Breathless

by Jennifer Niven

  “Do you think you’d still be together if he hadn’t given up music?”

  “I don’t know. I want you to promise me something, though. That you will go out into the world and fulfill all your Claudeness.”

  “I promise.”

  We sit, picking up our cereal spoons at the exact same moment, picking up our coffee mugs at the exact same moment, perfectly synchronized.

  “Stop it,” I say.

  “You stop it.”

  And now we’re laughing. And now we’re both making the winding-down noise, like a sigh, which gets us started again.

  “Mom? I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’m going to miss you. Something awful. But I’ll be coming to New York to see you. I may even bring Dandelion. And it’ll be Thanksgiving before you know it. In the meantime I’m going to be cheering you on as you go out and write your life, and I’ll be busy being so incredibly proud of who you are.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “After I take you to New York and drop you at your residence hall and hug you goodbye? Probably eat a pound of Oreos and cry into Dandelion’s fur.”

  “And what are you going to do after that?”

  “I don’t know.” She looks past me, out the window. “Probably stay here for a while. Your aunt Katie wants to come down. And”—she shrugs—“I like it. It feels good. There’s work to be done.”

  “The island has a way of giving you what you need. Like the sunrise. When the world starts over. Miah’s friend Shirley calls it dayclean.”

  “Dayclean.” She smiles her best Mom smile. “That’s lovely.”

  I say, “I love you more than bike riding and Rosecroft at dusk and words. I love you more than words.”

  “I love you more than words too.” She sits back, both hands around the mug, sunlight catching the gold in her hair. “You know, you get that from him—I love you more than.”

  “No I don’t. Saz and I made it up when we were little.”

  “You and Saz may have made it your own, but you got it from your dad.”

  * * *

  —

  A knock on the door, and it’s Jared. He hands me a note with an apologetic smile, and immediately my heart sinks. This is it. Miah’s goodbye. I almost hand the paper back to Jared, but instead I open it.

  Captain, putting out fires everywhere. (Not actual ones, thank God.)

  I’m taking a later boat so we can have some time. I’ll meet you at Addy’s tonight at 5 p.m.

  Love,

  Miah

  * * *

  —

  Jared and I bike to the old airfield for a picnic lunch. A horse and her foal graze nearby. Afterward we lie in the grass and watch them. My eyes are heavy from the heat and the meal.

  He goes, “Claude?”

  I turn my head and he’s looking at me, hand shading his eyes.

  “Yeah?” I raise my own hand to my eyes so I can see him.

  “What does it feel like to be in love?”

  I stretch my arms over my head and turn my eyes and face skyward. I take my time answering because I’m not sure how to answer. It’s more emotion than words, and I’ve never really thought about how to describe it. I think of the fear and doubt and worry that come with all this feeling. The questioning and the opening up about every little thing until you feel like a frog on a dissection table, completely exposed. The caring too much, or maybe just enough, and the scariness that comes with that. The fact that there is one person on this earth who has the ability to hurt you more than any other because that’s how much you love them. The having to trust that they won’t and that maybe, just maybe, they mean what they say and that, at least for a while, they can be your floor.

  Finally I say, “When it’s with the right person, you feel invincible and seen and at home, no matter where you are in the world.”

  He sighs. “I’d like to feel invincible.”

  Afterward we bike back to the inn and he sneaks me into the Blackwood Suite, where the Secret Drawer Society letters live. The room is airy and bright, and the desk takes up one entire wall. It looks as if it’s sleeping, a great hulking giant. Two suitcases sit by the dresser. Clothes hang in the closet.

  “Someone’s staying in here?”

  Jared says, “It’s okay. I asked permission.”

  I’m not sure if I believe him, but it’s too late—he’s reaching his hand deep inside the giant’s mouth, the recesses of the desk drawer, and pulling out a fistful of letters. He hands them to me and together we read.

  Father to son, mother to daughter, husband to wife, sister to brother, friend to friend. Words of wisdom and longing and love. Apologies, poems, a marriage proposal, an epitaph. Sometimes the notes are anonymous. Some are just a sentence or two; others are pages long.

  I say, “What’s the oldest letter you’ve read?”

  “Uh…1994, I think.”

  “Is that as far back as they go?”

  “We clean them out now and then to make room for new ones. There are boxes of them up in the attic here.”

  “So there could be some in there from the Blackwoods.”

  “There are for sure some Blackwood letters in there. One of the Blackwoods actually started the SDS.”

  “Claudine?”

  “Her mother.”

  And he points to the wall above the desk, where a simple gold frame hangs. Inside the frame is a note, the size of a postcard, written in black ink on light blue paper, edges yellowed. The handwriting is neat and elegant and perfectly slanted, as if it’s bowing.

  Dear Friend,

  Welcome to the Secret Drawer Society. You’re invited to leave letters, notes, souvenirs. Write it down, whatever it is. Your words matter. Tuck them in here, where they will be kept safe.

  Sincerely yours,

  Tillie Donaldson Blackwood

  September 23, 1933

  Five years before she died, and the year that Claudine was born.

