Lilies on Main (The Granite Harbor Series Book 4)

by J. Lynn Bailey

  But Daniel doesn’t ask any questions. He lets me continue.

  Have you ever felt like you can’t catch your breath? Or hope the breath you breathe will be your last? I want to ask Daniel.

  I didn’t feel this way after my dad left.

  I didn’t feel this way after Poppy died.

  And I especially didn’t feel this way when I lost my virginity to Simon James.

  But I feel this way now. Like some massive feeling is blocking my airway, and I can’t breathe past it. I look at Daniel. He’s staring at his water glass, and his leg is pushed up against mine, urging me on, saying, Continue, without words.

  “We followed the sadness out the front doors of the hall where the bus was pulling up. It was a bright orange school bus. But, this time, it wasn’t full of kids after a long day of school; it was full of post-traumatic stress disorder, probably years of therapy, and awful sadness that only those who have survived know what it feels like. The doors opened like an accordion.” I laugh to myself. “My therapist has asked for this story over and over. I’m not sure why it’s so easy to talk to you, but I never told her or anyone anything.”

  Daniel still stares at his water glass. He’s biting his lower lip. He doesn’t look up, as if he’s afraid—not for himself, but for me. “Survivors began to pour out. Reunited with family. Lots of tears. Kissing. And hugging. I’ve never wished for something in my life so fucking much, Daniel. I’ve never prayed so hard in my life.” I shake my head, ashamed of what I say next. “Why couldn’t just one of those families have been us?”

  I take in a deep breath because I know the last part of this story is heartbreaking. “The sea of sadness gravitated back inside the hall—some with their loved ones, many without. Many, many without. And, in a weird way, I was grateful. I know that’s selfish to say, but I was grateful other families were hurting just as bad as we were.” I stop and push back the tears, only for a few seconds. “My mom, dad, and I sat on a cot, closest to the front door this time.” I pause. “In that moment, at the staging center, my mom should have been yelling at my dad. They couldn’t stand to be in the same room together. In that moment, I should have been worrying about my application to Harvey College. Jasper should have been sitting next to me. But he wasn’t. And the world keeps turning, and I can’t understand why.” My last words fall apart into a whisper.

  His knee moves even closer, as if there’s room to move, pushing into my leg with intensity.

  “We sat there in silence; the hall was eerily quiet. Families waited. Nerves high. The FBI agent called over the loud speaker that the next survivor bus would be coming in one minute. So, the wave of people moved outside again, just like cattle. And, just like the time before, as the bus pulled up, the accordion door opened again—this time, a different bus. And survivors poured out again. Some of the families we’d walked back into the hall with last time now had their loved ones—their brother, their sister, their cousin, father, or mother. They were a family again.”

  My chest begins to ache, and I feel short of breath. I need a pill right now.

  Daniel turns to me with purpose, and his eyes burrow deep inside mine. “You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to, Liv.” He takes a strand of my hair and pushes it behind my ear.

  “I don’t want to.” I pause. “I need to.” Now, my legs are between his, as if this was how it should have always been. “I felt like I was losing my mind. Like reality was slipping away, just out of my grasp, and I couldn’t stop it. And I couldn’t believe it either. Like my brain was making excuses for Jasper. Why he wasn’t on the last two buses.” I pause as I allow my fingers to fidget.

  “We went and sat back down, but not thirty seconds later, the agent came over the loud speaker for the last and final time. Uneasily, slowly, we went outside, terrified of who wasn’t on the bus. I counted the families as we huddled together in the suffocating night sky. About twenty families were left. The odds were good, right?” My voice quivers with hope and sadness. Like maybe, if I retell it, it will end differently. “Sometimes, I still think it’s all a bad dream and that Jasper will stagger out of his room before school, complain about the time, rub his right eye, and say, What are you staring at?”

  I cover my mouth because the heartbreak of truth is almost too much to bear; he’s not coming back.

  “The last bus pulled up.” I try to take a deep breath, but it gets caught somewhere in my chest, only allowing me to take a half- breath. But I take what I can get. “Three buses full of survivors. Three buses.”

  His thighs squeeze tighter around mine.

  “Six survivors. Only six survivors came off the last bus. And Jasper wasn’t one of them. You start to try to deny the fact, right? He’s at a hospital somewhere. They’ve overlooked him. He’s safe; we just need to find him.”

  I don’t tell Daniel this part because it makes me feel crazy. I begged the bus driver to give me my brother. And she cried as I begged. I screamed at her. Told her she didn’t bring my brother home like she was supposed to. I used words I’d never used with anyone. But she took it. She cried, and she took it. I told her to turn on the lights. I checked each individual seat, each seat, for my brother as Tracy collapsed outside on the ground, my dad by her side. I got to the last seat, and Jasper wasn’t there.

  I tell Daniel the ending I want him to hear, “I checked seat after seat, Daniel. Twice. He wasn’t there. I yelled from the back of the bus to the driver, ‘You forgot my brother. He’s at the college. Can you go get him, please?’”

  It’s the end of the chapter. I pause, listening to the ocean against the rocks. Thinking about Livia and what her family must have gone through.

