TELL LAURA I LOVE HER

August 1959 – Westchester, New York

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The sound of a distant radio playing from the open window of the small Sinclair gas station just off Highway 22 filled the warm summer air. A rusted Coca-Cola sign clinked softly in the breeze as Tommy Kent, eighteen and full of heart, wiped the last smear of grease from his hands. His blue work shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, bore his name in red embroidery.

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Tommy wasn't born with much, but he had big dreams that stretched farther than the fading lines of the two-lane road out front. And most of those dreams had one name stitched into them: Laura Hayes.

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Laura had the kind of beauty that didn’t ask for attention—it just happened naturally. She was the minister’s daughter, the town sweetheart, and the girl with a lilting laugh that made everything feel better. They’d known each other since third grade and fell in love the summer before last when Tommy kissed her for the first time under the old elm tree behind the high school.

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Two summers earlier...

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It was their first date.

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Tommy had picked her up in his father’s old dented Ford, the passenger seat covered with a checkered blanket to hide a tear in the vinyl. He wore his only decent button-down shirt, and she wore a yellow sundress that made his heart race the moment he saw her step out onto the porch.

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They went to the county fair. It was nothing fancy—just a few rides, some games, and the smell of cotton candy drifting through the night air. But for Tommy, it might as well have been Disneyland.

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"I can't believe you won me that bear," Laura said, clutching the little stuffed toy to her chest as they walked toward the Ferris wheel.

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Tommy grinned. "Took me seven tries and three bucks. I thought my arm's gonna fall off from throwin' those baseballs."

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"It was worth it," she said, looking up at him with something new in her eyes.

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They rode to the top of the Ferris wheel just as the sun dipped below the horizon, washing the sky in hues of lavender and tangerine. Tommy looked over at her, unsure if he was allowed to take her hand.

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Laura saw it, and smiled. "You can hold my hand if you want, you know."

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He did.

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They were quiet for a while, the world gently spinning around them.

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"Tommy?"

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"Yeah?"

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"Do you think people can just... know? That something’s real?"

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He looked at her, his heart beating fast. "I do. I think I knew the moment you laughed at my stupid joke in class at school."

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She smiled. "I think I knew when you helped that poor old man fix his bike chain last spring. You didn't even notice I was watching."

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He leaned a little closer. "I guess we both just knew."

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As the Ferris wheel ride ended, Tommy helped her down and she still held the little bear tight.

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"He needs a name," he said, pulling a piece of lint from its ear.

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"I’ll call him Lucky," Laura smiled. "Because he reminds me of tonight."

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She kissed Tommy lightly on the cheek.

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Lucky lived on her nightstand after that. Even as the years passed and his fur matted and his ribbon faded, she never moved him far out of reach.

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Back to August 1959

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They sat on the hood of Tommy’s car that evening, they’d parked it by Echo Valley Lake. The water was still, reflecting the dusky sky above. The car radio crackled softly with The Platters’ “Only You,” setting the soundtrack for the life they imagined together.

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Tommy leaned back on his elbows, glancing sideways at her. “You remember our first real kiss?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

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Laura smiled, her eyes locked on the horizon. “Of course I do. I think about it often.”

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He grinned. “You know, I nearly chickened out. My hands were shaking like I’d touched a live wire.”

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She laughed softly. “You? The boy who talked back to Principal Dyer that one time and once outran a cop on a bicycle?”

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“Different kind of fear,” he said, more seriously. “I wasn’t scared of gettin’ in trouble. I was scared you’d pull away. Or worse—laugh.”

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“I could never laugh at you,” she said, turning toward him. “I was waiting for you to kiss me that whole summer.”

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Tommy sat up, facing her now. “Really? You were?”

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“Every single day,” she said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’d look at me with those soft brown eyes like you were about to do it, and then you’d look away and start talkin’ about baseball or hamburgers or something.”

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He chuckled, lowering his gaze. “I thought I had to be perfect about it, you know? Like the timing had to be exactly right. But that night... I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.”

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“You didn’t have to be perfect,” Laura whispered. “You just had to be you.”

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Tommy reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers. “When I kissed you—under that elm tree—I swear, Laura, it felt like the world stopped spinnin’ for a second. Like everything just got quiet. Did you feel something like that too?”

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She nodded, eyes beginning to glisten. “It was like... like I’d found my home in you.”

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They sat there in silence for a moment, just listening to the music and the crickets and the breeze that rustled the leaves.

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“I know it sounds crazy,” Tommy said, “but I think we were meant to find each other. Out of all the people in the world—you.”

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Laura leaned into his shoulder. “It doesn’t sound crazy. Not one bit. It sounds like the truth.”

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He kissed the top of her head. “I wanna build a life with you, Laura. One with grocery lists and Sunday pancakes and a small white house with a porch swing.”

