatted like they were old friends soothed her when she may have otherwise been insulted.

  They’d made small talk as he connected hoses and plugs, taking much longer than it would have taken Carol to do the job herself. When he was done, he’d smiled and assured her she was all set and then invited her to join him for burgers on his grill. They’d sat at a weatherworn picnic table, sharing stories well after they’d finished eating.

  Even so, there were some topics they hadn’t discussed. Like how much she was regretting her decision to go on this rafting trip. Regret wasn’t a strong enough word. The fact was, Carol was terrified. Petrified. Trembling down to her bones. Every shallow, panting inhale she took was a reminder that she was about to climb into an inflatable raft filled with this group of potentially reckless strangers and paddle down the Colorado River. She’d chosen an “adventure” that avoided any of the rougher rapids, but she couldn’t avoid getting into a raft. She couldn’t avoid the water.

  Oh, how she hated the water.

  “Howdy, neighbor,” Harold said as he eased down next to her on the bench where she sat, clinging to the clipboard like it could save her life. He tipped the bright orange bill of his Orioles baseball cap back on his head and looked her over as if trying to read her thoughts. His silver hair had flecks of black, and wrinkles seamed his face, especially around his eyes and mouth. The lines were evidence of all the warm smiles he’d shared over his lifetime. However, he wasn’t smiling as he met her eyes. He appeared concerned. “You feeling okay, Carol?”

  She attempted to smile at him, but her lips trembled, so she turned away to focus on a video playing on a large screen. A recording from one of those little cameras that adventurers wore on their helmets showed wild water crashing against a yellow raft, soaking its occupants. “Do you remember I told you I was taking this trip to honor my husband who’d passed away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” She tried to swallow, but her throat didn’t cooperate. Her mouth was too dry. “Tobias told me so many times that he was going to go white-water rafting someday. He never did, and I recently realized I was the reason. I…” She frowned and gave her head a hard shake as memories from the past sneaked up on her. “I don’t like the water. He respected that, but his respect for me deprived him of something he’d wanted to do. So…” Hugging the clipboard to her chest, Carol tore her attention from the screen and back to Harold. “So, I’m going to face my fears and do this for him.” Though she tried to sound confident in her decision, her voice trembled.

  “You don’t seem too excited about that.”

  Carol had spent years keeping her past in a box on the shelf, doing her best to not let others see how deeply her pain ran. Over the last few months, she’d determined that she had no choice but to acknowledge a lifetime of hurt in order to heal. Even so, the words to explain her fears wouldn’t form. “It’s more than that… I have some post-traumatic issues that are triggered by water.”

  Harold stared at her as if he wasn’t sure he should share what he was thinking. After a long stretch of silence, he said, “So, you’re going to climb into a raft and surround yourself with something you know triggers you? Once you’re out on the river, you can’t change your mind. They can’t turn around and take you back to shore.”

  Carol bit her lip hard to ward off the lump of emotion mounting in her chest. “I have to face my fears and let them go. I’m tired of holding myself back because I’m scared.” The last part came out strained. Admitting that truth hurt. Her fear had stopped her from doing what she knew she should so many times over her lifetime, and she usually thought back with a sense of disappointment in herself. She didn’t want to do that anymore. She was trying to heal, and she understood that to do that, she had to learn to overcome her anxieties rather than avoid them.

  Harold scanned the group. Eight other people excitedly waited for their adventure to begin. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you this is a terrible idea?”

  Carol smiled somewhat but suspected her effort didn’t look sincere. “I have to do this. Not only for Tobias but for myself too.”

  And for Katie, Carol added silently. Her daughter had been gone for twenty-four years, but Carol never failed to consider how Katie would react to things. In this moment, right now, she’d be bouncing up and down, begging Carol to go rafting.

  Please, Mama, Katie would plead with her tiny hands clasped beneath her chin as she stared up with wide blue eyes. Pretty please.

  Carol blinked the image of her little girl from her mind before the vision could take hold and bring tears to her eyes.

  Harold sat quietly for another long stretch. Though Carol had known him for less than twenty hours, she’d already realized he took time to think before speaking. She liked that about him.

  “When was the last time you were in water like this?” he asked.

  “I was in the Pacific Ocean over the summer.”

  “On a boat?”