  “Is this a true story?” Aaron asks.

  I set the book between us and turn on my side to stare at him. “Alex said it was based on true events, but I think the author disguised it as fiction.”

  “I can’t imagine what she went through. Shit. This book is sad.”

  Livia and Jasper were twins. I’m certain that Aaron will take away something different than I will. A different perspective. Being a twin is different than having a sister or a brother, in my opinion.

  “It’s eye-opening. What we do for love. What loves does for us. What grief does to us. And, think about it, there’re all different types of grief and loss. Maybe it’s the loss of a relationship.”

  It’s Aaron, I think. His brother went to war and came back different and the same. But still, there’s a loss to the relationship before the war. Life changes. Nothing seems to be consistent forever, right?

  Me, I think to myself, with the loss of Brett. Even though our relationship was toxic and twisted and full of hurt, it’s still a loss when the relationship dissolves to nothing.

  “What debts are we willing to pay for our losses?” I ask.

  But it’s not for him to answer. It’s more rhetorical. Put out into the universe in hopes that we’ll get our answers when the time is right.

  Aaron mulls this over in his head. He, too, turns on his side to look at me. Takes his thumb and gently glides it over my cheek. “I need to tell you about Sarah.”

  Twenty-Six

  Aaron

  We lie here, staring at each other. Our naked, tired bodies at rest. Relaxed.

  “Sarah?” Lydia asks, interested, attentive as if she knows how this will end. And she does.

  I reach out and run my fingertips along her arm, just because I need to. “She was the type of girl who didn’t take no for an answer. Stuck by her gun and you even if both were wrong. Loyal. Genuine. We were just kids when we met. Maybe twelve years old. Her parents ran the old mercantile store in Hope.”

  “We’d met while camping on Megunticook Lake with our families. She had seven siblings. And, the first day I met her, she packed a small child on her hip, and another one tagged along behind her. I’d been fishing with Ethan on the lake, and I was walking back because my line had broken. He’d stayed behind. I walked farther down.

  “‘You catc
h anything worth eatin’?’ she asked.

  “When I told her no and explained my line had broken, she set down the small child and asked to borrow my pole. She fixed the line and took it down by the water. Caught two largemouth bass in a matter of just twenty minutes while I watched.

  “‘The trick to good fishing,’ she explained, ‘is patience.’ She handed me the rod back. She took the fish, grabbed the two-year-old up on her hip, and told Charlotte—the one who toddled behind her—to come along. And they walked away.”

  I slide my thumb across Lydia’s wrist now. I know she’s wondering where I’m going with this story.

  “We met at Megunticook Lake every summer for the next six summers after that.” I pause. “We lost our virginity together on a summer night when the moon was extremely bright. And I decided that night that Sarah was the one. She was the one I was going to marry and be with for the rest of my life. Eli and I were headed to college while Ryan was off to the Warden Academy, and Ethan was off to the military. But the college was local enough that Sarah and I could find a place together where she wouldn’t have to leave her family. She, being the oldest …” I pause with my memories. “That night, as I fumbled through the darkness and through the awkward stages of first-time sex, I gave Sarah a gold band and asked her to wait for me. Since I hadn’t asked her father yet, I wanted to be sure the time was right.” I wait, not sure how to proceed with a story I’ve never told out loud. A story I’ve never told anyone.

  “But Sarah didn’t come back the next day or the next day or the next day. I assumed she’d gotten cold feet even though it wasn’t like her. Even though I knew she loved me. It’s funny what the mind and heart do to preserve themselves.”

  It’s quiet, except for the seagulls awaiting their turn to fish.

  “I didn’t search for her at the lake because I just assumed she wasn’t ready and couldn’t tell me. That maybe falling in love had scared her, so I gave her some space but vowed to myself to convince her that I was the one.

  “I went to Hope. To the mercantile after we got back to Granite Harbor that summer, but the mercantile was closed with a sign on the door that said, Death in the family. Will return in the fall.

  “Obviously, social media and smartphones didn’t exist at the time. And the only thing I clung to until fall was the address of her parents’ store in Hope.”

  This time, Lydia reaches for my arm.

  I continue, “When her parents came back to the store in the fall, I was waiting. I was ready to see Sarah. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. But grief can’t be disguised with a smile or more lipstick. A bigger sweater. As they approached the store, I went to them, knowing intuitively that something really bad had happened to Sarah.

  “The only thing I thought to say, was ‘Where’s Sarah?’

  “Her parents stopped. Her father grabbed his wife’s hand, and he asked who I was.

  “‘A friend,’ I said.

  “They looked at each other.

  “‘Not here,’ her mother whispered.

  “‘Where can I find her?’

  “‘Augusta,’ her father answered.

  “Relief washed over me.

  “After a few seconds, I asked, ‘Who died?’

  “‘Our Charlotte,’” Sarah’s father said.

  “Charlotte had been the four-year-old in tow. Always following behind Sarah but causing a lot of worry for Sarah with her vast ability to act on her curiosity.”

