by L. B. Dunbar
Gee reached into the water while waiting his turn and told the girls to move out of his way. He wound up his arm and laid it sideways, causing the flat stone to brush the top of the water.
One, two, three, four, five.
Five summers, I thought. Five summers I’d loved her. My thoughts were broken when Katie started clapping for Gee, jumping up and down in the water. Britton took a step back from the splash and Gee made an exaggerated bow in their direction before turning to the shore for a second bow.
When he stood, he noticed me and yelled my name, running through the water and splashing as he came towards me. I squatted to be level with him and I felt my heart race with anticipation of the hug I knew was coming. In moments, Gee had his arms around my neck, squeezing me tightly and holding on as I stood.
“How are you, little man? I think you’ve grown.” I slid my hands to Gee’s sides to push him back and look at him, but he was still clinging to my neck. I returned my hands to his back.
“I’ve missed you,” I whispered.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Gee said as he pulled back to look at my face. He twisted slightly to find his mother who still stood in the lake.
“Mommy, it’s Gavin,” Gee squealed, as if she didn’t know. He kicked his little legs and I set him down. Katie had walked to the water’s edge during my exchange with Gee, and she waited for him to reach the ground before she asked him if he wanted to go get something to eat. Gee took her hand and they ran off together. I followed them with my eyes and saw Tricia standing to the side of the garage. She was watching me and smiled.
She nodded in the direction of Britton.
“She isn’t going to come to you. She’s waited long enough.” Tricia smiled again then turned to disappear behind the garage as well.
I looked out into the lake and saw Britton still standing in the same spot, as if she was frozen by the water and couldn’t move her feet. She held a small stone in her hand and was rolling it around with her fingers, keeping her hands from touching her hair, which was blowing lightly across her face. We seemed to be trying to speak to each other with our eyes, but I couldn’t really see hers. I only knew that they were blue and matched the color of the deep part of the lake. We stood a moment longer before she turned her head to skip the rock and push her hair behind her ear. She didn’t move again, and she didn’t turn around.
It took only a heartbeat for me to know I never wanted her to turn her back on me again. Ever.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my socks before walking into the water in my jeans. I continued to walk slowly toward her back, but at some point, she must have heard the rush of water because she turned to face me, and didn’t look surprised to see me approach.
She didn’t speak.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I started.
She stared into my chocolate brown eyes; the ones that matched our son’s. There was no panic in them, no fear.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I started again, “and I’m sorry it took me so long.” I held her stare, hoping that she could read in my eyes what I was trying to say. I had been lost, and didn’t know it. And now, I wanted to come home.
“I’ve missed you,” I added when she didn’t speak. “I looked at the moon the other night. It was full and I was thinking of the first time we walked down your uncle’s road.”
She nodded.
“I had such big dreams, and I still do. But I realize that those dreams won’t be big enough if I can’t share them with you, like I used to.”
“That was…”
“I know it was a long time ago,” I cut her off, “but I’m talking about now. I can’t live without you and Gee. Now. And if you’ll give me a chance, I’d like to learn who you each are, because I will love you.”
She bit her lip.
“I’ll need your help with being a father. I mean, you’ve had more practice at being a parent than I’ve had. But I want to be a father; a good father. For Gee. And I hope that if you’ll show me what to do, tell me what you think, when it comes to Gee and being a father. And I’m hoping when it comes to you and being … my friend … that you might learn to love me again too.”
She pushed her hair behind her ear.
“Because I’d like to ask you to marry me in the near future.”
“Yes.”
“And I’d like to know that you won’t turn me down. You’ll give me a chance by telling me the truth as we go.”
“Yes.”
“And I’d like to know if you think you might say no.”
“Yes.”
It took me a moment to finally realize what she had been saying.
“You might say no?”
“No.”
A smile slowly lit her face as she bit her lip again and I realized she’d already been answering me.
“Are you saying yes?” I smiled a crooked smile at her.
“Yes.”
And I reached for her. Britton climbed my body, wrapping her arms around my neck in that familiar hold, and I knew I’d never let her go again. I was finally home.
Final Take – Epilogue
Under the Moonlight
Britton and Gee traveled to California several times that fall, and I came home to Britton as often as I could. Gee had school and Britton didn’t want him missing any days. With her admission to college, she couldn’t afford to skip class either. I worked my schedule around them, and although we had times of separation, it was never longer than a few days.
