The November Girl

by Lydia Kang

  So we stand there, two terrible people capable of terrible things.

  But not today. It will be a détente of sorts, where we leave our miseries and propensity for unhappiness outside ourselves.

  Until tomorrow morning.

  Then I will go back to being myself. November will be mine once again, and Hector will not.

  I should be relieved, truly. But if I am, why do I ache so much?

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  HECTOR

  We eat a little, though neither of us is hungry.

  We drink a little, though neither of us is thirsty.

  We do these things, because everything ordinary is extraordinary when the time is ticking down really fucking fast.

  That night, when the sun sets and the air is misty, we take a walk outside after being indoors for hours. Maybe kissing, for hours. Maybe talking. I don’t need to count the minutes of anything we do. That would mean that time was passing, and I don’t want the reminder.

  Outside, the temperature has dropped, and the sun is a gold crescent on the horizon. The lighthouse winks on, and its beam fills the fog with a dull light. Anda eyes the tower like a sulky kid.

  “Come on. You should go up there,” I urge her.

  “Why? The light hates me.”

  I could ask exactly how she knows that, but I don’t. I can see it in how she carries her body. Withdrawing into herself, as if being pelted by acid instead of rain.

  “C’mon.” I take her hand and bring her back inside. She drags her feet all the way, but not so much that she’s not willing to come with me. I take both sleeping bags in my arms and lead her through the house and the back corridor to the interior of the lighthouse. Anda sucks air between her teeth as soon as she touches the iron railing.

  “Really, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Why?” I say, several steps above her. From here, she looks up at me, and her eyes are huge in the darker light inside. Her skin is luminous, as if she can channel the unseen moonlight.

  “Because we are opposites. I can feel its hostility for me. And I despise it, too.” She narrows her eyes. “Why are you so insistent on bringing me up here?”

  “Because. I never thought I would tell a single soul the truth about me. And I did. And…” I close my eyes, taking a huge breath. “I feel better. Not fixed. Not by a long shot. But better.” I open my eyes and stare at her. “I don’t know, Anda. I have a feeling that if you tried to make peace with it, it would be…good.” She waits for something more, knowing I’m holding back. Finally, I smile sheepishly. “And also, I want to see you in a light, bright as day. All night long.”

  Anda smiles a little, but she doesn’t seem convinced. She carries her worry with her like lead weights on her feet, taking one clonking, heavy step after the other up the spiral staircase. Her breathing comes with more effort, a slow rasping sound as if she’s harboring razor blades in her throat. The closer to the top we get, the larger her eyes get, wide with fear and apprehension. When we finally reach the iron gallery, she squeezes my hand so hard that her nails bite into my skin.

  “It’s too…” she begins, but doesn’t finish her sentence. She shakes her head and crumples down onto the iron floor surrounding the glass-chambered light. I immediately drop to my knees to help her, but she hisses at me. I back off.

  Her hands touch the metal below her and she snatches them away, as if they’d scorched her. She lets out a shriek of fierce anger, an almost feral noise. I take a few more steps away, giving her room. Something incendiary is playing out inside her head. I pray that the sleeping bags in my arms won’t spontaneously combust. Was it a mistake to bring her up here?

  “It’s okay. Forget it. We’ll go back down,” I say quickly, holding out a hand. Anda recoils from my hand and grimaces.

  “Stop. Just, stop.”

  In the slowest of slow motions, she lowers her fingers to the black metal beneath her. Her fingers quiver with pain when they make contact, and she shuts her eyes tightly. Her shoulders shake, and she drops her head, feeling whatever it is that the sandstone bricks of the building have stored up for over a century. A keening issues from her throat, a sound too much like wind against the eaves of an old building.

  When she finally raises her eyes, they’re bloodshot. Dark circles shadow beneath them. It’s like she’s mourned a thousand deaths in the space of a minute. I take a cautious step closer.

  “Are you…okay?” God, that’s a stupid question.

