26
Landon
I hadn’t been afraid of anything in a long time.
I was scared shitless, but I wasn’t about to show it. This was nothing. Nothing.
‘You ready, Landon?’ Heller asked, and I nodded.
Everything I owned was piled in the back of his SUV. I didn’t have any luggage beyond a duffle and a backpack, so most of my clothes had been crammed into large black plastic bags like the trash they were. I’d scrounged up a few empty boxes from the Bait & Tackle for my books and sketchpads. They stank like fish. Which meant the interior of Heller’s truck and everything I owned would smell like fish by the time we got five miles from the f*cking coast.
It was worth it. Good riddance. I never wanted to come back.
Holding his chipped Fishermen Do It Hook, Line and Sinker mug, Dad stood, feet braced apart, on the front porch – every piece of timber comprising the whole sagging and weather-beaten to all f*ck. It was a miracle that anything made of wood could survive here, and yet this place had endured, somehow, for decades – defying wind, rain, tropical storms and the relentless salt water that permeated the whole town with its brackish scent day in and day out.
As a kid, when this place was my grandfather’s house, I’d loved the annual summer visits that my dad had loathed, but Mom insisted on. ‘He’s your father,’ she’d tell him. ‘He’s Landon’s grandfather. Family is important, Ray.’
Now Dad was staying, and I was leaving.
Within the dilapidated house on the beach, waves from the gulf were audible at all times of the day and night. When I was little, spending time here was like living in a tree house or a backyard tent for a week – lacking most of the comforts of home, but so poles apart from my real life that it seemed incredible and otherworldly. Roughing it, desert-island style.
After a day of exploring the shoreline and baking in the sun, I’d spread one of the towels Mom always bought before our vacations and left at Grandpa’s place. The soft bath sheets were long enough to accommodate my entire childhood frame and wide enough to stockpile and sort the shells I collected during long, hot days on a beach that was anything but the white coast I let my friends back home in Alexandria imagine.
Staring at the huge expanse of dark sky and the thousands of stars winking in and out as though they were communicating with each other, I’d dream about who I’d be when I grew up. I liked to draw, but I was good at math – the kind of good that would have got me labelled a nerd if it wasn’t for my skill on the ice. I could be an artist, a scientist, a professional hockey player. Surrounded by that seeming infinity of sky and sand and ocean, I thought my choices were wide open.
What a na?ve f*ck I’d been.
Those bath sheets were like everything else here, now. Worn out. Used up. As close to worthless as something can be without being entirely worthless.
Dad looked older than his years. He was just under fifty – a bit younger than Heller – but he looked a good decade older.
Salt water and sun will do that.
Being a tightlipped, heartless a*shole will do that.
Too far, Landon. Too far.
Fine.
Grief will do that.
He watched me load my shit into his best friend’s vehicle, as though it was normal for a father to reassign his parental obligations – like the day his only kid left home for college – to someone else. But he’d been doing that for a while now. It had been up to me to fail, flail or claw my way out of wanting to end myself since I was thirteen. Five years of surviving from one day to the next. Of choosing to get up or not. Go to school or not. Give a flying f*ck about anything or anyone or not.
Heller had given me one shot at getting out, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to apologize for taking it.
‘Hug your father goodbye, Landon,’ Heller murmured as we shut the hatchback door.
‘But he won’t – we don’t –’
‘Try. Trust me.’
I huffed a sigh before turning and walking back up the front steps.
‘Bye, Dad.’ I delivered the words dutifully – something I did for Heller’s sake, nothing more. He’d set his cup on the railing. His hands were empty.
I was leaving him to his silence and his solitude, and suddenly I wondered how different this moment would have been if my mother was alive. She would have cried, arms looping round my neck as I bent to hug and kiss her goodbye, telling me she was proud of me, making me promise to call, to come home soon, to tell her everything. I would have cried, holding her.
For the sake of the only woman the two of us had ever loved, I reached my arms round my father, and he wordlessly put his arms round me.
I stared into the side mirror, watching the town grow smaller. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Despite an uneasy curiosity, I wouldn’t look back to see if this was true. That bullshit town and the years I lived there would be out of view in five minutes and erased from my conscious mind as soon as I could forget it.