  I feel a chill go through me, and then something more—a kind of lightning warmth. As far as I know, this right here is the only piece of Tillie correspondence that remains. A lovely, romantic legacy from a vibrant, alive woman. I pull out my phone and take a photo of the letter.

  Before we leave, I add one of my own.

  Dear Claude, write your own story. Love, me.

  * * *

  —

  Back at Addy’s, I sit on the window seat and pick up the package, which is heavier than it looks. I give it a good shake and it rattles. Whatever is in here will never be enough apology, but I open it anyway.

  Inside is a mound of Christmas tissue paper, silver and blue with snowflakes. On top, a postcard. Welcome to Ohio, worst of the Midwest, it says over a photo of the giant blue arch over I-70 that welcomes you to the state. Underneath the arch stretches a flat, endless highway. We have fields! Corn! Pigs! Meth! And more fields!

  I flip it over. On the back, my dad has written:

  Dear Clew,

  I’m thinking you can’t find this on the island and you’re probably really craving it by now. If you can eat up all of them before you leave, I’ll be beyond impressed. Awed, even. Bring the survivors (if there are any) home, and I promise to make them for you. I love you.

  Love,

  Your dad, such as he is. For better or worse, like it or not. The dad you’re stuck with, who doesn’t deserve you, but will always love you, no matter what.

  I set the card aside and dig through the tissue, and suddenly I’m blinking and blinking as hard as I can because I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not forgive him and I will not cry.

  Five minutes later, I’m wiping my face with a washcloth and staring at my red, puffy eyes in the bathroom mirror. I go back into the dining room, back to the
window seat, where I’ve lined up the contents of the package, one by one. Twelve boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese.

  * * *

  —

  It’s five o’clock when Miah drives up to Addy’s in his truck. I hear him coming and run to meet him on the porch.

  He says, “I’m sorry, Captain. Someone broke into the Park Service office, two of the Outward Bound campers are lost, Bram and Shirley need me to close up their house, and my sister called.”

  “Is your mom okay?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  He rests his forehead against mine and whispers, “Let’s just run away.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

  He closes his eyes and I close mine.

  After a moment, he pulls away and lets out this long sigh. “I’m going to charter off at nine-forty-five tonight. That gives us a little more time.”

  He gives me a sad smile, and he’s trying his best to make it seem bright and normal, and then there’s this instant when the smile vanishes and he’s looking into me, so deep I can feel it.

  He says, “I’ve got a few more things to do and then I’ll come find you.”

  Suddenly it washes over me—this sinking feeling. I try to shove it aside. I tell myself it’s just sadness over him leaving and the fact that our time on the island is at an end. But it’s more than that. I feel this flash of panic because something in me is saying, This is it. This is your goodbye.

  “What is it, Captain?”

  He’s smiling again but his eyes are worried. I can tell he thinks it’s true, that he’ll come find me.

  “Nothing,” I say. Because I have this need to chase away the worry, to look into his eyes right now and see only me.

  Then he kisses me, and it’s just kissing. Nothing more. But somehow it means the most of all.

  DAY 32

  (PART TWO)

  I’m sitting at dinner and trying to focus on the conversation, but my eyes are on the door, watching for Miah. I’ve told myself I was being dramatic earlier. Of course he’s going to come find me. Then I have this vision of him appearing, just like he promised, and me not seeing him, and him leaving, no chance to say goodbye.

  I say to my mom, “I’ll be right back. Bathroom.” I slip out of the dining room and past the bathroom to the wide double doors that lead onto the front lawn, which is empty. I wait for a minute. Two minutes. And then I slink back to the table and sit down.

  Mom glances at me but doesn’t say anything.

  Jared brings in dessert and tells me he’s going off-island tomorrow for a few days to visit friends. He says, “You have to let me know when you’re back.”

  And I say, “I’m not sure I’ll be back anytime soon. But if you’re here, then maybe I’ll come see you.”

  “Well, you’re always welcome here on the Island of Misfit Toys. You’re one of us now.” Wednesday walks past and I wave. She waves back.

  I say, “I’m honored to be one of you.”

  And then Jared throws his arms around me and hugs me so hard I can’t breathe. “I’m glad I met you,” he whispers in my ear.

  “I’m glad I met you, too.”

  He walks away and I sit a little straighter, blinking away the tears that have sprung up for some reason. I push the dessert around on my plate and set down my fork.

  My mom is talking and the other guests are talking, but they are like background music. It’s 9:21 and his charter leaves at 9:45.

  Nine-twenty-two.

  Nine-twenty-three.

  Nine-twenty-four.

  At 9:25, I don’t say anything to my mom or the people at our table. I just get up and walk out. This time I go upstairs to the main floor and out the front door.

  Outside it’s dark and the rain is falling, just a sprinkling now, and the stars are emerging like flowers, hesitant but hopeful, and the cicadas are humming and it is summer everywhere.

  I stand on the porch and watch for his truck. Tonight there will be headlights because the lightning bugs, like the stars, have gone momentarily dim from the rain. I will see the truck before I hear it, if he’s coming from the south.