  “No,” she answered quietly, her eyes downcast. “I waded out. Only to my knees.”

  Harold nodded. “How’d that go?”

  Carol recalled how she’d panicked. She’d been with Katie’s father, John, as they spread their daughter’s ashes in the ocean. John had calmed Carol enough to get into the water, but within minutes, her a
nxiety won out and she’d rushed back to shore. “Not great.”

  “Do you really think this will be any different?” Harold asked.

  “Well, I won’t be in the water.”

  Harold gestured lamely toward the video that was still playing. “You’re going to get wet, and there’s a risk that, even on the milder trips like this one, something could go wrong. You could end up in the water. That’s why you have to sign a waiver. Are you okay with that?”

  Her heart dropped like a bowling ball carelessly tossed aside. She suspected any remaining color in her cheeks drained as she pictured herself flailing around while the raging river carried her away. Oh, hell. She’d managed to pretend that wasn’t a possibility because she’d chosen the trip for beginners. However, falling into the water was a possibility. The raft could flip over. She could tumble over the edge. The water could swallow her up. Take her away. Forever.

  The young woman with the brilliant smile held out her hand as she stopped in front of Carol. “All done?”

  Carol furrowed her brow, confused. Her mind was trapped in a loop, imagining the horror-filled screams that would leave her if she found herself drifting away.

  Harold pried the clipboard from her fingers and gently squeezed her hand. “Maybe we should do this tomorrow.”

  An argument formed on Carol’s tongue, but she couldn’t push the words beyond her lips. She was determined to face her fear. Head-on. Get this over with. Mark white-water rafting off her list of things she wanted to do for Tobias and move forward. All the reasons she wanted to give stuck in her mouth, and she sat there, dumbfounded.

  He handed the board to the young lady. “I don’t think we’re ready yet. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” she said hesitantly before walking away.

  Carol let her shoulders sag as a surge of remorse weighed down on her. “You don’t have to stay with me, Harold. You should go with the group.”

  “We’ll come back tomorrow.” He stood slowly. Clearly, his age was taking a toll on him, yet he kept going. Hell, he was here for the same reason Carol was. To go white-water rafting. He had to be in his seventies, close to her mother’s age, and he was living his life with far more gusto than Carol could, despite her determination to overcome everything holding her back.

  “Come on.” Harold gestured toward the exit. “There are lots of other things to do around here.”

  Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her waterproof shorts, Carol wandered out into the sun with her new friend. “I chose this campground because they offered rafting.”

  “Me too,” he said. “They take trips every day but Sunday. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Apparently, that was his mantra. The idea sounded nice, but life had proven to her too many times that tomorrow could be snatched away without warning. She was doing her best to get over the habit of putting things off until tomorrow. Tomorrow was not guaranteed.

  Katie had been ripped from this life without warning. Carol’s father had a heart attack and slipped away before the ambulance had arrived.

  And Tobias. He was gone in the blink of an eye.

  Carol couldn’t count on tomorrow. Tomorrow was not guaranteed.

  “My son gets that same look when he’s beating himself up,” Harold said. “It never helps him feel better. I bet doing so doesn’t help you either.”

  “No,” she said. “Not usually. I have this bad habit of hiding from things that scare me.” Carol stared at her feet as they started down the dusty path leading them back to the campground. The charcoal gray water shoes she’d bought had never been wet. This was supposed to be their inaugural run. She should have known they’d never make their way into the river when she’d spent almost an hour staring at them on the shelf at the shoe store until she’d convinced herself to buy them. “I’m trying to break that habit,” she continued. “I am aware of how much this fear holds me back. If I don’t push through this, I’m going to live my life in an endless loop of missing my husband and thinking about what could have been. I’ll stop living. Tobias wouldn’t want that. I know he wouldn’t.”

  “Mei—my wife,” Harold clarified. Carol knew exactly who he’d meant. He’d talked about Mei numerous times the previous evening. “She wanted to travel, but she always made excuses when the time came to actually plan a trip. Finally, one day, I sat her down and told her to close her eyes and point to a place on the map. Wherever her finger landed, we were going.”

  Carol laughed, picturing Harold and his beloved wife hovering over a map. “How’d that go?”

  He shook his head. “She got sick before we could leave. She never made it. We never took that trip.”