‘Do what you want with the radio,’ Heller said, and I snapped my attention forward. ‘As long as it isn’t any of that screaming crap Cole abuses his ears with. Can’t stand that noise pollution he calls music.’
His oldest kid was fifteen now. Whenever we were together, he’d ape how I dressed and what type of music I was into, following me around and mimicking whatever I said or did – not always a great idea, I’ll admit. His attitude on life seemed to be: if something irritated his parents, he was for it.
I blinked like I was surprised. ‘What, no Bullet for My Valentine? No Slipknot?’
I laughed at Heller’s agitated scowl, sure he didn’t believe or care whether or not those were real band names. That was all the answer I got, besides his usual stoic sigh. I plugged my iPod into the stereo console and dialled it to a playlist I’d made last night titled f*ck you and goodbye. The tracks were a lot less violent than the title implied, in deference to my road-trip companion. I might share Cole’s attitude when it came to my own father, but not his.
I didn’t see the Heller kids often – though that was about to change, since I’d be living in their backyard. Literally. My new home would be the room over their garage that had been storage for boxes of books and holiday decorations, exercise equipment and old furniture. My memories of it were vague. When I’d visited the Hellers, I’d slept on an air mattress in Cole’s room. Backing out at the last minute every damned time, Dad would stick me on a bus with my duffle bag and strict instructions not to do anything stupid while I was there.
I wasn’t a kid any more, and this wasn’t a weeklong visit. I was a college student who needed a place to live for four years. A legal adult who couldn’t afford a dorm or an apartment along with tuition. Heller told me I’d be paying him rent, but it wasn’t much. I knew charity when I got it, but for once in my pathetic life, I was grabbing it with both hands, like the knotted end of a rescue rope.
LUCAS
‘I’ll take the first couple hours, and you can take the last two.’ Jacqueline slid her dark sunglasses over her eyes and grinned at me from the driver’s side of her truck. ‘But don’t nap, or we could end up halfway to El Paso. I need you to navigate.’
As she backed her truck down the driveway, I waved goodbye to Carlie and Charles, sliding my sunglasses into place. ‘That’s a completely different highway.’ I chuckled. ‘You aren’t that bad.’
She shook her head and sighed. ‘Seriously. Don’t tempt fate. You’ll be sorry. We could end up lost and driving aimlessly for our entire spring break.’
When I stopped to consider the fact that Jacqueline was coming home to the coast with me, driving aimlessly for a week instead didn’t sound so bad. I shook my head. ‘I guess I should have gotten you a new GPS for your birthday.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘That sounds like a sensible gift.’
‘Ah, right, I forgot – we don’t do sensible gifts.’
She’d told me that her parents had always bought each other (and her) sadly pragmatic gifts, but they’d hit a new low – buying their own gifts. ‘Mom got herself a new StairMaster and Dad got himself a grill,’ she told me when we’d talked Christmas night. ‘It’s a big grill, with side burners and warming drawers and, who cares, because holy cow – buying your own gift for Christmas?’
I didn’t tell her that seemed like a great idea to me. If she believed practical gifts were out, then I was destined for a lifetime of impracticality. Bring it.
We’d each had a birthday in the past two months. My gift from her: driving a Porsche 911 for a day. Massively impractical. Heller and Joseph were both massively jealous. I texted a pic to Boyce and he texted back: F*ck the bro code. I am stealing your woman. You have been warned.
For Jacqueline’s birthday, I’d chosen one of my mother’s watercolours – a rainy Paris skyline – from Dad’s attic stash when I was home over winter break. I had it mounted and framed for her. She went very quiet after she opened it, tears coursing down her face. I was sure my aptitude for gift-giving had just crashed and burned, and I should never be allowed to choose a gift again for anyone.
And then she threw herself into my arms, and an hour later, I shoved my fingers into her hair and kissed her. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘My next birthday is eleven months away. How did that just happen?’
Jacqueline was curled in the passenger seat, asleep, as I confronted the fact that we were fifteen minutes away from the coast. That I was taking my girlfriend home, where she would meet my uncommunicative father and my frequently inappropriate high-school best friend. And oh hell, were we sleeping in the pantry? Shit. I should have reserved a hotel room.
