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“I can’t do it,” I whisper, though my feet don’t listen, wading further into the water until I’m in it to my waist.
“Relax. You’re safe with me,”Ben replies on the breeze, every lash of the stormy wind a phantom kiss on my skin.
“But you’re not here,” I tell him, a sob bubbling up my throat, getting stuck halfway to my mouth. I choke, trying to dislodge it. “You’re not here. You left me behind, and… I don’t feel safe anymore.”
“Come here,”he tells me, though I know it’s only an old memory of his voice, playing out like a broken record in my mind.
Still, I go to where he once was, pushing through the current as my feet slip and slide, struggling for purchase. When I’m up to my chest, I stop, the tears trickling down my cheeks as if the summer rain has already begun to fall.
“See, it’s not so bad, is it?”Ben asks, as the board he carved floats on the water in front of me, still gripped in my hands.
“I can’t do it. I can’t let go,” I gasp, feeling as if I’m submerged and I’m drowning. On the shore, Ms. T is watching, likely preparing herself to run in and rescue me if I flounder.
“You have to, Summer,”Ben says, but it’s not from a memory: it’s my subconscious, piecing together his voice to give me permission he can’t give himself.“Let me go, Summer. Don’t make me watch you suffer, love. Let me go so you can be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you—to be happy.”
I don’t know if I mean to do it, or if it’s the tug of the current, but the carving slips from my grasp, floating away from me. Terror snatches at my heart, pounding a message down into my legs, urging them forward so I can try to capture the carving again.
I trip on a stone, and suddenly, there’s no solid ground under my feet anymore. The current snares me, pulling me under. The dark quiet of the water envelopes me, coaxing me along like a stick tossed from the shore, and I drift there, lost in the silence, feeling like the carving for a moment. Then, all at once, survival kicks in, and I’m clawing my way to the surface, breaking through with a wheeze of air that’s half-oxygen, half-water.
Spluttering, I whirl around and around in circles, searching for the carving. It floats back to me, as if to say,“It’s your choice, Summer. I won’t go unless you push me away.”
Ben and Rowan collide in my mind, as I hold onto the board for a few moments, using it to steady myself. I don’t know which voice is speaking to me—the old or the new? Who am I pushing away? If I do this, will Rowan come back to me? Do I want him to, or should I set him adrift as well, letting him go before he gets trapped in my current?
“See, it’s not so bad, is it?”Ben’s voice repeats.
I glance at the shore of my private inlet and see Ms. T standing calf-deep in the water. I can see she’s panting hard, her face a picture of worry. But she isn’t coming in just yet. She’s giving me the chance to do this my own way, and she must have known it wasn’t going to be as simple as throwing the carving away.
Taking a breath, I push the plank of cypress forward and swim with it, kicking my feet until, when I try to stand on the bed beneath, I can’t.
I’m far out, now, with just enough energy left to swim back to shore or keep holding onto this piece of wood. If I do one, I start a new life—in theory, at least. If I do the other, I’m going to get pulled under again, and I might not be able to claw my way back to the surface. Then again, I’ve been drowning for two years. Perhaps, thisisme kicking my way back to the surface.
Hot tears spill from my eyes, mingling with the water on my face. “I love you,” I gasp, my chest clenching. “I love you, Ben. I love you and I… will miss you, always.”
Thunder grumbles in the distance, and time is ticking. I don’t want to be caught in the water when the lightning comes. Maybe, Ben’s voice is somewhere in that growling thunder: a last roar of grief and anger at the unfairness of it all, pouring it all out until there’s nothing but an empty vessel left. A blank-ish slate, to begin again.
“Goodbye, Ben,” I murmur, pushing the plank of cypress, carved with our names and no beginning or end date, out into the wavelets that are gathering in height, turning into true waves. I make sure to shove it hard, forcing it from me.
A foamy crest catches the carving, surfing it away from my outstretched hands, carrying it with care along the quickening current, until I’d have to swim a fair way to snatch it back. I tread water, watching the Gulf take it, sobbing as it goes, crying out in a primordial language of pain that only the thunder can answer to. It bellyaches, mourning my loss with me, and though I stood by his casket, in the same spot where we were married, and I scattered his ashes with Cybil long ago, it’s like losing him all over again.
But as I continue to tread water, and the carving vanishes from sight, my legs get more and more tired with every kick and I turn and swim for shore. As my arms cut through the water, and I draw in breath after measured breath, the tightness in my chest eases, and the sobs and tears are swept away by the tide, so that when I rise from the Gulf and walk up onto the shore, I don’t feel so lost anymore. I ache, but I’m not in pain I can’t manage. A choice has been made, and now that I’m back on dry land, I have to honor it.
“I thought you were gonna die out there!” Ms. T grabs me, folding me into a bear hug. “You almost had me runnin’ in after you, and I ain’t no natural born swimmer. There’d be folks thinkin’ a whale had beached itself!”
I hug her back, and though my eyes prick with tears, I smile into her shoulder. “I’m okay,” I tell her, squeezing her hard. “I’m going to be okay.”
And though I don’t know that for certain, I suppose the first step is believing it might be possible.
22
ROWAN
“Sure, call me a coward. I don’t mind. Maybe, I am one, or maybe I’m just trying to be a knight in rusty armor, giving the woman some goddamned space,” I rant from the driver’s seat, recording every moment. “Did I think about going to her cottage last night? Didn’t think about much else. Did I go? Hell no. Look, Ms. T probably knows what she’s talking about with this ‘always go after the woman’ stuff, but… it didn’t sit right with me, you know? The last thing Summer needed was one more guy nosing into her business. She left for a reason, right. When someone makes a sneaky escape, my guess is, they don’t want to be followed.”
It's the nerves talking, and they’re trying to talk me out of the route I’m taking, straight to the cottage I’ve been convincing myself to stay away from since the party. Even the ranting isn’t putting on the brakes, and every passing minute is taking me closer to Summer.
“I mean, what if she’s not there? I’m just showing up on her doorstep unannounced.” I chew on my lower lip. “Maybe, that’s my sign—if she’s there, then I’m doing the right thing. If she’s not, I get back in the car, keep on driving ‘til New Orleans, and when we see each other again at family get-togethers, we’ll have ourselves a clean, platonic slate. No harm, no foul. Nothing I can’t take back and pretend never happened. Lynds doesn’t have to know, and everyone can just move on with their lives.”
I puff out the stale, stressed air in my lungs, practicing the breathing techniques that my therapist suggested. “Let me scroll back for you—I’m jumping ahead here, and you’re not going to know where the heck you are if I just start yakking away at the midpoint.
