Single in Sitka

by Katy Regnery

  “I’ve never been to New York,” says Luke, offering me the box of popcorn he’s holding.

  “Have you ever been east at all?” I ask, taking a handful to nibble.

  He nods. “Yep. I’ve been to Boston a couple of times, and once to Florida. My parents took us to Disney World when we were kids.”

  “Ah, yes. A rite of passage for every American kid.”

  “I like Disneyland better,” he says.

  “Of course you do. You’re a west coaster.”

  “Even though my dad worked for Boeing—or maybe because he worked for Boeing, I’m not really sure—he wasn’t that big on air travel,” he explains. “My dad loved a long drive. And since most of our family lived between Seattle and San Francisco, we were always headed south.”

  “Which explains why the wonders of Whidbey have eluded you,” I say, reaching for more popcorn. “Full circle.”

  We munch on kernels companionably for a few minutes, staring out at the water together until Luke says, “I needed this.”

  I glance at him. “A boat ride?”

  “Getting out of the city.” He sighs. “This is good. It’s beautiful.”

  “I knew you’d like it.”

  “I do. I really like not being in a city.”

  “Come on.” I nudge him with my elbow. “Seattle’s not that bad. The Puget Sound? The Cascades?”

  He doesn’t look at me, but his tone is biting when he responds. “The homelessness? The litter? The crime? The constant drone of jackhammers and construction?”

  I’m a little taken aback by this first-time display of snark from Luke, whom I regard as good natured and easygoing. He doesn’t even sound like himself, and I’m not sure what to say, but my hackles rise in defense of the city I love.

  “But...the Hawks. Pike’s Place. The Space Needle!” I say.

  “Yeah,” he mutters, swiping at his bottom lip with his thumb as he stares out at the water.

  “Luke, you grew up in Seattle. You came back for college.”

  “And then I moved back to Alaska.”

  I laugh, but it comes out as a snort. “You can’t possibly compare Sitka to Seattle.”

  “No, you can’t,” he says, his tone even chillier than before. “Sitka wins, hands down.”

  I wait for him to take it back...to tell me he’s kidding. But he doesn’t, and that heaviness I haven’t felt since early this morning starts gathering again, pressing down on my chest uncomfortably.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am,” he says, turning slightly to look at me. “I’m dead serious.”

  “Luke, Seattle’s got everything! Parks, concerts, museums. It’s a major city. Sitka’s...well, it’s cute and all, but it’s tiny. It’s a tiny little town. It’s got nothing.”

  He’s still looking at me, but his eyes widen and his lips part in surprise. “Nothing?”

  “Oh, come on,” I say, putting a placating hand top of his. “I don’t mean it like that. It’s got you and your kids and some really pretty views, but...”

  As my voice trails off, he runs a hand through his hair, which breaks our physical connection, then turns away from me to look out at the water.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I say softly, feeling separate from him even though we are standing side by side. “I didn’t know you hated Seattle.”

  He takes a deep breath and sighs, trying, I think, to relax his body a little and find a gentle way to speak to me.

  “I don’t hate Seattle, Amanda. I took a walk around the city yesterday, and I could still see some vestiges of what I loved about it. It’s just... it’s changed a lot.” He turns back to me, scanning my face for a long moment before adding, “It’s not somewhere I would raise my kids.”

  “Oh,” I murmur, staring up at him, something inside of me clenching uncomfortably. “Huh. I didn’t—I didn’t realize that you felt that way. I thought...I mean, I guess I assumed that your ties to this area were stronger.”

  He shakes his head. “They aren’t.”

  A tone sounds from the loudspeakers over our heads and a voice says, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be arriving at the Clinton Terminal in approximately six minutes. Auto passengers, please return to your vehicles now. Welcome to Whidbey Island.”

  We make our way back to my car and sit inside quietly as we wait for the ferry to dock. For the first time since Luke came to visit me though, it’s not an easy silence. It’s heavy. It’s weird. And I hate it.

  Finally, he sighs loudly, and I shift my head to look at him.

  “Amanda,” he says, turning to look back at me, “I didn’t mean to put you on the defensive. You live here. Obviously you like it here.”

  “But you don’t.”

  He squirms in his seat but doesn’t answer, and I look away, out the windshield at the car in front of me that has its taillights on.

  Suddenly it feels claustrophobic in my little car, and maybe it’s because we’re shoved like sardines into the auto hold of a ferry, but I think it’s because there’s a one-thousand-pound elephant in the car with us, and I’ve only just now given meaning to her presence.