‘Mmm …’ She woke slowly at first, yawning, unfolding her legs, extending her arms, and then all at once she sat up, blinking. ‘Are we there?’
I nodded. ‘Almost.’
There was a line for the ferry. Welcome to spring break at a cheap coastal beach. Where I just brought my girlfriend of three months to visit. A heavy feeling lodged itself in the pit of my stomach, like I’d swallowed an iron bar. If she hadn’t woken up when she did, I might have made a U-turn before boarding. A guy in an orange vest pointed us to the leftmost ferry and we pulled over the ramp and on. Disembarking on the other side, we were five minutes from home, maybe ten because of the increased tourist traffic that infused money into this community after the slow winter months.
There was nothing unusual or extraordinary about this place to me, but Jacqueline sat up straight, eyes wide to absorb it all – the mural-coated buildings painted in sunny colours, the touristy shops and diners, the blacktopped streets that blended into yards with no kerbs, the water and boats almost always visible just beyond.
‘Palm trees!’ She grinned. ‘They’re so cute.’
I arched a brow at her.
‘I mean, compared to how they look in say, L. A. – they’re tall and thin there. These seem to know there aren’t many tall buildings or any hills to compete with here. They’re –’
‘Stunted?’
She laughed. ‘Cute.’
After a few reflexive turns, I parked on the gravel drive in front of Grandpa’s – now Dad’s – place. Swallowing, I turned to Jacqueline. ‘I don’t know how he’ll be to you – I mean, he won’t be rude or anything. He’s always been courteous with clients, and I’m sure that’ll be the worst –’
‘Lucas.’ She took my hand, squeezed it. ‘He’ll be fine. I’m not expecting hugs and a welcome party. He’s a quiet guy – like you. I get it.’
I scowled. Like me?
She turned my hand and kissed the back of it, chuckling like she could read my mind – and she probably could.
I reached my left hand to her nape, pulling her closer as we angled over the console. Threading my fingers through her hair, I kissed her, and the dread overrunning my mind calmed. She was here with me because she wanted to be. We’d talked about my dad; she was prepared. Thanks to my weekly therapy sessions, I was coming to terms with how he’d dealt with his grief, even if it had been far from ideal for either of us.
Dad might not roll out the red carpet, but he would be civil. Boyce could be a jackass, but she’d probably love him anyway. And the pantry bed was no smaller than her dorm bed – one of my favourite places in the world to be.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Our foreheads pressed together, I watched the fingers of her free hand trace over the inked patterns on my arm. She angled her head and kissed me again, her tongue teasing my ring. She loved to play with it when we kissed, and had pouted when I told her I’d have to remove it once I began interviewing for jobs.
‘You’re welcome,’ she breathed against my lips.
Our eyes connected and my hand came up to sweep her face. I love you, I told her silently. I was ready to tell her, but wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t something I’d ever said to a girl. Wasn’t something I’d ever felt – not really. Not like this. It seemed silly now that I’d ever thought I might love Melody Dover. What I’d felt for her had been real – but it had been like standing on the first rung of a ladder compared with standing halfway to the top.
When I knocked, Dad came to the screen door with the closest thing to a smile on his face I’d seen in years. ‘Son,’ he said, taking one of the bags from my hand. ‘Come in.’
The windows were all open, and the whole place was suffused with the briny scent of the gulf that lay across the sand, outside the back door. Dad had put a fresh coat of ivory paint on the walls and woodwork, and pulled up the old carpets to reveal battered wood floors that somehow looked a hundred times better. One of Mom’s paintings was hanging over the sofa. I stood staring at it as he said, ‘You must be Jacqueline.’ She still held my hand.
‘Yes. It’s nice to meet you, Mr Maxfield.’
With effort, I turned away from the painting and watched as my father shook my girlfriend’s hand and almost-smiled, again. ‘Please, call me Ray. I’m happy you’ve come with Landon, uh – Lucas.’
That was new.