  “No.” She whimpers and wipes her wet cheeks. “But I would like to lie down now.”

  “Here? I didn’t realize it would be so bad. I’m sorry. We can go back down.”

  “No. We’ll stay here,” she says miserably. “It’s okay.”

  I don’t ask again. I shake out the sleeping bags and zip them together so we can lie inside together. She wriggles to get her feet to the bottom, and her body curves around the gallery as the light pulses above us. Anda shuts her eyes tightly.

  “I can see the light even with my eyes closed.” She frowns deeply.

  I kick off my boots and scoot next to her. It’s cold as a meat locker with the wind up here, but I don’t care. I slip one arm beneath her head as a pillow and wrap the other around her waist. The air is still damp and misty, and I shiver.

  “Cold?”

  “Not much,” I lie.

  She harrumphs at my bravado. She can see right through me. “Well. It is November, after all.” Anda smiles a tiny bit, and I smile back, and her hands move beneath the sleeping bag. The wind around us dies down and suddenly it’s not quite as cold as it was only seconds ago.

  Oh.

  “You did that, didn’t you? When we hiked on the island. You kept it from being too cold.”

  Anda nods.

  Every once in a while, I silently freak out. This isn’t real, she isn’t real, this can’t be real, holy hell, what is going on. And then I try not to hyperventilate and remember that she’s here, and I’m wasting my time doing reality checks.

  We lie there for a long while, not speaking. Just watching the light pulsing inside our eyelids when they’re closed, letting it bleach the insides of our eyeballs when they’re open. Finally, after a long time, I ask.

  “So what did it say? The lighthouse?”

  Anda’s eyes are closed right now. I run my fingertip across her dark lashes, and she allows it. “It told me that November was not the only answer.”

  “Huh? To what question?”

  “I don’t know. I have to think on it. But then it…it asked me for an apology.”

  “And?”

  “It showed me exactly what I’ve done. So I apologized. And I showed it what men have done to the lake. And it apologized.”

  “Are you friends now?”

  She shakes her head. “But we understand each other a little better.”

  I trace my finger down her cheek, then over the swell of her lips. I want to kiss her so badly, but I now have the distinct feeling that we’re not alone. I pull my hand back, and she catches it.

  “Don’t worry about the lighthouse. It doesn’t care about such things,” she says, and puts my hand lower, against her collarbone.

  “What things?”

  “These things.” Anda slips her hand under my shirt, her fingers touching the ripples of my rib cage and then down, drawing a line across my belly where the waistband of my pants is. My body flashes with heat, and I swallow, shutting my eyes.

  “Anda.” It’s a million questions at once.

  “Yes, Hector.”

  And that’s the last thing we say for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  ANDA

  The lighthouse does not speak again that evening, and neither does anything else. I’m glad of it. There is no room for any voices in my head.

  Hector fell asleep when the cloud-draped moon was only four fingers from dipping below the horizon. I watch him by the light of the flashes until moonset. He will be angry when he wakes up
, to feel like he’s wasted time on sleeping. But his body has different needs than mine.

  Well, except for last night.

  Last night was so many things. Painful and clumsy. Instinctual and tender. And easy, far too easy, to succumb to a facet of myself I’d owned but banished until Hector was there to wake it up.

  The eastern sky warms with lemon and peach hues as Hector stirs. His eyes blink sleepily, and his hand finds mine, still resting on his shoulder where I haven’t moved it for four hours.

  “Oh no,” he groans. “I fell asleep.”

  “You did. You sleep beautifully.”

  He rubs his eyes. “Your father is going to be back soon.”

  “Yes. We should have some tea waiting for him. That would be easier for him to digest than seeing this.”

  I point to the area between us. Which is to say, the nonexistent area between us.

  We spend a few more precious minutes just lying together. Hector’s eyes are open and seeing, memorizing me in a quiet, frantic way. Neither of us wants the fairy tale to end. Every minute is a desperate last one, until finally Hector plucks my hands off his body.