  My mind breaks it down into small bursts of thought:

  Luke likes Amanda.

  Amanda likes Luke.

  Luke and Amanda are exclusive.

  But Luke lives in Sitka, and Amanda lives in Seattle.

  And neither one is especially fond of the other person’s hometown.

  Hmm.

  I turn the key in my ignition, then rest my hand on the bolster between us. When I do, Luke covers my hand with his, his fingers curling around my palm. Out of nowhere, a sweet, totally unexpected, calm sweeps over me. Ella-the-phant makes a hasty retreat back to the zoo she came from, and I can finally breathe again.

  You don’t need to have all the answers today, my heart whispers as I switch our grip so that my fingers are threaded through Luke’s.

  When it’s my turn to drive, I slide my hand away, but not before turning to my boyfriend first.

  “It’ll be okay,” I tell him, though I have no idea how it will be okay.

  “Are you sure?” he asks me, his expression hopeful but uncertain.

  I’m not.

  I’m not sure.

  But I know—in the deepest places of my heart—that this man is special. We found our way to each other. We’ll figure out a way forward as well.

  “Yeah,” I say, pulling ahead into the bright sunshine of my favorite island. “I’m sure.”

  Chapter 12

  Luke

  “...and after that, Gran and PopPop took us for chocolate sundaes at Ghirardelli Square!”

  I chuckle at Meghan’s enthusiasm, missing my kids more than ever. “Wow, honey! Sounds amazing.”

  “Yeah. It is. But Gilly said we only have one more week here,” she laments.

  “That’s true,” I say. “I’ll be there on Friday to pick you up.”

  “Can’t we stay longer, Daddy? Pleeeeease?”

  “No, baby. I miss you. And besides, Gran and PopPop probably need a rest after chasing you guys all over San Francisco for three weeks.”

  Not to mention, I’ve noticed that my in-laws, who are great people, tend to get a little too attached to the kids if they spend more than three weeks together. I start getting more (unsolicited) advice about how to raise them too. And once, my mother-in-law, Shirley, even hinted at the possibility of them taking temporary custody of the kids to give me a “break” I don’t want and never asked for. I guess it’s just propinquity at work—or maybe it’s that they miss Wendy, and her children are the closest link they have to her—but over the last two years, I’ve realized that it’s not good to extend our visits. My kids are my kids, and while I want for them to have a healthy relationship with their only grandparents, it’s up to me as their sole parent to set and enforce boundaries.

  “Okay,” she says, giving up on the begging fast enough that I know she’s okay coming home. “You wanna talk to Chad?”
>
  “Of course.”

  There’s a shuffling of the phone from my youngest child to my oldest, and then I hear Chad’s voice on the line. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, son,” I say. “You behaving?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Looking after your sisters?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Having fun?”

  “Uh-huh. PopPop took me camping in Yosemite for two nights.”

  “Oh, yeah? How was that?”

  “Real good. I skinned and fileted my own catch.”

  “’Course you did,” I say, feeling my chest puff with pride. “Trout?”

  “Yes, sir. Beauties.”

  “Tell Cliff that maybe we’ll do a little fishing together when we come down at Christmas, huh?”

  “I know he’d like that, Dad.”

  “Gilly around, son?”

  “Nope. She and Gran went to the mall. Gilly said she needed bras.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Bras. Went on and on about how she has no bras and needs ’em, but between you and me, I don’t know what the heck she thinks she’s going to hold up. Just bug bites on her chest.”

  “Don’t tell her that,” I say, kicking myself that I didn’t take Gilly bra shopping here at home.

  No doubt Shirley will mention this to me when I see her. I can hear it now: I know how much you love these children, Luke, but girls need a woman around. I’ll tell her that we see Bonnie once a week, and she’ll wave me away and say that Bonnie’s tied up with her own kids. And maybe it’ll get under my skin faster than a lightning strike because at least some part of me knows that Shirley’s right.

  But I’m working on changing that, I think, flashing back to the last few days with Amanda. Thinking of her fills my belly with a warmth that feels amazing and painful at the same time. Amazing, because we made love before I left this morning, then reaffirmed our decision to be exclusive with each other. Painful because I’ve only been away from her for eight hours, and it feels like eight years...especially because we don’t have an immediate plan to see each other again.

  “No, I won’t,” says Chad, his voice snapping me back to reality.

  “Well, um...it’s good your gran could help her with that, I guess.”

  “It’s still kinda gross,” says Chad. “What time are you picking us up next Friday?”

  “My flight lands at nine,” I tell him. “I guess I’ll be there by ten if there’s no traffic.”

