Breathless

by Jennifer Niven

  “Was her husband a suspect?”

  “For, like, a second, but never seriously, no. His devotion to her was widely known. And the coroner’s report”—she taps one of the papers with her foot—“was pretty conclusive that she killed herself.”

  We stand side by side, staring down at the papers. Pieces of a life. I want to sit on the floor right now and read all of them. I want to help my mom put them in order so that we can get the clearest picture of Tillie before and after, so that we can solve the mystery of why once and for all.

  But Miah is waiting. My heart does this little tug.

  I say, “I’m going to Miah’s.”

  “Okay.” She is distracted, and I can see that she’s deep in it, taking the puzzle apart and putting it back together as she stands here.

  “He leaves tomorrow and I may be back late.”

  She gathers her hair, ties it in a ponytail, and frowns at me. The glasses are green and I remember when she got them, on a road trip with my dad and me, at a drugstore in Memphis.

  “How late is late?”

  “The morning?”

  “Claude.”

  “Mom. You’ll know where I am, and if you want to come get me and bring me back here, you can. But this is important to me.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to say here? If I tell you no, I’m standing in the way of you and this boy and you may resent me forever or at least for a long, long time. If I say yes, I’m the world’s most negligent mother, someone my own mother would disown in a heartbeat, if she only knew.”

  “How about ‘I get it’? How about ‘I don’t love it, but I get it, because I remember what it was like to be eighteen and in love, and you are a semi-responsible adult who will soon go to college and I will long for the day you asked my permission to spend the night with a trustworthy boy who doesn’t drink and who makes art out of bones’?”

  “He makes art out of bones?”

  “Animal, not human, and maybe I should have left that out.” She settles onto the arm of the couch and studies me. “You told me when we got here to let you know what I needed. I need this,” I say. “Please.”

  She sighs. “Are you really in love?”

  “I think so.”

  We look at each other for a long time. And then she says, “Go.”

  * * *

  —

  Miah and I drive down Main Road, and neither of us is saying anything because we don’t have to. The weather says it all. Dreary. Wet. Gray. No matter how much he talks about living in the moment, I know he’s feeling it like I am—our time here has run out. I’m telling myself it’s all going to be fine.

  Halfway to Rosecroft, he pulls off on the side of the road at a break in the trees and a path that leads into the forest. He digs through the glove compartment and then the center console until he comes up with a ring of keys, shining gold and silver against the bleakness of the day.

  He climbs out of the truck and comes around to my side, opens my door. We walk together, hand in hand, fingers entwined, over the damp leaves under the live oaks.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Several yards later, we arrive at an arched and rusted gate with an old-fashioned lock and a NO TRESPASSING sign. He tries one key after another until he finds the right one.

  I say, “What is this place?” The rain is pouring, relentless and resolute, as if it will always fall like this for the rest of our lives. Taking off my fisherman’s cap, I just give in to it, and within seconds I am drenched, head to toe.

  “Behavior Cemetery.” He pushes open the gate.

  And then I see the graves: flat gray rectangles all in a line, rugged markers that jut up out of the earth, plain headstones covered in moss, carved angels with hands outstretched or folded in prayer.

  Miah says to the cemetery and the trees and the sky, “We ask permission of the dead to enter.”

  Then we’re inside, the rain falling in a steady, tapping chorus. Some of the graves are covered in flowers, books, dishes, cups, oil lamps.

  “There’s a belief that the spirits of the dead stick around, and the only way to keep them from bothering the living is to give them a kind of offering, things that belonged to them when they were alive.” His voice is hushed, as if the dead might hear him. “The lamps are to light their way through the unknown.”

  We walk each row, reading the epitaphs, words of love and loss, the names and dates, and sweet, sad lines from Rudyard Kipling and J. M. Barrie and Oscar Wilde.

  THIS IS A BRIEF LIFE, BUT IN ITS BREVITY IT OFFERS US SOME SPLENDID MOMENTS, SOME MEANINGFUL ADVENTURES.

  SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT AND STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING.

  TO LIVE IS THE RAREST THING IN THE WORLD. MOST PEOPLE EXIST, THAT IS ALL.

  At the end of a row, beside her mother, is Claudine Blackwood. SHE REFUSED TO BE BORED CHIEFLY BECAUSE SHE WASN’T BORING. It’s Zelda Fitzgerald.

  “I love Zelda too,” I say.

  There are names I recognize and names I don’t.

  I say, “There are so many stories here that no one outside this island will ever know.”

  “All the more reason to write them down.”

  We make our way into the African American section of the cemetery, past Clovis and Aurora and Beatrice Samms, their graves covered in flowers. A lantern rests on Clovis’s headstone, the light burning bright in the gloom of the day.

  “Who’s in charge of the lantern?”

  “Technically, Clovis’s family, but the Park Service keeps an eye on it too. And I check in on it now and then. Make sure it doesn’t go out.”

