Some of us wear our limps on the inside. Some on the out. No matter where, we’re all broken. All walk with a limp. I wish I had found you sooner. I’m sorry I did not. Although, I guess if you were standing here, you would tell me that I did. That every word I’d ever wished to tell you found you. And when I think about that, about how those words soothed your broken heart, that you slept with me tucked up against your chest and under your chin, I feel . . . better. I don’t know if I’m okay, but maybe better.
I know you’re wondering, so I’ll tell you—I’ve decided to keep writing. Why? Because I have more to tell you. The story’s not over. Least not yet. You are still loved. And nothing you have done or can do makes me love you any less. Our love will live on. All of us face the choice—how to get from slave to free. Run? Walk? Crawl? Is it worth it? Will it hurt? Will it kill me? Some take longer than others. Some never risk it. Some never make it. You did. And in the most beautiful gift you’ve ever given me, I got to walk you through the door.
In the years ahead, when I grow old and tired, and maybe when my well runs dry and the words fade and the scent of you grows faint, I’ll walk back out into these waters, dive beneath the surface, and let you fill me up. Red sky at night.
Love is like water. No matter how you cut it, slice it, beat it, or blow it into ten trillion droplets, give it a few minutes and it will all come back together again. Like nothing ever happened. No scar. No shrapnel. Just one giant body of water. Clear. Clean. Cool. Love fills the empty places and flows from what was once the epicenter of the wound. And it’s the flowing that washes out the residue of the pain and makes us whole again. That’s the crazy miracle that is love. The more you pour out, the more you have to pour. I don’t understand it, I just know it’s true.
I turned the jar, and Marie’s ashes scattered onto the water, spreading into a defined cloud around me. Clinging to my skin. Then I emptied the words I’d written. To keep her company. Keep her warm. Remind her when she forgot. If this water could talk, I wanted her to hear my voice. To hear me say with every ripple, current, and wave that there was not then and is not now anything she could do to lose my love. Nothing can separate us.
Love does that. It erases the pain. The darkness. The stuff that wants to hold our head under the water. Love reminds us who we are and who we were always meant to be. And there never has been nor ever will be anything that can kill it.
I shook the two urns and mixed the ashes until there was no distinction between them. We stood there, a slack tide. Marie, me, and the ink that etched the memories. Then the current swirled, tugged on my legs, its flow drawn by the moon, and carried her out to where the Atlantic kissed the sky.
In a few hours, she’d be swimming in the Gulf Stream. Free again.
Chapter 53
A few days later, I found myself sitting on the floor of the chapel. Angel’s lipstick inscription just above my head. Tools scattered around me. A Dremel in my hand. I’d just finished carving five names into the wall of the chapel.
Angel
Ellie
Marie
Summer
Clay
Then, for reasons I can’t quite understand, I stood and inscribed a phrase above all the names:
These have walked from broken to not.
From slave to free.
I sat back, leaning against the far wall. Staring at the names. The fresh cuts in the stones. I scratched my head. It was warm, so I’d stripped my shirt off and sat there sweating. Beads draining down. Cleansing me. As I stared at the wall, something bugged me. Gunner too. He lay on the cold stone floor, belly up, tail wagging, tongue dragging. He’d taken to island life just fine.
I circled the wall all afternoon, trying to place the missing piece. Wasn’t until midnight, standing knee-deep in the incoming tide, that it dawned on me. I climbed out of the water, headed back into the chapel, and picked up the Dremel. Only took me a few minutes. When finished, I blew out the dust, wiped it with a wet rag, and stood back. Reading the two names. Over and over.
David Bishop
Murphy Shepherd
Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around where my life has taken me. The depth and the breadth. I nodded at the two names. They, too, had been cut loose from their tethers. A salty breeze washed through the chapel.
I wasn’t quite sure who to be.
I packed a few things and closed up the island, and Gunner and I arrived at the tarmac midafternoon. The plane was waiting on us. We boarded, the G5 took off, and three hours later we touched down at a private airport ten minutes outside of Freetown. I unlocked my storage unit, backed out my Chevrolet diesel, locked it into four-wheel drive, watched the highway turn from asphalt to gravel, and began working my way to Freetown.
I never told them when I was coming. Not even Bones. Only the pilots knew and even that was just a few hours’ notice. I drove back roads and parked at a trail that wound its way up to one of the Collegiate fourteen-footers but also allowed me backdoor access to the Eagle’s Nest without being seen. I wanted some time to myself. In truth, I wanted to spy on Summer and Angel. Or rather, Summer.
I needed a few days to acclimate, so the climb was slow; I had yet to fully recover from my wounds. Actually, my climb was anemic. I had a ways to go yet. I made it to the Nest just before sundown. Although late summer, the temperature had dropped into the forties and the wind had picked up. Cold for a Florida boy. I built a fire, made coffee, and stared down from the porch at Freetown. I could recognize the body shapes and sizes. The cadence of each person’s gait. I knew most by sight. And each sighting made me smile.