  Nine-twenty-eight.

  I splash down the front steps, the little dips and hollows in the old wood collecting puddles. I stand at the bottom, in the drive, the rain wetting my skin and my hair and my dress. I look south and north because he could be coming from anywhere.

  Nine-thirty-one.

  I tell myself he’s running late as always. He’s probably packing feverishly and trying to close up the little blue house and Bram and Shirley’s house. He’s probably putting out a fire or helping the Outward Bound campers who aren’t lost anymore but found because of him. He’s probably loading the boat before he comes to tell me goodbye.

  Nine-thirty-five.

  I will meet him at the boat. I take off my shoes and run down the drive, underneath the live oaks that are out of some ancient fairyland, toward the water. I run down the path littered with shells, barely feeling the way their sharp little edges jab into the soles of my feet, and I am looking for headlights as I go. I don’t stop running until I’m at the dock.

  Which is empty.

  I stand for a long time, staring out over the water, black and endless except for the glow of lights in the far distance. And this, I know, is the mainland. It might as well be light-years away.

  I wait for a boat to appear.

  I wait for Miah to come.

  I wait.

  I wait.

  Suddenly, I don’t feel the rain on my skin or my hair or my clothes because the only thing I feel is the ache in my heart. An ache like I’ve never felt before. It’s both terrible and beautiful. And it fills me. It fills me.

  We were supposed to have more time.

  We’re always supposed to have more time.

  I sink onto the bench, which is damp and which leaves me damper. At some point the rain stops completely. I look up and the stars overhead are a carpet of light. There’s this feeling I have here. Miah’s a part of it. But he’s not all of it. It’s the summers of childhood when I was eight, ten, twelve. And those kinds of beautiful moments where everything is full of love and light and possibility.

  I rest one hand on the wood of the seat and my fingers bump into something cool and smooth. I look down. A shark tooth. The largest one I’ve ever seen. And there, drawn around it, a circle.

  * * *

  —

  I turn back up the path and walk toward the inn, shark tooth in my pocket. Through the trees, the porch lights shine like beacons, like lanterns illuminating the way to the world beyond. I go up the steps, feet splashing in the little dips in the wood. I slip on my shoes, brush the hair off my face, but otherwise I don’t bother. This is me, take it or leave it—wet and rumpled and missing Miah.

  * * *

  —

  “Claude?” Mom’s voice calls out to me from the end of the porch. She is perched on the edge of the swing, as if she’s been watching for me. I walk over and sit down beside her, a lump in my throat as large as the ocean.

  “Everything okay?” she says. And she knows. I can see it in her face.

  “It will be.” But my heart doesn’t believe it.

  She takes my hand, and the swing rocks back and forth, back and forth, as we listen to the rain.

  At 9:53, I feel it. The island is emptier because he’s no longer on it.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t want to go home yet, so I head to the beach, not caring if I run into alligators or snakes or wild hogs. Under the trees, over the dunes, onto the sand, until I’m beneath the moon and all this sky. I’m too restless to sit. I drop my bag and kick off my shoes and walk. The tide rolls in like thunder and I’m the only one here.

  I walk for at least a mile. I’m trying not to look at the
lights in the distance, the ones that are the neighboring islands. Because beyond those islands is the mainland, and on that mainland is Jeremiah Crew, who didn’t say goodbye.

  The old me would have told myself he didn’t care, that I didn’t mean to him what he meant to me, and that’s why he left without seeing me even though he told me he would come.

  But I know it isn’t true.

  He didn’t come because—what was it he said the day he was bleaching the bones? I can’t imagine saying goodbye to you.

  The waves thunder in. The waves thunder out.

  I move to the soft sand high above the tide line. And then, for some reason, I start thinking about my parents. Maybe there’s no one answer to why they had to end. And there’s no one answer to how to make love last. My parents were two people who loved each other for a long time. Until they didn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that they once loved each other and that they’ll always love me.

  I am so busy thinking about this that I almost miss it—the markings of a path leading to the ocean. I tell myself it’s probably a ghost crab or a raccoon. I bend over, studying the path, which is almost like a single tire track, deeper ridges on the outside, fainter ridges on the inside.

  My heart starts hammering away, and I scramble to find the start of the trail, which is from a nest up against the dunes. Please don’t let the path end. For some reason, it can’t.

  I follow it down, down, down, until it disappears into the water. And maybe the tracks ended before the tide rolled in, or maybe the hatchling made it all the way. I tell myself it made it all the way.

  I scan the ocean, as far as I can see, searching for any sign of this brave survivor even though I know it’s long gone by now, and the thought of it out there in the world makes me want to cry. Good for you, I think. I hope you make it as far as Africa.

  And then I gaze out at the distant glow on the horizon that is the mainland and think about Jeremiah Crew, who is also out there somewhere. I may never see him again, and the thought of never seeing him again is a cold, sharp knife. But maybe he was right. Maybe it doesn’t matter where I go or what I do or who I know—I’ll always have Claude and Miah, Miah and Claude, forever.