One Last Summer
Page 14
Chapter 13
Jenna Brennan
Misty Harbor’s rocky beach, where Cole is sitting, is just feet from the water during high tide. It’s not quite sunrise, and the sky is striped with glowing orange clouds sandwiched between the horizon and black clouds above. The canal reflects the scene in a mirroring ribbon of gold as I walk to the boathouse. Cole turns his head just enough to hear my footfalls, but remains on the bench looking out over the water.
I sit down opposite him at the picnic table, but since he’s straddling his bench, gazing east, I only see his profile. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just watching for orcas.”
The year we were thirteen, a pod of killer whales stayed in Hood Canal for a while. I was surprised to see them so far from the ocean. Cole explained that the canal was really a fjord, so it was really deep. I guess the orcas come and go, according to Uncle Walter, but it was my first sighting, and Cole’s too. The whales feasted on the coastal seals that were plentiful. It was gruesome and fascinating to watch.
We saw at least three in the pod swimming above the water at the same time, their black fins bobbing like synchronized swimmers, then slicing under the surface. They swam back and forth, back and forth in a small area not far from shore with clouds of mist shooting above them when they rose. Occasionally, they jumped high enough for their tails to flip water into the air too. And once, a massive head seemed to levitate and turn only to fall with a crash of waves. We didn’t talk. We just watched.
“Watching for orcas” came to mean “sit beside me, but I have serious things to think about.” Since that summer, we’ve sat together on the beach, listening to the nuthatches chirping in the trees behind us and watching white caps on the water, saying we’re waiting for orcas.
Today, we sit silently for several minutes. Without looking at me, Cole says, “What if we hadn’t gone to the house when we did?” His voice is flat—not really a question. More silence follows. “Or what if we’d finished cleaning the boats and gone in sooner?” He turns his face toward me now, and I wonder which question he wants me to answer. Probably neither. He breaks eye contact and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his head dropping. In barely a whisper, Cole asks, “What if Walter had died?”
I close my eyes, my heart aching. Uncle Walter is important to me, but he’s everything to Cole, the only family he has. “You can’t do that. What ifs don’t help now.” I walk around the table and straddle the bench behind Cole to rest my cheek on his back and wrap my arms around his chest. “The doctor said he’s going to be fine.”
Cole’s chest expands with a deep breath that I hear him blow out slowly. “Do you know how many times I wished my mother would disappear, leaving me with Walter? And then she did. I felt some guilt, like maybe I’d made her do it, but mostly I was glad. Walter’s not really my dad, but he’s the one I’ve had.”
I sit silently, holding him long enough to watch as the sky turns yellow then blue, and the clouds turn gray.
Cole takes my hand, pulls me to a stand, and guides me to sit in front of him, both of my legs swinging over his left leg under the table. Then his arms wrap me. This feels safe and welcome. I want to be in his arms forever.
Life is so fragile. One day can be someone’s last. No warning. Just gone. I’m not going to waste time protecting myself from imaginary pain. I’m going to see what it’s like to love and be loved.
My brain is so practiced that it practically screams “I don’t need a man,” but I recognize now that it’s my mother’s voice. It’s okay for him to need me and for me to need him. In fact, I think that’s how it’s supposed to be, so we can be there for each other.
I imagine gathering my mother’s voice in a large net and drawing it to me. I have to twist the net to condense her words. Then I cinch my arms around it, squeezing and squishing. Finally, with my imaginary hands, I press that voice into a tiny ball. I mentally stand on the edge of this beach and throw it far from me into the canal. I’m still as I imagine that ball sinking to the bottom of the fjord, settling among the rocks, and getting covered over by debris. It’s gone.
The quiet that remains fills slowly, like a tide moving in, with memories of me and Cole together. Flashbacks of moments from every summer to the kiss yesterday are the happiest memories of my life. All of this with Walter makes me realize how short life is. When I really listen to myself, my heart whispers that I want Cole. I want to wake up each day in his arms. I want to work with him and see his future twisted with mine. I want to be family with him.
Cole’s lips against my cheek pull me from my thoughts. I turn and meet them with my own. We share one sweet, soft kiss before he leans back, and his hands fall from the tight hug to wrap loosely around my waist as we watch for orcas together.