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Her voice caught slightly. “I want that too, Tommy. All of it.”

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Tommy wanted to give Laura everything.

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Flowers when she wasn’t expecting them. Sunday afternoons in a Studebaker convertible. And a wedding ring—nothing too flashy, but with a diamond that caught the sun just right.

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Tommy knew he couldn’t ask her to wait forever while he worked long hours for little pay at the gas station. That’s why when he saw the sign—bright red letters slapped on a telephone pole outside the general store—his heart thudded like a piston in overdrive.

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"Stock Car Race – One Thousand Dollar Prize."

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That kind of money could buy a modest ring, maybe even put a down payment on their future. Tommy’s old Ford wasn’t much, but he’d been tuning it up in the garage behind his dad’s house for months. It wasn’t pretty, but under Tommy’s hands, it purred like a kitten.

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Excited and unable to reach Laura—her family’s rotary line had been busy for an hour—he jumped in the car and drove to her house. Her mother, always polite but guarded with him, opened the door with her hair in curlers and a cookbook in hand.

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“Mrs. Hayes,” Tommy said, breathless. “Could you… would you please tell Laura something for me?”

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She blinked, unsure.

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“Tell her I love her. Tell her I need her. Tell her I might be late, that there’s something I’ve just gotta do, and it can’t wait.”

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Mrs. Hayes nodded once, her eyes softening just a bit.

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Tommy smiled, tipped his cap, and left before she could ask anything else.

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The old fairgrounds were buzzing with people. The smell of kettle corn, oil, and dust hung in the air as the engines lined up at the start. Tommy was the youngest driver there, barely out of high school, but his heart thumped with a rhythm that said he belonged.

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Laura, meanwhile, had only just gotten the message. Her mother had been vague, but Laura knew Tommy well enough to sense something important was happening. She ran the five blocks from her house to the gas station, praying she hadn’t missed him. But when she arrived, the place was empty except for the fading echo of the radio and the smell of gasoline.

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She found the flier pinned behind the counter and she had a bad feeling.

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The race began under a sky of streaked pink and lavender. The bleachers thundered with cheers as the cars roared down the straightaway, their drivers hunched like warriors of steel and grit. Tommy took the curves with precision, that old Ford hugging each bend like it was made for it.

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Laura arrived just in time to see the cars disappear down the track. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for Tommy, but he was already on lap six.

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The pace of the race was very fast. Too fast.

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And in the roar of engines and the blur of asphalt, Tommy’s mind drifted a bit.

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Just for a second, he saw Laura at the top of the Ferris wheel again, her yellow dress catching the light, her laughter cutting through the summer night. He remembered the way her hand fit inside his, the way her lips had trembled just before he kissed her that first time.

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“Hold on to me,” she’d whispered once. And in his heart, he had.

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Then the curve came too fast.

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What happened next became the kind of story people whispered about for years after.

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No one saw exactly what happened—maybe a tire gave out, maybe he took the curve too sharp—but in an instant, Tommy’s car swerved, flipped, and erupted in flames. The crowd screamed. Laura’s knees gave out, everything blurred, as she watched smoke rise against the darkening sky.

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Men ran with fire extinguishers, others called for help. The announcer’s voice faltered over the loudspeaker.

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When they finally pulled him from the wreck, Tommy was barely conscious, his body broken, his clothes scorched.

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But he was alive—just long enough.

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He looked up at the man holding his hand, a paramedic with eyes full of sorrow, and whispered, “Tell Laura I love her, tell her not to cry, please."  

                     

   ________________________________________

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The funeral was held on a Wednesday. The town showed up in full, women dabbing tears behind black lace veils, men standing stiff in their Sunday suits. Laura didn’t speak. Her heart felt like it had been hollowed out and filled with silence.

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In the weeks that followed, she went every day to the chapel, the little white one with the gray shutters on the edge of town. She sat in the second pew, hands clasped, sometimes crying, sometimes staring into nothing.

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It was in that chapel she began to hear him. Not with her ears, but somewhere deep inside.

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"Tell Laura I love her… Tell her not to cry."

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She carried his words with her through the years. Through college. Through marriage to a man who treated her kindly, though he never touched her heart the same way Tommy did. And on a little shelf near her bed, still sitting upright with one eye slightly loose, was her small, worn teddy bear named Lucky.

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She’d sewn his ear back on once after college and patched a tear in his belly.

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But she never replaced him or put him away. He was the last thing Tommy ever gave her.

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Every summer, on the anniversary of the race, she would return to that little chapel she loved. She’d kneel in the same pew, light a small candle, and close her eyes.

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And even in her eighties, she would still visit and she could still hear his voice.

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"Tell Laura I love her... My love for you will never die."

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And in her heart, she always whispered back, “I know, Tommy. I love you too.”

 

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-Mark Gammill