I would make my way down tomorrow. Tonight, I only wanted to see one person. Having some time and distance behind us, I needed to know if the sight, the sound, and the smell of her tugged on me. Or was my emotional connection to her just a function of the trauma we both had suffered in our ordeal? I stood staring down on the town, needing to know if I could give my heart to another. Was it healthy enough, and did I have control over it such that I could give it away? Was it even givable? I didn’t know, which explained my staring through binoculars at the chateau where Summer, Angel, and Ellie had lived the last month or so.
Angel and Ellie were cooking dinner. Singing. Twirling over a pot of boiling water. Angel held pasta in her hand like a conductor’s wand while Ellie sang into a microphone that looked like a wooden spoon. Angel looked healthy and happy; she’d even put on a few pounds, which she needed. Her hair had returned to its normal color—an auburn brunette. Ellie looked lighter and carefree. As if her new life was agreeing with her.
The radio had been turned up loud, and the two of them were currently blaring the Supremes. “Stop in the Name of Love.” Every time Angel sang the chorus, she’d scream, “Stop!” at the top of her lungs and hold out a stop-sign hand, followed by more conducting with the pasta in the other. Quite comical. It also showed how far she’d come in her own healing and the loss of inhibitions. She had become comfortable in her own skin. Ellie continued singing into the spoon, her voice slightly louder than the projection from the speakers. I studied the house, the windows, and all the doors. The kitchen table had been set for four, but there was no sign of Summer.
The sun fell and the air grew cooler so I pulled on a Melanzana hoodie, stoked the fire, and wrapped my hands around a warm mug. I was about to retire to the couch when the sound of footsteps echoed from the shadows. They were light and quick.
Like a dancer.
Two hands wrapped around my waist, and I felt a woman’s warm bosom press against me. I didn’t need to turn.
She whispered, “Missed you.”
I was struck by how healthy she looked. I was also struck by how incredibly glad I was to see her. Something in me actually fluttered.
She smiled. “You owe me a dance.”
“I have a question for you.”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“Which thing is that?”
“The thing where you ignore the hard
question by saying something out of left field.”
I tilted my head. “Maybe.”
She smirked, hands extended. “I’m waiting.”
I struggled to find the words. I lifted her right hand off my neck and pressed it flat across my chest. “A long time ago, I gave my heart away. And I spent something like twenty years without one. I mean I had the organ, but part of it was missing. Then, here recently, it came back to me. And I have it again. The problem is that it doesn’t fit in me anymore. While it was gone, it grew. The place in me where it used to go is too small to hold it. So it needs a home. And I was wondering if . . . you’d hold on to it. Maybe take care of it. I’m wondering if you’d be the keeper of my heart.”
Summer leaned against me and pressed her face to my chest.
We stood swaying. I whispered, “For a long time, I felt my life was over. Measured in faces returned to those they love—most of whom never knew me. It can be an occupational hazard to get close to the girls and women I find. So I quit thinking about love a long time ago. Figured that was beyond me. Passed me by. Maybe I’d had my chance.
“Then I’m motoring south down the ditch, minding my own business, when I see you steal a boat and venture off into deep water when you couldn’t even swim. And I thought, What kind of woman does that? Then you told me about Angel and you were so honest and self-effacing and just spilled your heart across my eggs and coffee. And you have that little twirl thing you do unconsciously when you’re thinking or you’re hurting.
“By the time we returned to the boat, I was swimming in the thought and smell and presence of you. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, and something in the center of my chest started hurting. Some part of me that had been dead, or dormant, was waking up and coming back to life. And the pain I felt wasn’t something dying but a muscle being flexed. And I thought, Can’t be. I’ve forgotten how. It’s been too long. Who would think twice about me?
“Yet ever since I stood on the tarmac and watched you all disappear into the clouds, you’ve been on my mind. Often. Most days I can’t get you off my mind. I find myself rehearsing what I’d tell you if you were there, and then I say it out loud and it sounds stupid so I back up and say it again and sometimes again. ’Til I get it right. Then I’ll walk up from the water and catch myself in the mirror and I see all these scars and I think, There’s no way. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll walk away. Knowing that every time I answer this phone and run toward trouble, I might not walk back . . .
“I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I thought about hiring someone to teach me dance lessons so the next time I saw you and you asked me to dance, I wouldn’t stumble around like such an idiot. I just know that I’m really tired of walking alone, and I’d—”
She pressed her finger to my lips. “Shhh.”
“I’m trying to talk to you. I’ve been rehearsing this for—”
She dried her face and smiled. “I know. It’s cute.”
“But—”
She spun around me, tracing the lines of my shoulders with her finger. Never losing touch with her partner. Sizing me up. “If you want to do that thing you do where I ask a direct question and you change the subject, you can. Anytime is fine.”
I tried to recover. “I don’t know what life looks like from here, but I think it looks like . . .”
She raised her eyebrows and nodded knowingly. “Turn around.”
“What?”
She spoke slowly. “Turn . . . around.”
“But—”
“Turn.”
“Why?”
“You live your life bouncing between variables. Constantly prepared for the what-ifs. It’s one of the things I love about you. It’s why there’s a town in Colorado populated by girls and their mommas who dream and laugh and . . . these girls are safe. I know. I live among them. But not you. You choose to live alone in a slave chapel where you are reminded daily that evil is real. Not letting your guard down.”
