“Thanks.”
I try to be nonchalant when I check my notes, but I think she sees right through me. “You should help me in the gardens another time. I like company when I work in there.”
She hurries to my side, beaming. “You bet! I can’t wait!”
We walk back to BTI, Maree a chattering, skipping presence by my side, and I find her company a soothing balm to an unexpected sting of loneliness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The girl hops off on the tenth floor, and while the elevator rises, I smile when I read through my notes from the school today. The kids were fun, enthusiastic to be with me and for reading. On paper most of them seem to know me, particularly this one girl who was especially interested in my memory loss. I try to envision my time in the classroom, to stitch together even the thinnest threads into something vibrant and real. But my mind is a blank notebook, and I slump against the elevator wall. It’s pointless and the more I try, the more alone I feel in the effort.
When the elevator doors slide open, I walk out with my head down, reading and rereading about the kids, and I walk straight into something solid. “Oh!” I look up and nearly stumble backward, heart racing at the man in front of me, the familiar slope of his jaw, the silky blackness of his hair. My eyes open wide. Tate Dunn.
“Hi, Claire,” he says.
With my notebook pressed against my chest, I try to think of something to say that hides the jittery rush spreading through my legs.
“Hi,” is all I manage because the smell of him, the space he occupies, the breadth of his shoulders that I want to run my fingers across is something I know, and it’s overpowering.
His smile deepens the lines around his eyes in that pleasing way that happens when men grow older. Tiny bits of gray paint the fine hairs by his temple. I shift my weight, try to act nonchalant and not like some tongue-tied teenage girl while I furiously flip through my notebook. He’s acting comfortable and normal, not at all like this is the first time we’ve run into each other, which is exactly the feeling that warms my cheeks. I stop searching—there it is, and only yesterday too. Tate has moved back to Whittier, and I’ve told him about the baby. I nearly sigh with relief. He stands beside me, smiling at me the way he did when we were kids. The same smile that touched his eyes and deepened into something more when we were older. The smile that says I’m his most favorite person in the world.
I’m in overdrive, consumed with memory, trying to fully grasp the idea of the years that span between the last time we were together. Feeling the mixture of longing and sadness I had when I realized that we didn’t want the same things anymore, even if my skin felt tattooed with the warmth of his touch. He lived in Idaho with Maria, wanted nothing to do with Whittier or me. I almost snort. At least nothing more than a one-night stand.
“Do you n . . . n-eed to write anything down?” He searches his pockets, comes up with a pen. “Ruth says that’s w . . . w-hat you do to remember.”
I push a strand of hair behind my ear, try to find my feet even as the ground shifts. How many times have we had this conversation? “How long have you been back?”
“N . . . n-ot long; only a couple of weeks, actually, and in case you’re w . . . w-orried”—his smile is warm, eyes soft, and I feel my neck muscles relax the tiniest bit—“we ran into each other for the first t . . . t-ime yesterday. You wrote it down.” He shifts his weight, seems hesitant. “Do you, um, do you want to . . .” He pauses again, mouth shaped in a half whistle, and I wait because this I remember so well. The stuttering and the way some words catch in his throat, refusing to come out. When he was a boy, the effort would turn his cheeks red, and he would often give up, choosing silence over talking. But not with me. It never bothered me because I loved whatever he had to say, and I would wait for however long it took for him to say it. Finally, the words escape his mouth: “Have coffee or tea or something?” His hair is cut shorter than when he was younger but messy in the way I remember. My fingers tingle with a desire to run my hands through it. “We have a lot to catch up on, Claire.”
“You’re married,” I say, and nearly wince at how blunt it sounds.
His eyes widen. “I was, but that was a long t . . . t-ime ago, Claire. She’d already left when you called, and n . . . n-ow I have . . .” His mouth is open but nothing comes out.
He only stuttered badly around me when he was nervous. Why is he nervous? I breathe through my teeth. Because I’m brain damaged?
He slumps forward, seems to change tactics. “I didn’t w . . . w-ant to run into you like this. I’m sorry.” He gives me a look. “Do you w . . . should you write this down, Claire?”
