Undertow

by Natusch, Amber Lynn

  Seconds later, Decker hopped out of the driver's side door of his truck and made his way toward the house.

  “You ready to go?” he asked as he subtly assessed my overly dressed-up state. I hadn't exactly gone all out, but considering all he'd seen me in previously were sweats, old jeans, and rain gear, my outfit surely looked like an improvement.

  “I thought I was meeting you there.”

  He shrugged.

  “I thought it would be nice to pick you up. Make it a date . . . ”

  “That's a good man,” my father whispered in my ear before excusing himself to go inside for the night. “Decker, take good care of her.”

  “Of course, Captain.” He then turned his warm brown eyes to me as he took my hand in his and directed me to the vehicle. “Shall we?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Once we were in the car, I decided to investigate a little more about this conversation that had taken place on the ship earlier in the day. I needed to get a sense of what exactly had transpired, and I wanted a firsthand account. “So, I'm guessing that Robbie got a little ambushed by your coming to hang out tonight. I hope he took it well.”

  “He did,” Decker replied as he backed out of the driveway. “It took him a while to warm to the idea, but after a lot of convincing that I wasn't just trying to get in your pants, he eventually did.”

  “Decker!” I cried, hitting him lightly in the arm.

  “I wasn't the one who used that phrasing. Robbie did, right before he cornered me in the gear room,” he explained, his voice losing a little of its earlier playfulness. “He loves you, Aesa. He wants what's best for you, just like your dad does. I told him that I wanted the same.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And he let it go, but only after threatening to cut off my balls if I caused you any pain. I felt like that was fair enough.”

  Just like that, he was back to his casually comedic self.

  “So, he's not going to be weird about things tonight?”

  “Not at all.”

  “And you don't feel weird about that whole interaction?”

  “Nope. You're all set. Stop worrying,” he scolded with a smile. “All your ducks are in a row. You can rest easy.”

  “Good,” I retorted. “I don't think I like being the cause of all this male posturing. It seems so barbaric.”

  “It's not posturing, Aesa; it's love. You should be thrilled that you have people who care that much about you—that are willing to go to bat for you. Not everyone does.”

  His sentiments made me think of his sister. Not only had she not fought for him, but she also abandoned him when he needed her most. He paid dearly for that betrayal, four years of his life spent behind bars for a crime that really wasn't. A slight pang of guilt tore through me when I realized that, once again, he was right. My father never would have left me high and dry like that. Not even if I deserved it.

  I didn't know what to say in response, so I reached across the console and took his hand in mine, giving it a light squeeze. The smile it garnered in response was beyond the worth of the gesture. He truly did relish the little things. It was an admirable quality.

  I spent the night observing Decker's many admirable qualities as we ate, drank, and laughed at The Albatross with Robbie and a few of the other remaining deckhands from various other vessels. There was nothing awkward or heavy about the evening, no trace of what I feared would be awaiting us when we arrived. Instead, we had a raucous night filled with tall tales and empty pitchers. I knew the boys were likely to be in rough shape for pushing off the next day, but they seemed to think it was worth it. Once I was a few beers into the evening, I was inclined to agree with them.

  Decker maintained a slow and steady pace while the rest of us raced through our pints before they had a chance to warm at all. Even sober, he found our antics amusing, his sly smile taking over his expression on a regular basis. He seemed particularly interested in Robbie's stories of me as a kid, no matter how embarrassing they proved to be for me. He was a sponge when it came to those details, not seeming to want to miss one of them. Even in my drunken haze, I could see that my father was right about Decker. He really was a good man. And that good man was stealing a piece of my heart every second of every day that I spent with him.

  I prayed he wouldn't lose it at sea.

  21

  He drove me home while I sang loudly to one of the only two radio stations within receiving distance of Dutch Harbor. He never seemed to mind, even though I knew I sounded terrible. There was no way that he didn't realize that too.

  “Here we are,” he announced when he stopped the car outside my house. When I didn't move to get out immediately, he undid his seatbelt so he could turn to face me. Searching my face in the darkness, he reached over, gently running a long strand of my hair through his fingers.

  “I don't want you to go,” I whispered, trying to meet his gaze and failing.

  “I know you don't.”

  “I'm not sure that you do,” I argued, my voice still low and sullen.

  “What are you afraid of, Aesa?” he asked gently, turning my face up to his. He ran his thumb gently across my lips when they refused to move, unwilling to answer him.

  “Do you really need to ask me that after everything that has happened to us?”

  “Aesa,” he said with a sad and placating tone. “We're alive. You can't live your life through the eyes of the past forever. You'll never be able to move forward with that fear tethered to you, holding you back. Whatever it is that haunts you, you need to learn to either accept it or push past it. You're too strong to let it bring you down. Don't drown yourself in the sorrows of what has been.”

  I choked on an uncomfortable laugh, his words hitting closer to home than he could have ever known.

  “Do you know why I left nine years ago and never came back?” I asked, pulling my face gently from his grasp.

  “No,” he replied, unable to keep his hands from playing with my hair as it spilled over my shoulder. “You didn't bring it up and I wasn't going to ask.”