He picked up both bags and walked … to his room? Jacqueline followed, glancing at the scant but clean furnishings the same way she’d examined the town as we drove through – logging details and missing nothing. I turned the corner into Dad’s room, but it wasn’t Dad’s room any more. Grandpa’s bed sat against the far wall, flanked by his night table and a new lamp. His dresser sat opposite. There was new bedding on the bed, and the walls were the barest hint of blue. Another of Mom’s paintings hung over the bed, and a mirror suspended by a threaded length of rope hung over the dresser.
Dad set both bags on the floor by the bed. ‘I thought you two would need your own space … when you visit. I moved back to your Grandpa’s room a few weeks ago. I can get a look at the gulf first thing in the morning now, figure out how the sailing will be for the day.’
‘What a beautiful room,’ Jacqueline said, looking out the window at the squatty palm tree cluster next to the house. The beach was visible in the distance. ‘I love it. This is one of your wife’s paintings, isn’t it?’ She walked closer to examine it, and I continued to stare at my father.
‘Yes, it is,’ he answered. Turning back to me, he said, ‘After you went through some of her things over Christmas, I decided that she’d have been sad to think that her paintings were wrapped up in an attic instead of out where they could be seen.’ Dad’s lips compressed. ‘Well. I’ll let you two rest up from your drive. Got plans tonight, I assume?’
I shook my head. ‘Not tonight. We’re meeting up with Boyce tomorrow.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll see what I’ve got for dinner, if you want to eat here. Several pounds of redfish, caught yesterday. We could do something with that.’
‘Yeah. Sure. Sounds good.’
He nodded again and pulled the door mostly shut behind him.
I sat on the bed heavily. ‘Holy shit.’
‘We never talked about Mom – sentences that began with she would have been.’
Jacqueline lay on her stomach and I lay facing her, my finger drawing invisible patterns on to her back.
At dinner, the three of us had talked about my impending graduation, and the research project with Dr Aziz that had altered my entire way of thinking about what I’d learned in the past four years, sending it spinning in an unexpected direction.
Your mother would have been proud, he’d said, and Jacqueline grabbed my hand under the recently varnished table, because she knew the weight of those words.
Now we lay in bed, in the room my parents had shared whenever we visited this place during my first thirteen years. Dad was back in Grandpa’s room, which he’d painted a seafoam green. Another set of Mom’s paintings hung there.
The pantry was back to holding food, along with neat stacks of storage boxes housing old files. The holes in the wall had been painted over. The three-pronged lamp had been replaced with a normal ceiling fixture. I’d chuckled, standing in that snug alcove when Dad sent me to fetch a clove of garlic. I felt safe, standing there, and was struck by the realization that I’d always felt safe there. Somehow, that had been managed while everything else went to hell.
‘Thank you for bringing me here.’ Jacqueline turned to face me in the dark, her eyes reflecting the subtle moonlight from the window. The sound of the waves pulsing across the sand drifted through the window like a slow, gentle heartbeat.
‘Thank you for coming with me.’
She scooted closer. ‘You aren’t going to tell me where you’re applying for jobs, are you?’
‘Nope. And you know why.’
‘You want me to transfer to the best music programme I can get into, without regard to where you’ll be,’ she recited, her tone an audible eye roll. ‘But … I can’t stand the thought that in six months – five months – we could be on opposite sides of the country from each other.’
I had no intention of putting distance between us for the next two years – but I wouldn’t tell her my plan until I’d pulled it off. There was too much luck involved, and I didn’t want her to be disappointed. I traced her hairline from her temple to the corner of her jaw and cupped her face in my hand. ‘You aren’t going to lose me. But I’m not doing to you what he did. You have dreams, and I want you to follow them. I need you to follow them. Because …’ I took a breath. ‘I love you, Jacqueline Wallace.’
She swallowed, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I love you, Landon Lucas Maxfield.’
My heart swelled and I leaned over her, kissing her, loving her, claiming her. In her formal words, I heard the echo of my future – a future I was so sure of that no distance would have daunted me: I take thee, Landon Lucas Maxfield …
Luck could be earned and created. It could be discovered. It could be regained. After all – I’d found this girl. I’d found my future. I’d found forgiveness. My mother would have been happy for me. For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t feel guilty about that.