I finally opened up the old camcorder I found in the box with the letter from Britton, and I played through the memory disk of random sports clips, and parties from years ago. I had occasional shots of Britton or Ethan, and trips on the boat, but there was one formally filmed piece on the memory disk.
I had obviously tried to position the camera in a way it recorded the setting sun. As the sky grew darker and the stars appeared over the lake, two figures walked into view of the camera. The shadows were hard to recognize, but shapes were discernible, and the teenage boy stopped the teenage girl slightly off center of the camera view. They had been walking side by side, but now he turned her to face him. They had differing heights and the boy had to bend to reach the girl, but it was clear that he leaned in for a kiss. I could sense that she giggled even though they were too far from the camera, and I knew what happened next.
The girl wrapped her arms around the boy’s neck in a hug he had only ever received from her, and as they stood under the moonlight, he picked her up in that embrace and promised to love her all the days of his life.
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Hades
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* * *
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Sight Words
Tricia
“We broke up,” I told my older sister, Pam.
It was quite a simple sentence. Quite a simple concept.
Break up. To separate. To break into pieces.
I didn’t understand why Pam couldn’t get it. She had been the queen of heartbreak in high school. Running around with numerous boys to flirt and to…well, other things…and she should appreciate the fact that sometimes things do not last.
“I don’t understand. What happened?” Pam asked.
I didn’t want to sound like a silly teenager. I would never admit the truth, but what I wanted was a romance. While Pam was the wild one, running around with different boys every other weekend, I was the one who believed in long term commitment. I was the romantic one who believed in one true love. And Trent Walker was not it.
He wasn’t romantic. He wasn’t even chivalrous or courteous. He was a boy in a twenty-five-year old man’s body and all he wanted to do were stereotypical male things. Hunt. Fish. Hang with the guys. He enjoyed girls in a practical sense. We had sex, but there was definitely something missing in that department, which caused all the trouble to end our relationship. And although I had only had two real boyfriends in my life, and was no expert like Pam, I was sure there had to be something other than what I’d experienced with Trent, or else I just didn’t see what the big deal was.
“We just didn’t…fit.” I decided that was the right term.
Fit. To put together. To connect.
I didn’t understand what Pam didn’t understand. She should know now. She had Jacob. They fit. They were perfect together. Jacob was a secret knight in shining armor who rescued Pam from this small town, even if they still lived in Elk Rapids. As a writer of horror novels, Jacob found inspiration in the hidden woods off Lake Michigan in northern Michigan. Pam had been his personal assistant in a sense, and after years of fighting their attraction, Jacob finally admitted his desire for Pam. Now they were having a baby and would be married shortly afterwards. It was all very romantic to me.
I didn’t have unrealistic ideals about romance, though. I knew it wasn’t a vampire waiting a thousand years, or a billionaire studying a stumbling girl, or even a sexy businessman attracting his assistant. Those romances were for novels. What I would have liked was some consideration that I was a woman who had needs and thoughts and feelings. I wanted to do girl things occasionally, like see a chick flick, dance at a club, or drink wine over candlelight once in a while. Even once would have been nice.
With Trent, those things weren’t an option unless I wanted to listen to him complain the whole time during, or shortly after, any special occasion I tried to plan. I recalled with misery our trip to Chicago a year ago this same season. He criticized the weather, the expense, and the attractions. Whatever way I wanted things, I would pay the price, and after two years it just wasn’t worth it anymore for me. Not to mention he had given me the perfect reason to get out of the relationship.
“He seemed so perfect for you,” Pam interjected.
Perfect. Obtaining in perfection.
It didn’t seem possible that anyone would be perfect for me, and Trent was not even close to it. Here was another problem with him: the community was charmed by him, including my family. They thought he was a nice guy, which I had to admit was true to an extent. He was pleasant to others. He would go out of his way for his friends. He did what his own family asked of him. But he wasn’t always that way toward me.
Another problem was that Trent saw me as more of a pal. He seemed to like hanging out with me. I enjoyed sports, had played them all my life. I had the physique to prove my athleticism, but I was still a girl. I wanted someone who would remember that about me.
“You’ve been together for so long, though. How could you have stayed with him if it wasn’t going to work?”