  “My father and I had a blowout of epic proportions. I almost laughed when I came back to find the house essentially still a shrine to the carnage I left in my wake.”

  “What happened, Aesa?” His words were soft and gentle, but held a note of urgency. He needed to understand what drove my resentment in order to understand me. I decided to lay all my cards out on the table to see if he still wanted to play once he saw them.

  “I told him that I hated him, that he was the reason my mother decided to take a long walk down a shallow beach and drown in the Bering Sea just so that she could finally be with him.”

  “Was that the truth?” he asked, his voice barely audible as his warm brown eyes searched mine.

  “Yes,” I whispered ashamedly. “I did hate him. All he did was leave. That's all I remembered of him, and the older I got, the more I saw how it pained my mother, how the drinking helped her to cope. Then one day, she disappeared and never came back.” I had to stop momentarily, holding back the tears that took me by surprise. I never cried when I thought of my mother. I had always relied on anger and dissociation to get me through my emotions. But sitting there with Decker, my inhibitions gone from too much alcohol consumption, I felt the memories more clearly.

  The hurt and sadness were far more real.

  “Everyone always leaves me,” I continued, trying desperately to hold myself together. “I think that when I left that day, I just really wanted to be the one causing the pain rather than receiving it.”

  Not saying a word, he leaned across the truck and kissed me. He kissed me slowly, like he wanted to steal those years of pain from me, and I leaned into it as if that were possible. If anyone could have healed me, it was him.

  “Will you leave me too?” I whispered against his mouth unconsciously, the thought not even registering in my mind until the words had already escaped. His lips broke away from mine almost instantly.

  “I'm not g
oing anywhere, Aesa.” His words resonated with a strength and certainty that could only come from a deep-seated conviction based on truth. “I am a man. I don't run. I don't lie. I don't cheat, and I don't use. I don't find enjoyment in games, either. I've paid for my mistakes in life and learned from them. I know what I want, Aesa, and I want you. Nothing more. Nothing less.” He pressed his mouth against mine again, but harder, the pressure illustrating the truth behind his words and his desperation for them to register. “Disappointment and sadness don't have to be your life anymore. You can choose to have more,” he whispered, his head hanging just above me. “You can choose me.”

  I arched up against the seatbelt that held me captive. I wanted to believe him, to let his words permeate the part of my brain that clung so tightly to the past. My body ached to say the words I longed to say and he needed to hear, but I couldn't. Instead, I unfastened the tether holding me back and showed him through actions what I could not bring myself to admit: that I wanted him more than anything alive.

  That thought scared me senseless.

  As if he knew what was warring in my mind, he broke our increasingly urgent kiss and pressed his nose gently against mine, breathing slightly harder than necessary as he held back from what he so clearly wanted in order to remind me of the promise he had made.

  “I won't let you fall.”

  My mind stopped entirely, no longer able to process everything that had been said—had been offered. Instead, my mouth quickly found a rhythm with his and we stayed there in his truck long into the night. I was so content to just be with someone who wanted and needed me just as much as I did him.

  He wasn't leaving me; that point had been made quite clear. His body may have been about to go back to sea, but his heart, his mind, and his spirit were with me. I had rapidly let him become a part of me, filling a space that had too long been leased by anger, resentment, and contempt. As those emotions for my father faded, they opened the door to something better—someone better—to occupy the emptiness. Sadness didn't need to be the way of my life.

  Neither did solitude.

  Conforming to his body as it moved against mine, I finally felt the true divinity in being so evenly matched. How else could two people find each other in the most unlikely of places? I faced my fears, and my bravery was rewarded with the ultimate prize. Love.

  22

  I woke up later than intended the next morning, my father having not disrupted my drunken slumber to let me know he was leaving. Grabbing my cell phone to confirm the time, I jumped out of bed, seeing that I only had about fifteen minutes until they were due to pull out of the harbor. I'd slept in my clothes from the night before and decided to just leave them on in order to save time. If I didn't get my act together, I was not only going to miss their departure, but also my flight to Anchorage.

  In a flurry of motion, I stuffed the final few items I had left to pack into one of my two duffels and threw the bags' straps over each of my shoulders, moving as quickly as I could to the Jeep awaiting me in the garage. I returned to lock up the house then sprinted back to the vehicle, fired her up, and tore out of my driveway, headed directly for the docks. I prayed that there was a hold-up of some sort, but I knew my dad. He liked to run his operation like a finely tuned machine; he wouldn't leave late unless something was wrong.

  Ignoring the speed limit, I sped through town, arriving in the harbor with only a minute to spare. Parking was at a premium, so I decided to make like a captain and drive the Jeep up the dock to the vessel. I'd deal with the powers that be afterward. But when I pulled up to where my father told me the boat would be, there was nothing but water. I had missed them.

  I missed my chance to say goodbye.

  The part of me that loathed that word should have been happy, but even it wasn't. Instead, all I felt was sadness and regret. For once the regret was not for something I had done, but rather something I hadn't. I didn't see them off. I didn't hold Decker one last time before work and distance separated us. Worst of all, I didn't tell my father that I loved him—the very thing I had returned home to re-establish.