My body jolts into action, and I’m relieved to have something else to focus on. I’m writing before I’ve even had time to think about the words. Tate Dunn is back in Whittier and he’s old. I scratch out old and write older.
“Are you living here now?” I can’t meet his eyes, afraid he’ll hear the excited thumping of my heart or sense how desperate I am for his answer.
He rubs the back of his neck, shakes his head. “Yes . . . I am.”
I tilt my head, skeptical. Tate said he’d never move back to Whittier. Not as long as his dad was alive. “Why?”
“W . . . w-ell, I have a new job and also . . .” Tate stops talking, works his jaw. He used to tell me that when he got stuck on a word, he taught himself to think about a pair of otters gliding through still water, and that image helped him to stop and regroup. But Tate’s stuttering was always the worst when he was upset or nervous about something. His dad made him nervous with his mood swings and fits of rage, especially when it came to his stuttering. I feel a pang. I never made him nervous.
I hold my notebook against my chest. “I thought you’d never come back to Whittier.”
He shifts his weight before saying, “He died.”
I know instantly who. “Your father?”
He nods.
It hits me like a bullet. The man who caused Tate so much pain, the man responsible for driving him away from Whittier—from me—is gone. My thoughts drift back to a summer morning just after Tate’s eighteenth birthday. We’d gone to the Buckner Building; it had become a habit of ours—something about its neglected ruins spoke to us. Tate had shown up with a black eye, and we’d sat side by side on the loading dock, legs dangling off the concrete stoop, feet inches above a pile of broken bottles, rusted beer cans, cigarettes. Morning light peeked through the busted-out windows, dusting our skin. Dark maroon stained my fingers—paint that had dripped from the bottle when we sprayed our newest image across the cement walls: a huge fist, middle finger raised.
Tate inhaled off a joint, passed it to me. Our exhales mingled in a cloud, thinning, then disappearing into the cool air.
Remember that night the bear got into the lobby?
I nodded. That bear was huge.
Tate inhaled again, held it in until he coughed. It was my fault.
The weed moved languidly through my body, dampened my surprise. How?
Dad w . . . w-as at the bar, and I didn’t think he’d be able to g . . . g-et back in. So I propped the door open.
I laughed. It wasn’t funny, except it was. Everything was funny and stupid and tragic, but at least I had Tate. He understood Mom’s absence ate at me, left ragged bite marks that festered as I watched Dad’s back stoop with every year she broke off a chunk of his heart when she didn’t sober up. I remember thinking that in some ways, I was the lucky one because at least she was gone. Tate’s dad was as mean and as drunk as ever.
I’d inhaled again, closed my eyes, and let the smoke lay over the places that hurt. Tate fell silent, threw his can of spray paint against the wall. It clunked, then fell with hardly a sound onto the mound of litter below.
I was afraid to look at him, could feel him holding back, and I didn’t want to know what it was. I threw my spray can, too, but it hit a wire dangling from the ceiling and just missed the wall.
Finally, he softened into me, rested his hand on top of my
thigh, palm up, and I slid my hand into his.
I don’t want to be like my dad.
I stiffened. You’re not.
I need to get away from him, Claire. I have to leave this place.
Not even the floating numbness of weed could keep his words from cutting into me. You can’t leave.
Come with me.
I remember how I wanted to say yes, imagined myself following him anywhere, maybe even traveling the world like Harriet and Pete had. But then I thought about Dad and Ruth, and my mother, and I swallowed hard. I wasn’t weak like her. I didn’t need to run, because everything I wanted was right here in Whittier. So I tried to laugh him off, grabbed his face in my hands and kissed him, savoring the roughness of his cheek, the softness of his mouth, the way his hands slid around to my back, pulling me against him, and I remember how it felt both passionate and desperate. Like a first and last kiss.
He stares at me now, so different from my memory, grown-up and confident in a way I’ve never seen. I feel suddenly shamed, stuck in a past that I thought we’d shared. And now he’s back and we couldn’t be more different.