This is what Pam didn’t comprehend and I did. Prior to Jacob, Pam’s love life had been one-night-stands and brief summer flings. She didn’t understand the concept of committing to someone and sticking with that person through good and bad without predicting the outcome of the relationship. She didn’t have committed relationships, and if it hadn’t been for Jacob, I wasn’t sure Pam ever would have stuck with one man. But something must have clicked.
Click. A snapping sound. Or to understand something, as in figuratively, to suddenly make sense.
“After two years, I could see we weren’t going to get married. I’m almost twenty-five, and he already is, and there was no point to keep going if nothing further was going to happen in our relationship.”
Pam just shook her head as if to submit to my reasoning, and I was grateful because I didn’t want to share the additional reason I left Trent. I promised him. Although I didn’t feel I owed him anything, I didn’t want to go back on my word. I was done with this conversation.
It wasn’t like Pam and I were particularly close as sisters. She had always been a little bit of the odd-sheep in the family. Not a black sheep, but different. She was smart and beautiful in her own way, but just unique from the rest of us Carters. She wasn’t tall like our brothers, Tom and Jess. Although Pam’s hair was the same color and almost the same length as our brother Jess’, that was their only similarity. He was long and lean, while she was short and curvy. Compared to Pam, my five-seven height made me seem like an Amazon with thin features. In addition, Pam also was the one that seemed to be favored by our father. Although all we Carter children loved the man, he had a special relationship with his third child, Pam.
I wasn’t resentful of that relationship. Our father was dead now. A sudden massive heart attack in the night, and my mother became a widow in her early fifties. It had been my father that insisted that I take a year off before college and live with Jess when his wife left him and their small daughter, Katie. Pam had one year left of regular college; Jess was completing his master’s degree. I had graduated from high school and was a young seventeen-year old. As Katie’s aunt, I played surrogate mother for almost a year. When our father died the following spring, I was away in Detroit, helping Jess. It was decided we would all come home to Elk Rapids.
Home is where I had been ever since. I went to college locally and obtained my teaching degree. I wanted to teach middle school, which people couldn’t understand. Originally, I had taken a job as a first grade teacher, which I couldn’t understand. It was hard work to be with the little ones all day, and I found it difficult to wipe noses, teach counting, and read alphabet books with the students. When the position at the middle school arose, and I could become a sixth grade teacher instead, I took the job.
When my brother got married, for the second time I might add, I realized that my relationship wasn’t going anywhere with Trent. It was time for another change in my life. We were beginning to fight constantly about the status of our relationship and the unplanned future. While Trent wanted things to remain the same, I thought it should move to the next level. In hindsight, I was glad it hadn’t, though. I felt that the lack of an engagement ring was a sign that marriage to Trent Walker was not a good idea.
I had it all: new job, new single status. New living arrangement? The last one I hadn’t quite obtained yet. I loved my mother. Mary Carter was an easy roommate as far as mothers went, but I was just tired of being in my mother’s home. I could have blamed the falling apart of my
relationship with Trent on the fact that I still lived at home. We hardly ever had privacy. But he still lived at home as well and didn’t seem in any real hurry to move out of his dad’s house; there was no Mrs. Walker. This last change was yet to come for me, but I was saving my money this year. I had finished my master’s degree online and through extension learning courses over the summer. Although I got a late start at attending college, I graduated on time by taking summer classes. At twenty-four, I moved up the pay scale slightly with the new degree and another year of experience as a public school teacher at the middle school.
Which was where this conversation with Pam was taking place, as she was supposed to be helping me set up my new classroom for the school year. A new year for teachers didn’t begin in January, but in September, and all Pam had been doing was complaining of the heat and fanning herself with a manila file folder. At four months pregnant, Pam seemed to have popped in the last week and was growing daily. I wasn’t sure her smaller frame could handle a large baby, and Pam looked like a soccer ball was emerging from the front of her.
“Well, I guess it’s time for a new stud, though I don’t know where you’re going to find one in this town. Or this job,” Pam said, dropping the manila folder onto the table with a slap.
She was right. In a town of around one thousand residents, Elk Rapids was filled with more elderly people and retirees than young people. The surrounding area was full of families that filled the schools with children and made the district highly reputable. On that same note, though, the only men I met were typically married, as fathers of my students. I had only encountered two single fathers in the last three years, and one of them had been my own brother. The selection and opportunity wasn’t large, but finding a man was the last thing on my mind at the moment.