  Right then and there, I knew what had happened. Not because I knew Charlotte or her parents, but because I knew Sarah. Charlotte had always been the daring one. The one who pushed the limits with Sarah.

  She’d always say, ‘Charlotte will die of her own curiosity.’

  Another seagull flies by the open window and a long-drawn-out my-my-my.

  “It was a river that had taken Charlotte’s life. Sarah had tried to help, tried to save her sister’s life—or so I read in the newspaper. I didn’t ask Sarah’s parents or Sarah when I went to visit her every Sunday in Augusta. Sarah didn’t speak. Stopped talking altogether. It was as if the lights had gone out on the day her sister died. I know she felt responsible. But that’s who Sarah was—or is, I suppose, somewhere inside.”

  “Do you still go and visit her?”

  “Once a month. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her sooner.”

  “No, no.” Lydia shakes her head. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I loved her. I was in love with her. I felt like I was keeping something from you. Maybe I didn’t want to revisit the grief. I know I didn’t want to mess things up between us.” I reach up and put my thumb to her cheek again.

  “Don’t be sorry. Love isn’t a destination; it’s meant to be a shared experience. It’s one that changes, evolves, marches forward—or doesn’t. But don’t apologize for your heart.”

  Again, we lie here, lost in the silence that the moment provides, memories and feelings pouring into each passing second.

  “You never got married,” Lydia says.

  “No. I asked Sarah about it, told her I’d marry her in a heartbeat even though we were young. Even though she suffered greatly.” But my words fell among the silence that began to separate us.

  “But still, you go back.”

  “I do.”

  A smile creeps into the corners of her mouth. “Your ability to love—the capacity that you can love and care for others, their feelings—is like a bottomless tank.”

  I smile again. “What we do with tragedy, our response to it, is the miracle in itself, right? It proves our will to want to live. Whether we live in quiet suffering or not. I’ve thought over the years about how Sarah handled the situation with Charlotte. Her body’s response was to shut down to preserve itself. Protect itself from its own feelings. And then I think about you, how you lived in terror for years. What you did, the decision you had to make to protect your daughter. How people move forward.”

  “Do you think people make a conscious choice to do what Sarah did?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Maybe, I suppose. Or maybe it’s just an instant response to tragedy, and then, somehow, life becomes a little more bearable. I’m not sure.”

  “I bet she misses you. I bet she looks forward to your visits. I bet she wants to tell you how much she loves you and how much she wants you to be happy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you loved her.”

  How can a simple answer as honest as this one reach so far down into my heart and bring me to my knees.

  We’ve spent the day in our room, making love, making memories, reaching climaxes, touching each other, and sleeping.

  I’m lying on my stomach when I feel Lydia’s hand slide over my back.

  “Hey,” she says, and her soft whisper reaches below the belt.

  I look up, and my eyes meet hers. But it’s the tears in her eyes that catch me off guard.

  “Lyd?” I immediately sit up and want to pull her to me. The sheet rests just above my pelvis. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  She’s quiet for a moment, maybe trying to compose herself. “I … I need to tell you everything about Brett. I need you to know what he did to me so that you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  I pull her head to my chest. “Come here.”

  She rests her head there only momentarily before she pulls back. “I need to look you in the eyes when I tell you this.”

  With this look I give her, I wait to see if she’ll find the love I already have in my heart for her. That I’ll wait for her as long as it takes for her to be all right with herself. At peace.

  “There came a point when I thought he’d kill me, and yet I couldn’t run,” she whispers. “It wasn’t that I couldn’t physically run; it’s because my heart wouldn’t let me. It will be different next time, I would tell myself. He’d apologize over and over for what he did to me. And I’d stay every time, praying it would get better.

  “It’s a conundr
um—when our heads and our hearts are at war. My head knew it was an awful situation, but my heart kept chanting, One more chance.” She clears her throat. “I’d forget about the bruises or the pain that I felt in my heart and in my body when he landed another punch. I’d believe his words so deeply that I’d allow my heart to convince my head that one more chance meant he’d get it right the next time. But that never happened.” Lydia pauses. Touches her fingers to her mouth. Thinks. Looks down at her hands.

  “I’d pretend his anger meant less than his love. I’d pretend, on the nights that were the worst, that when he was in a blind rage, it was all just a dream, that my fear and terror didn’t matter, and that, really, I was the monster who made him do this.”

  Somewhere in me, I lose my breath, or it becomes hard to breathe—I’m not sure. But the air I reach out for is limited. I want to tell her that she wasn’t the monster. I want to say that he did this to her and that he manipulated her into believing who she thought he was. But I don’t. Instead, I wait for her to continue.

  I’ve spent a lot of time watching my brother. Watching others tell my brother who and what he was after he came home from war. Labels slapped on him like a blessing and a curse. Watched him grapple with these ideas, the psychological stigma that one doctor deemed appropriate.

  I, for one, am not going to tell Lydia what and who she is, but instead, I’ll watch this beautiful person before me collect herself in the dark abyss, find the pieces of who she is, nurture them, and slowly begin to put herself back together. I listen. Even when it’s hard.