She traced her finger again along the lines of my shoulders. Stopping at each scar. Her fingertips barely touching each. “I—” She paused. Stared at my back. Slowly traced the letters. Finally placing one palm flat across the back of my heart. The other around my waist. She pressed her cheek to my shoulder. We swayed. She whispered, “I want to read you.”
I turned. “I added four names.”
She lifted my hoodie and studied my back. “Where?”
“You can’t see them?”
“No.”
“It’s this new kind of tattoo. Permanent ink but tough to see with the naked eye.”
Her confusion changed to playfulness. “Oh yeah?”
I placed her hand flat across my heart, which was pounding like a drum. “I wrote them here.”
She pressed her face flat against my chest.
“Nothing can erase the ones written on the heart. Ever.”
We swayed, my first dance lesson. She listened to me breathe. I marveled at the scent of her. Her tenderness. How every movement was a shared interaction. She even let me lead. Not wanting me to be embarrassed, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “You have good structure.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that. “Is that a compliment?”
She laughed. Then with little notice, she pulled me to her and kissed me. A long kiss. One she’d been holding. When finished, she stood back, stared at me, and kissed me again—only this time she placed her hands inside my hoodie, flat against my skin. Her hands were warm, and her fingertips traced the lines of the scars on my back.
Laughing, she pushed away from me and tried to hide the fact that her face was flushed. She grinned. “Air sure is thin up here.”
“Yep.”
She let go of me, walked to the door, and said, “Dinner is served in fifteen. Angel’s cooking her favorite. Basil pesto pasta. Fried chicken. Sautéed spinach. You don’t want to let it get cold.”
It struck me again that the table had been set for four. “How’d you know?”
She smirked. “I’m a woman, not an idiot. I have my ways.”
“Evidently.”
Summer kissed me again and said, “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“That you’re glad to see me.”
“I’m glad to see you.”
“Not like that. Like you mean it.”
I held out my left hand, shoulder high, and she placed hers inside mine. I wrapped my right hand around her waist, and she followed my steps while I led her counterclockwise around the room. Dancing under a blanket of firelight. I raised my hand, and she twirled and came back to me. I raised it again, she twirled and twirled, and we ended up wrapped around each other. Intertwined.
She smiled, closed her eyes, and pressed her forehead to mine. “That works.”
She walked to the chairlift, saying, “Fifteen minutes,” then caught the first chair down. I walked back out on the porch and watched her ride solo down the mountain. If I had come here wondering what my feelings were for Summer, I had my answer. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.
Chapter 54
I had intended to shower and maybe even change my clothes, but when I turned and headed back into my small cabin, I found Bones. Standing in front of the fire. Warming himself.
In the month and a half since Marie’s death, we had not talked about what he knew, when he knew it, and why he’d not told me. And while part of me was happy to see him, part of me wanted to put my fist through his face.
I figured we’d skip the niceties. “You owe me an explanation.”
“I do.”
“Well?”
“Won’t do any good.”
“’Course it will.”
He shook his head. “Right this moment, you have something more important to deal with.”
“Like what?”
He held up his phone. The picture of what looked like a ten- or twelve-year-old girl shone on his screen. I turned away. “I’m off duty.”
“That�
��s just it. You don’t get to decide when you’re on and when you’re off when you choose this line of work.” He pointed at Summer and Angel, dancing around each other in the kitchen. “And right now you’ve got to choose between”—he flashed his phone again—“eleven-year-old Macy and”—he gestured with his phone—“basil pesto pasta.”
I glanced at the phone. “What happened?”
“Dance recital. They lifted her out the back door. Her father runs a tech company in Silicon Valley.”
I swore beneath my breath. “That’s not fair.”
He stepped closer. Inches from my face. “You’re right. It’s not. Never has been. But until now, you’ve never been concerned with fairness. Only freedom.”
I stared out over the expanse. My view stretched some seventy miles into the distance. “You should’ve told me about Marie.”
“Maybe.”
I turned quickly. More quickly than he could react to. My right hand caught him under the chin, and I lifted him, squeezing his esophagus as his heels came off the ground. I spoke through gritted teeth. “Love matters.”
He held on to my one hand with both of his, nodded, and tried to speak. “More than you know.”
I threw him down. “What do you know about love? If you knew anything about it, you wouldn’t have kept her a secret. I died a little every day because of you.”
“Clock is ticking. What’s it going to be? Dinner and a warm fire”—he held up his phone—“or . . . ?”
“It never ends! There’s always one more!”
He stepped closer. His voice no more than a whisper. “That’s right. And in this moment, you’ve got to choose. The one or the ninety-nine.”
“You should have told me.”
“If you need to know why, then you can’t handle the answer and you should stay home.”
I pulled up my hood and grabbed the truck keys. I spoke as I was closing the door. He could tell from my tone of voice that I was serious. “Bones, there might come a day when you wake up to find my hands around your throat. And when you do, you’ll know that I’m finished with you.”
The Water Keeper Page 33