  “C’mon. It’s time,” he says, with as much regret in his voice as I feel in my belly.

  The lighthouse pretends to sleep as we dress hurriedly and gather the sleeping bags. As we descend the staircase, it creaks. I swear it says something like:

  See. You’re more human than you think.

  “I thought you weren’t watching,” I whisper back.

  November is not the only answer, you know.

  I furrow my brow. “I don’t understand.”

  Hector turns around, arms full of sleeping bag. “Did you say something?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  He’d be upset if he knew the truth—that the lighthouse was probably laughing at us all night long.

  We get ourselves into a semblance of dressed and normal, with reconstituted oatmeal cooking and three mugs of tea, when we hear Father’s motorboat purring nearby. We go out to meet him as he throws the anchor onto the shore.

  “Well?” Anda asks.

  “All cleaned up. I couldn’t hike the trail, of course. Not enough time. But I trust that nothing too bad was left behind there. I fixed the broken door on the camp store in Windigo and left an IOU for the missing items.”

  Hector nods respectfully. “Thank you, Mr. Selkirk. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says brightly. Too brightly.

  Ah. He’s joyful that Hector is leaving.

  “Do you have time for breakfast?” Hector offers, but Father shakes his head.

  “I’m afraid not. The fellows will be at the harbor in two hours to bring you back, and I’m already behind. I’m going to fill the tank with gas. Only be a minute. I’ve got a few granola bars you can have on the way.”

  I go with Hector back to the house to gather his pack. Inside, he captures me in a hug so fierce, I can’t draw a breath.

  “It feels like a dream,” he says. “Like it’s all been a dream.”

  “Good,” I whisper. “Keep it close. Don’t forget me.”

  “Never,” he tells me.

  I can’t believe he’s going. And I can’t believe I’m letting him leave.

  It is the right thing to do. The other way would have been in a coffin.

  Mother’s voice oozes contentment. She acts as if this is the only way, as if she has forgotten it all. That once, she allowed a human’s love in her life. That she allowed me to be conceived, just as I consciously chose not to kindle a new life last night.

  The air around us grows humid, and spots of moisture begin to plink down on our faces as we grip each other hard. The door opens and we spring apart, wiping our faces. Father sees the pack on the floor and grabs it. “Time to go.”

  I follow them to the boat, and Hector climbs in, his lips in a grim, straight line. When Father starts the boat and pulls up the anchor, he doesn’t say good-bye. I know he’ll be back again to check on me. He always comes back.

  Hector turns away from me and hunches over. He can’t even stand to look at me.

  I can’t hold back anymore. I cry in earnest, feeling the loss of him. It twists and gnaws inside, and instinct tells me that I could take him back—piece by bloody piece, if I wanted. I could have him forever. But I can’t.

  I won’t.

  The sky above roils with low pressure, and the clouds descend closer to earth, trying to enshroud me with a mantle of comfort. Drops begin to fall with intention. In the distance, neither Father nor Hector does anything to shield himself from the downpour.

  In the end, I can’t stop anything. I’ll go back to being Anda, only half of a whole that can’t live with any peace, not without destroying something precious or losing something I can’t afford to lose.

  As the sound of the boat recedes and the noise of the rain slaps on the water in a rising discord, I lift my hand to my cheeks. My fingertips touch the mix of rain and tears there. I bring it to my lips. It’s salty and the tiniest bit sweet. The beautiful and the broken, woven together.

  It tastes like us.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  HECTOR

  She’s upset.

  The rain gushes down in frigid torrents and soaks me. I have one poncho in my bag, but I give it to Mr. Selkirk to wear, though he protests at first. I want to feel this rain. It’s Anda. Even though it’s chilling me to the core. It crushes me to know that I can’t do anything to console her.