  At the far end of the graveyard is a crumbling stone wall, shoulder height, curved like a half-moon. We climb up on it, and Miah tells me the stories of our adventures so that I’m reliving them from his point of view. He tells me about how he felt the first time I found a shark tooth on my own. He tells me how he’ll always think of me whenever he sees a firefly light up. He tells me about our night at the ruins and how it forever changed the way he sees them. He talks about us getting stuck in the pluff mud and how there’s no one else on earth he’d rather be stuck with.

  His tone is light but I don’t feel light.

  I say, “What are we doing?”

  “Sitting here on this really awesome wall.”

  “Be serious. Do you leave tomorrow and that’s it, I never see you again?”

  “Maybe?”

  “I don’t want to leave.”

  “I don’t want to leave either.” He takes my hand and rubs the top of it with his thumb.

  “So what if we don’t leave? What if we stay right here?”

  “In the cemetery?”

  “In the cemetery. On the island. We keep it going—this. You come see me in New York. I go see you in Montana.” I want him to fight for me, fight for us.

  He rubs his jaw. “Okay. You blow off college. I’ll blow off Outward Bound.”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  And for a minute I let myself pretend it could happen, Miah and me. Us. Living here in his bright blue house under this bright blue sky, having adventures and never once worrying about disappearing floors because instead there will be sand and grass and an ocean to wade in.

  He sighs. “Or.”

  “Don’t say or.”

  “Okay.” There are raindrops on his hair and face and lashes. “Captain, you’ve got places to go in this world. Stories to write. Adventures to have. Would I rather have those adventures with you? Abso-fuckin’-lutely. But I don’t know how that works.”

  “You could come to New York with me. There are all these great schools there with photography programs. And all these places to photograph. I mean, it’s an island too. Just a different sort of island.” But even as I say
it, I know he will never go to New York.

  “Captain. Have you met me? I’d be miserable there.”

  And something in it sounds so final.

  “So that’s it?”

  “I hope not. But we have right now. And the rest of today. And tonight. And tomorrow. Those are the things I know.”

  He smiles, and it’s sad but happy.

  I give him a sad, happy smile in return.

  And then he kisses me, but it’s too late. I can feel it in my heart—a little death.

  “We should go,” he says. “But first. Stand there.” He points at one end of the wall, and then he hops down and goes running, barefoot, to the other end.

  I am telling myself not to cry. Don’t cry. Don’t you do it. I jump to the ground and stand by the wall.

  In a second, I hear him. “You there, Captain?” It’s a whisper, coming through the crack by my ear, plain as day. I turn to look at him and he waves.

  “Yes,” I whisper into the wall.

  “What are you most afraid of?”

  I almost say, Missing you. Never seeing you again. But instead I answer, “Not writing my own story. Not figuring out who I should be. What are you most afraid of?”

  “Still you.”

  * * *

  —

  We go to his house to dry out. I take a three-minute shower because this is time I’m wasting when we could be together. He gives me a shirt of his and a pair of shorts, and I walk around feeling swallowed up by Jeremiah Crew. I am barefoot and I smell like him.

  While he showers, I examine the photos on the walls like I’m at a museum. I study each individual shot. The bones, the ruins, the skeletons of things.

  From the bathroom, there is the sound of singing. “Joy to the World,” his favorite song.

  * * *

  —

  In his bed, I am still wearing his shirt but the shorts are on the floor. Miah is naked. Outside the window, the rain is falling. I run my fingers across his skin. “If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be?”

  “Oh, Jesus, Captain. I don’t know. My left big toe.”

  “I’d get rid of my freckles.”

  “I like your freckles.” He starts tracing the ones on my stomach. “They make me think of summer and long days and sunshine and blood moons.”

  “I look like I have the measles.” And I know I shouldn’t be doing this—pointing out the things I don’t like about myself—but I’m trying to be light and cheery and free and not think about the time that’s passing too quickly. I’m trying not to miss him already because he’s still right here.

  I stop touching him and raise my arms in the air like I’m conducting a symphony. He takes one of them, examining it as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the world, looking at each individual freckle up close. He runs his fingers across my skin. He plants a kiss on my elbow. He rotates my arm a little to the right, to the left, and then kisses the inside of my wrist. The back of my hand is next, followed by my shoulder and my palm.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m kissing all your freckles.” He kisses my knee. “Or maybe all of you.” He kisses my other knee. “I don’t think I’ve ever kissed you here.” And then he kisses my belly button. “Or here.” He kisses my ear. On and on, taking his time.

  I know without kissing him all over that he has a heart-shaped freckle on his left shoulder and a scar under his chin. I know that the arm hair that is gold in most light turns reddish in the sun. I know that his right big toe is slightly longer than his left big toe and that there is another scar on his left knee.

  As he makes his way up my other arm to my shoulder, to my ear, I worry about all this close-up scrutiny of my body in the daylight. The freckles, the little too much flesh here, the not enough flesh there, every bump and flaw. But it’s like his photos, real and honest and lovely, and no one has ever done this before. So I let him kiss me. And I stop worrying because it’s just Miah and me, and there’s no hiding anymore, not even if I wanted to.