My mouth opens but I can’t sort out my thoughts; I’m caught in the past, unsure of what we’ve been talking about. “Um . . .” I search my notes, find what I’m looking for. Bill’s dead. “Oh, um, when did he die?”
“Last year. They think he lost his w . . . w-ay home from the bar.” Tate makes a noise in his throat. “Not surprising he’d go out . . . like that.”
“Oh.” I know this; I’m sure I do but I also don’t, so I write it down, hating that I have to do it in front of Tate.
I’m flooded with thoughts, not all of them good, and words fall out that feel old, tired, because too much time has passed. “You said you’d never leave me like my mom did, and then you did. You don’t call for years, and then out of nowhere you show up at my graduation. We sleep together and then you tell me you’re married.” Letting it out is a release I didn’t know I needed and it feels good. And, I realize, I’m not angry with him. Quite the opposite. I’m gratified, like I just discovered a missing limb. Elated because the bond between us, the one that grew from his very first words to me behind the vending machine, feels as strong as ever.
Tate acknowledges it all with a dip of his chin. “You had Vance and Ruth and this whole town, Claire. They were your family. I didn’t w . . .” Again he stops, his mouth in a circle until he breathes in and changes tactics. “I don’t have an excuse. I thought I’d get my shit t . . . t-ogether and then convince you to come with me. I thought I was w . . . w-eak like my dad; I thought you were better off without me. I was a mess.”
I don’t know how to respond. Being around him is cold water in the desert, drowning me in memories that are crystal clear and bringing with it the iron tang of loneliness. After Mom left, Tate was a solid presence by my side—one arm slung around me, fingers in my hair, my wet cheek against his bony shoulder. “You were my best friend, not a mess,” I say quietly.
He shrugs. “You know I . . . was. Remember the t . . . t-ime I tried to burn down the bar?”
I can’t help but laugh. We were sixteen and it was the middle of winter, cold and foggy, with snow coming down in wet chunks. “Yeah, but it didn’t take and no one found out.”
“Well, I w . . . w-as angry most of the time, except when I . . . except around you, and I knew that if I didn’t g . . . g-et away from him, I’d become him.”
“And did you?” Without thinking my hand goes to my belly, and my chest tightens. He would have been a wonderful father; I have no doubt. Regret curls my fingers. I should have told him about the baby. I nearly did; so many times I picked up the phone to call, but as soon as I thought about his wife, I hung up. Would things have turned out differently if I had told him? My face hardens. Of course not.
He touches my arm. “No, I didn’t, but I g . . . g-uess you knew that all along. It t . . . t-ook me longer to see it.”
My hand itches with a desire to run my fingers through his hair, to remember what he felt like under my palms, and I want to write it all down, don’t want a second to slip past me, but shame needles into my skin. I don’t want him to know how much I can’t do, how changed I am from the girl he knew.
“G . . . g-o ahead,” he says.
“What?”
“Write it down.” His eyes are soft and kind and something else. “I’d like for you to remember. Besides”—his smile is mischievous—“for years, you’d w . . . w-ait until I could form a single word. You . . . never made me feel embarrassed or stupid. You made me feel n . . . n-ormal and I haven’t forgotten it.” He points to my notebook. “Now I g . . . g-et to return the favor.”
A burning sensation sweeps across my cheeks, and I dip my head and write, adding more asterisks than I need to indicate that this part of my day is important. I feel a wrinkle form between my eyes. “Why did you move back to Whittier?”
Tate holds my gaze, and for a minute I don’t think he’s going to answer me, and when he does, it’s a machine-gun patter of “V . . . V . . . V . . . V . . .” until a gate opens and the words he wants are released: “I’m the new harbormaster.”
A smile stretches across my face. “That’s a big deal. Congratulations, Tate.” It’s also the kind of job that keeps someone in Whittier, at least until they tire of the ever-present wind and heavy clouds that cling nearly year-round to our town.
But what do I think could happen between us? I know the truth. Nothing can happen anymore, not with me as I am. I turn inward, as though to protect myself because the idea has teeth that bite. “But why here?”