  For two hours as we travel back to Rock Harbor, Mr. Selkirk and I barely talk. There’s nothing to talk about, really. I know that Anda’s father probably gave us that one day on Menagerie Island together to say good-bye. He certainly doesn’t want to talk about that. When I get on that boat in Rock Harbor, it will take me away, with the hope that I never return. He probably doesn’t want to talk about that, either, because any other option means putting Anda in danger.

  And since he’s doing me a favor by not turning me in to the police, I don’t bring up anything in case he changes his mind.

  So silence is the way to go for the whole trip.

  The boat spends most of the time pitching and rolling, and I hang on to the slippery side rails as best I can. At some point, the rain lets up, and I wonder what Anda’s thinking. Maybe she’s already forgetting. Maybe she’s entranced by some shiny rock and can’t be bothered by memories of me anymore.

  I lean my head down on my arm, trying to shut my mind off to everything but thoughts of last night. Miraculously, despite the bumpy ride, I must fall asleep, because Mr. Selkirk yelps at me to wake up. For a second, I’m lost to where I actually am.

  “Hey. We’re here.”

  The boat’s already slowed down, and I shake the sleep from my foggy head. My bag is still by my feet, held down by a bungee cord. I look around, trying to see the land coming up quickly ahead of us. There’s a white boat—the same one that dropped off Anda’s father when we first saw him. Tiny specks of men stand on the dock. There are at least four, maybe five.

  Five?

  “How many friends of yours are picking me up?”

  “One. Why?”

  “Look.”

  Mr. Selkirk takes his hands off the steering wheel for a moment to dry off his misted circular glasses, then puts them back on. He frowns when he sees the dock.

  “There are two boats there.”

  I let go of the railing and come to his side of the boat for a better look. He’s right. There are two boats, one behind the other. The partially hidden one has a thick orange stripe running along the edge.

  It’s the Coast Guard.

  “Fuck!” I blurt out.

  What, what, what am I going to do? I can’t pretend I’m someone I’m not. The Coast Guard is probably here for me. I tried hard to cover my tracks, but maybe not hard enough. Maybe they found my Isle Royale searches on the school library computers? It doesn’t matter. My heart pounds so thickly in my head that my inner ears ache.

 
“Calm down, Hector. There’s no point in making a scene.”

  He’s right, of course. But I can’t help but wonder if he’s secretly happy that I’m going to be in custody soon, instead of freely wandering the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, drooling and pining for his daughter.

  I try to control my breathing and prepare for what’s going to happen. I might be cuffed and searched. I might not. There’ll be another few hours of a nauseating boat ride back to Grand Portage. There’ll be a radio into the police and my uncle will be contacted.

  And then my dad.

  And if anyone cares, my mom.

  I have hours, at least, before I have to face my uncle. I imagine his fury. I imagine his eyes on me, the ones that are always wordlessly asking for forgiveness and silence. Nausea rises in my throat and I think of ways to escape. Diving off the ship? I’ll just get soaked in freezing water before they turn around and pick me up. Running away deeper into Isle Royale? Well, that will last until I fall down from exhaustion. I’ll have no food. No shelter.

  I’m trapped.

  My whole brilliant, idiot idea of staying here didn’t work.

  As our boat slows even more and the dock is only a hundred yards away, the four men grimly wait for us. One is wearing plain clothes—the guy that Mr. Selkirk was with the other day. The other three are in Coast Guard uniforms, wearing faces about as welcoming as a hypodermic shot in the arm.

  They all watch us with steely eyes as our boat closes the distance, but seem relieved when Mr. Selkirk throws them a line. One of the uniformed guys grabs it and ties it firmly to a bollard on the dock.

  I force myself to stand up and stare them each in the eye.

  “Hector Williams?” the middle officer asks, firmly.

  Hearing my name nauseates me. I never knew a name could sound like a judge’s guilty verdict.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I say, finally.

  The officer is my height but with salt-and-pepper hair and a two-gallon paunch. He frowns when he looks me up and down. Almost like it’s my fault he’s got to work on a dismal November day. Oh wait. It is my fault.