  “I’ve never kissed you here,” he says. “Or here.”

  I could just stay. I could live on this island with Jeremiah Crew.

  “Or here.” He kisses my forehead, and whatever happens with us, I know there will be at least one person in the world who has seen all of me.

  * * *

  —

  As we lie there afterward, he wraps his arms around me, my head on his chest. He says, “I want to spend all day with you tomorrow.”

  “Me too.”

  “There are a lot of things we haven’t done yet, Captain. I want to take you up north to hunt for oysters. And we need to go camping out at Blue Hollow and canoeing through the marsh.”

  And I need to keep loving you. And to have you love me. And I need to sleep in your arms because that’s when I sleep best, no waking up and lying there for hours. Just peaceful, happy sleep.

  “I guess we’ll have to come back,” I say.

  “I guess we will.”

  * * *

  —

  I’m determined to stay awake the entire night so that I don’t lose a minute. When I feel him fading, I say, “I’m floating.”

  His voice is dreamy as he says, “I love you too.” And he is drifting, drifting.

  I want to nudge him awake, to have him repeat it so I can be sure I heard him right. I want to shout, You actually said it first, even though you don’t think you did. You love me, Jeremiah Crew.

  But instead I lie there, feeling him breathe next to me, low and even. He shifts and pulls me closer and I stare up toward the ceiling and let myself live in those four little words.

  DAY 32

  When I wake up, his side of the bed is empty. I lie there, not wanting to get up, because once I get up, the day will officially start and the countdown to his leaving will begin. Maybe if I just lie here all day, somehow I will freeze time.

  “Morning, Captain.” He stands in the doorway, already dressed. Black shorts, sky-blue shirt. He says, “This day is a regular shit show.” His walkie-talkie buzzes and he glances at it, shakes his head. “Everyone needs something, the way they always need something when they know I have to be somewhere else.” He leans over me, kissing me. “Like here with you in this bed.”

  I try to pull him down onto the bed with me, but he breaks away, groaning a little.

  I say, “So what does that mean?”

  “That means I have a couple hours of things I have to do, but then I’m all yours.”

  He smiles.

  I smile.

  And part of me wonders if maybe he’s pretending to be busy to protect himself, because he knows he has to leave and it’s better to just get it over with. And part of me wonders if it might be easier to never see him again. I can tell myself I made him up and the summer wasn’t real, and go back to Ohio and see Saz and my dad and all my friends, and then go off to college like nothing ever happened.

  Except that he happened and we happened, and I just want one more day with him. An entire day, start to finish, with no This is the end but instead I’ll see you again someday.

  But no, he’s not making it up, because now he is on the walkie-talkie, pacing off down the hall, speaking to some unseen person. I sit up, swing my feet onto the floor, and reach for my clothes.

  * * *

  —

  We are going to meet after lunch and head to the beach. He drops me at the general store, where I buy a new notebook because mine is almost filled. This one is large and fat, with a green cover the color of spartina. I walk home in the sunlight.

  Back at Addy’s, I find my mom in the kitchen, book in hand, drinking coffee. Her hair is piled up on her head in a messy bun, and she is wearing her BADASS AUTHOR shirt, the one I bought her last Christmas.

  “I’m home.”

  “You
’re home.” She sets down the book. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes.” I can feel the wall, and I don’t want there to be a wall. I hug her and she hugs me back like she can feel it too. Together we knock it down, and then we pull apart because this is the thing about hugs—they have to end sometime even when you don’t want them to. I pour juice into two glasses, grab two bowls from the cabinet, open the cereal boxes. She hands me a cup of coffee. Then she nods at the window seat and the package sitting there.

  “Is that from him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I told him to stop sending me my things.”

  “So don’t open it.” She smiles. “But if I know your dad, that’s an apology.”

  I pick up our bowls and our glasses and our mugs—a balancing act—and take them to the table. I sit with my back to the window seat. My mom sits across from me.

  We eat for a moment in silence and then I say, “What was he like when you met him?”

  Her hand freezes in midair. She sets her mug down and stares up at the ceiling.

  “Complicated. Funny. A little full of himself, but in an endearing way. He believed he could do anything. He wore black because he was going through an artist phase and he felt older than everyone else, and he was this musical genius. I was a little in awe of him.” She doesn’t ask why I want to know.

  “After he graduated from Juilliard, why didn’t you stay in New York? Why didn’t he try to make it as a musician?”

  “Your dad never felt at home there, at the school or in the city. Music has always just come to him, but I don’t think the structure of a program like that worked for him.”

  “But he still could have done something with it.”

  “It’s not easy to make a living as an artist.”

  I say, “You do it.”

  “And I feel extremely grateful and also a bit like, God, I hope they don’t find out what a fraud I am.”