“Well, first because there are some exciting p . . . p-lans for the city, like updating the boat ramps and there’s this whole new concept for the waterfront. It’s exciting to be a part of the g . . . g-rowth around here.”
There’s a spark in his eyes when he speaks and an excited lilt to his voice that diminishes the verbal pauses, smooths his words. This is Tate when he’s confident and in control. This is the boy I remember. But I find myself lost in the cadence of his words, missing the meaning, and when I try to write down what he’s said, my pen doesn’t move. “Oh . . .” My face is hot and I can’t bring myself to lift my eyes to meet his, don’t want to acknowledge the emptiness of my thoughts. I decide to take a stab. “So, um, are you visiting or here to stay?”
The silence is only momentary, but it’s soaked through with pity. I don’t have to remember to know that people feel sorry for me. And the idea that Tate pities me curls my toes from a rush of embarrassed anger.
“I’m here t . . . t . . .” He pauses and I wait. “Stay.”
A buzz from my phone vibrates my pocket, and my shoulders slump with relief at an excuse to end this conversation where the brain-damaged me is on full display to the one guy in the world I most want to see me as normal. I wag the phone in the air and make my way toward my apartment door. “I’d better go now.”
“Wait, Claire—here.” Tate hands me a business card with his name on it. “I’m the harbormaster. We can t . . . t-alk more about it another . . . time, okay?”
I back into the hallway, nodding and writing it down as fast as I can, trying to keep a smile pasted on my face despite a despondent heaviness in my heart. “I’m glad you’re back, Tate. I’ve missed you.” My keys shake when I put them in my door, but I get it open and am inside in seconds, breathing hard against thoughts that run laps in my head and on the page. I have no right to this man. No right to these feelings. Not anymore. Not like this.
I look out the peephole. The hallway is empty. I’m not sure how much time has passed or how long I’ve been sitting on the floor with my back pressed against the front door, but my eyes are dry. My body feels sluggish, the room cold and bleak, and without thinking I rise to my feet and hurry to Ruth’s door.
She answers almost immediately, like she’s been standing at the door waiting for me.
“Can I come in?”
Her eyes soften, and when she nods her
hair doesn’t move, the iron-gray waves extra stiff today. Ruth’s hair hasn’t changed for as long as I’ve known her. Not the color, not the cut, and not the style. Today it makes me think that she is upset from the way it clings to the sides of her head—unmoving, stubborn. She opens the door all the way. “Of course.” I follow her inside, comforted by the blend of grays and browns in her apartment cut through with dark orange or avocado green. Like the seventies never left. But her unchanging decor soothes me with its familiar warmth and dependability.
Ruth hands me a mug of warm water she heats in the microwave and opens up a small tin of tea. I choose a lemon and ginger one and dip the bag in and out of the water while I read through my notes.
She stands opposite me on the kitchen side of her counter, a glob of honey dripping from a spoon that she sinks into her tea. “Talk to me.”
“There’s so much, Ruth, and I keep reading about it, but I want to remember and I can’t.” I’m not crying, even if my voice is thin, cracked. “I know Mom is here and”—I read a note from the top of every notebook page—“that you’ve probably told me dozens of times.” I read the next bit from a bulleted list I’ve made of important facts. “And I told Tate about the baby, but he already knows. He said I told him afterward.” I meet her level gaze. Ruth doesn’t lie to me. “Did I?” The question hangs in the air between us, and I watch as honey spins a golden thread from the spoon that Ruth hovers over her cup. She stares into her tea as though searching for an answer, and her silence sets my heart beating too fast.
“Ruth?”
“You did. You were confused, Claire. It was about a year afterward, and you were still recovering, trying to get your bearings. That first year was so hard for you.”
I feel myself almost physically recoil trying to picture what it was like. “It must have been so hard for Dad and for you,” I whisper. “Having to take care of me like that, to remind me about my baby.”
Ruth looks up. “That’s the thing with you, sweetheart. You always think about others. No matter what, it’s where your mind goes first.”
Memories in the Drift: A Novel Page 11