  Deflated, I got back into the Jeep and backed my way off the dock. I drove the few miles to the airport and parked my rental car there for someone else to take eventually—when the next crew of newbies showed up in town, hoping to score jobs on a crabbing vessel. I felt oddly sad when I boarded the tiny plane; that feeling continued to plague me as we flew over the tiny coastal town. It hadn't felt like home for many years, but, in that moment, it did.

  I watched out over the water, wondering if I could spot my father's ship as it jogged slowly out of the port to the sea, but I couldn't. Frustrated, I settled back in my seat and closed my eyes, my hangover taking priority again. I was embarking on a journey of my own, and the weight of that was more than I felt like dealing with while my headed pounded mercilessly.

  I had always enjoyed feeling disconnected from where I lived, who I hung out with—what I did. But with my growing attachment to both my father and Decker, that enjoyment was overshadowed by doubt—doubt that I was doing the right thing.

  “Too late now,” I muttered to myself under my breath as fatigue took me over. Maybe sleep was exactly what I needed to help me see things more clearly. I hoped that when I landed in Anchorage, I would have a more practical view of the situation, my head clear of the raging hangover it housed, and my emotions tucked away safely where they belonged.

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, we touched down in Anchorage. It was monstrous in comparison to my hometown, and I instantly felt a welcome sense of anonymity. My heart settled into a comfortable place because of it.

  After renting a car and packing my things into it, I made my way through the foreign city to the hotel the hospital had provided for me and checked in. I was due to report for the early shift the next morning, so I only had the rest of the day to accomplish the basic errands I needed to, like grocery shopping. Thankfully, there was a place not far from the hotel, and I made my way there to procure the essentials I would need to survive until I settled in a bit more. The suite I was given was equipped with a kitchenette, which made me happy. I didn't want to have to eat takeout until I found a suitable apartment.

  Once my errands were done, I collapsed onto the couch and flipped on the TV, needing some serious downtime before the adventures of the next day. I picked at the sandwich I'd made while watching a made-for-TV movie that lacked greatly in the acting department. Luckily, my ringing phone saved me from the alleged climax of the show, and I happily answered it.

  “Aesa.” My father's voice was garbled and quiet on the other line, but that was relatively normal for the Norwegian Queen. It wasn't easy to get great service at sea.

  “Dad!” I shouted into my cell, my excitement surprising even myself. “Why didn't you wake me up this morning? I didn't get a chance to say goodbye.”

  “Yes, you did,” he replied enigmatically. “I had to leave the house earlier than I expected to, so I came into your room to say goodbye. You don't remember?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  He laughed lightly.

  “You must have had quite a night with the boys then. I hope you made your flight to Anchorage.”

  “Yeah. I'm here now,” I replied, stretching out on the couch to rest while we chatted. “I'm in the suite the hospital is providing for me until I can find an apartment.”

  “Is it in a safe part of town?”

  “Seems to be. I don't know that Anchorage has any especially rough parts, Dad, but I think I'm good where I am.”

  “Good,” he said, sounding satisfied. “I will be sure to pass that along to Decker. I think he was concerned about that as well.”

  Decker . . .

  “Dad, I'm so sorry I didn't get there to see you guys off.”

  “Aesa, you told me everything I could have needed to hear this morning,” he replied warmly. “Even if you don't remember saying it.”

  “What did I say?” I asked, my breath
catching in my throat ever so slightly.

  He paused for a moment, silence overtaking the line.

  “You said 'I love you, Daddy'.” I heard him choke up at the words as he relayed them to me. I hadn't called him that since I was very young.

  “I do love you,” I reiterated, squeezing the phone tightly in my hand. “You and I still have a long way to go and a lot to sort out, but I do love you, Dad.” It was my turn to pause, the words I wanted to tell him lodging somewhere in my throat. “And I'm sorry . . . ”

  “I love you too, Aesa. We'll have time for that when I get back and I come to visit you, but for now you should rest. You have a big day tomorrow, as do I.”

  “Dad,” I shouted into the phone, afraid he would hang up before I got a chance to ask him something. “Can you do something for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you tell Decker I'm sorry that I missed him this morning?”

  “I can, but I don't think he's terribly stressed out about it. He said he had his chance to say goodbye last night. I don't think he expected you to make it this morning.”

  “Oh. Okay . . . ”

  “Because you were drunk, Aesa, not for any other reason,” my dad clarified, seeing through my response. “He seems to get you. True understanding from the one you love is hard to find. Do not overlook that.”

  “I won't,” I said softly, stunned that my father felt it necessary to give me relationship advice when his had gone so poorly. Perhaps it gave him the best vantage point regarding the matter. “So you'll call me when you guys get back?”

  “I'll call you before that, if you'd like.”

  “Yeah. I think I would,” I replied with a smile on my face. “Go find some crab, quickly and safely.”

  “Go save some lives.”

  “Deal.”

  “Talk soon, Aesa. Goodbye.”