  Carol’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry, Harold.”

  “Cancer,” he said. “By the time the doctors caught it, it was too late.”

  “Tobias was hit by a truck while jogging. The morning was foggy, and the driver didn’t see him in time to stop.” The words tumbled robotically from her. She’d said them so many times over the last year, they no longer had the ability to steal her breath away. She explained his death as if she were talking about the weather.

  Harold let out an audible sigh. “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”

  She blinked several times, forcing away the image of her husband’s broken body lying in a hospital bed. “He loved to travel. That’s why I’m on the road right now. I’m trying to honor him. For some reason, I thought he’d want me to go rafting. Maybe I’m…” She let her words trail off as she turned her face up to the clear sky above them. “My mom thinks I’m having a breakdown. Maybe I am.”

  Once again, Harold was quiet for a stretch before speaking. “I bought that little camper and hit the road last year. My first trip was to the spot Mei had pointed to on the map, this little town in Kansas that we’d never heard of. I didn’t stay long. The people were friendly enough, but too many of them noticed me. Minorities find that kind of attention unsettling.”

  Though Carol was fair-skinned, she understood what he meant. “Tobias was Black. We came across plenty of people over the years who thought they had the right to tell us we didn’t belong together.”

  Harold shook his head. “When I was young, my father would tell me I’d see changes in my lifetime. I have,” he said, “but not as much as I’d hoped.”

  “The world will get there,” Carol said. “I believe that.”

  “I hope you’re right, but the point I was getting to was that I’m here too.” He gestured around them at the dusty earth and bright blue sky. “I’m moving on without my wife, like you’re moving on without your husband. I don’t think you’re having a breakdown, Carol. I think you’re trying to figure out how to fit into a new and unfamiliar life. That’s not an easy thing to do. You’re going to miscalculate from time to time.”

  She smiled weakly at his attempt to support her. Though she appreciated the pep talk, she was still disappointed she hadn’t been able to overcome her fears.

  When she didn’t answer, Harold pressed on. “I have a hard time believing Tobias would want you to put yourself through something that could traumatize you. Do you?”

  Carol took a moment to consider what her husband would say to her in this moment. He’d likely say he was proud of her attempt and, like Harold, suggest she try another time. Then, he would have done something goofy to distract her from the depression that crept up on her when she felt she’d failed at something. “Tobias had this way of pushing me just hard enough to get me through the tough times. When things get difficult, I retreat into myself and go through life on autopilot. He’s gone now. I have to learn how to push myself before I retreat again.”

  “Maybe this time, you shouldn’t push. Maybe this time, you should retreat. When I saw you there, I thought you might be sick. You looked like you were close to vomiting.”

  She chuckled. “I may have been a little anxious.”

  “A little?”

  A bird flew overhead, cawing loudly and drawing her attention. “Okay
. A lot.”

  “Maybe Tobias did miss out on something he wanted to do, but you can’t make that up to him. I doubt he’d want you to even try if facing this causes you so much stress.”

  Pressing her teeth into her bottom lip, she tried to use the pain to ward off tears. She’d used that trick a million times in her life, but this was one of the times the emotion overrode the self-inflicted discomfort. “We never had kids,” she told Harold. “We tried, but… It was the two of us for so long. He was the center of my world. He was my everything.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. “I wanted to do this for him. He would have loved this.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “Thirteen months.”

  Harold put his hand on her shoulder as they neared the lots where their RVs were parked side by side. “Give yourself more time, Carol. I’m sure there are other things you can do for him. If you want to go rafting, go another time. Not now. You aren’t ready.”

  “I thought we were going back tomorrow,” she said as lightly as she could.

  He took his hand away. “We can, if you want. I think you should sleep on it, though. We can talk about trying again in the morning. But we can also talk about things you could do for your husband that don’t involve water. I bet there were other things Tobias wanted to try that you could do for him.”

  There were. She’d made a long list, but for some reason, she felt rafting was the most important. Recently, her aunt had accused Carol of torturing herself with her grief. Maybe there was something to that. Carol couldn’t deny she tended to be harder on herself than necessary. She could find a thousand things to do for Tobias that didn’t cause her to have panic attacks in public. Why had she chosen the one thing that scared her the most?