  “And then up to Coos Bay?”

  “That’s the plan, son.”

  When I’ve picked up the kids in San Francisco the past two summers, we’ve driven eight hours up the Pacific coast to Coos Bay, a small town in southern Oregon, where we spend a day or two visiting my father’s younger sister, Cecily, before flying home from Eugene via Seattle.

  “Jonah and Jess gonna be there?” he asks, referring to my cousin Libby’s kids.

  “Yep. That’s what Aunt Cece said. She’s hosting a big family barbecue on Saturday.”

  “Okay, cool.”

  I chat with Chad for a few more minutes, remind him to tell Gilly that I love her and to behave for his grandparents, then hang up.

  Even though it’s eight o’clock in the evening, it’s bright as noon outside. I grab a beer bottle from my fridge and head out to the front porch, admiring my fresh paintjob. I sit down in one of two bright-red wicker rockers that Wendy and I bought together and put my beer on a small table beside me. In the sky overhead, an eagle appears to weave in and out of fluffy white clouds, and a red tree squirrel collecting fuel for a long winter yells at me from a tree branch shading my front lawn.

  No homeless people yelling at me.

  No jackhammers.

  No crime.

  But no Amanda either.

  It’s hard to be happy—to feel content—when you miss someone.

  It’s hard to go about your daily routine because you’re constantly thinking about how much better your time would be spent if the person you miss could spend it with you.

  I thought about her when my plane landed, as I was driving home from the airport, when I went grocery shopping, and when I mowed the lawn this afternoon. How much better would it have been if she was beside me on the plane and in the car, throwing her favorite foods into the cart, and waiting for me with a glass of lemonade after the grass was cut?

  I can’t help it.

  I like her.

  I think I might even more-than-like her, though I’m hesitant to label my feelings. I haven’t known her for that long, and our entire relationship started out with instalust. I mean, I’m not in love with her or anything like that. It’d be too soon for feelings that deep.

  And yet...

  (And yet...)

  I sit up straighter and sigh.

  It doesn’t matter what my feelings are, does it? All that matters is that I miss her. I want her to be where I am. I want to talk to her and reach for her, make love to her and spend time with her. And while I’m relieved that we’re exclusive, that she won’t be with anyone else while we’re apart, what’s the point of exclusivity when we’re eight hundred miles away from each other?

  Trust, whispers my heart. Commitment.

  You’re establishing trust and commitment. And that’s worth a lot.

  But I rue every one of those eight hundred miles and wish them gone, wish her before me, wish her arms and her smell and her lips and her sweet, wet—

  Buzz. Buzz, buzz.

  Buzz. Buzz, buzz.

  I fish my phone out of my back pocket, and it probably shouldn’t surprise me to see her name on the screen, but it does. It does in a way that delights me wholly and lightens my burden, because I know that eight hundred miles isn’t quite far enough to dull the connection between us.

  “Hey,” I say, leaning back in the rocker.

  “Hi,” she says.

  I’m smiling like an idiot just to hear her voice, everything flurries and fever inside of my body. Sensation blurring logic. Like first love. Like falling in love. Like kissing in the rain or on top of a Ferris wheel. Like knowing a secret that might change your life.

  “Is this okay?” she asks. “I know you just left, and I don’t want to be a stalker, but—”

  “I miss you,” I say.

  “—I miss you,” she finishes, her words overlapping mine.

  We laugh at our timing but revel in the knowledge that our feelings are in sync. It makes us feel closer to each other.

  “How was your flight?”

  “Fine,” I say, using my bare foot to rock the chair. “How was your afternoon?”

  “Umm,” she hums. Her voice sinks. “Awful.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It sucks being the person left,” she says. “Everything looks the same but feels different.”

  I’m sorry she’s sad, but my ego can’t help feeling a tiny bit of satisfaction that my absence is the reason.

  “Did you go over to Leigh’s?”

  “Mm-hm. But they don’t really need me right now. I mean, I know I’m welcome. I’m always welcome, but even Anna Mae left yesterday. What Leigh and Jude really need is time alone with Kai. Bonding time or...something. I felt like...”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I was intruding.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.”

  “They’d never make me feel that way,” she rushes to say. “But they were all snuggled up on the couch watching a movie when I got there. The three of them. A little family.” She pauses for a second. “I only stayed for a few minutes.”

  “Then what?”

  “Oh...I went to yoga for an hour. Did some grocery shopping. Picked up my dry cleaning. It’s laundry day, but...”

  “But what?”

  “But my sheets still smell like you, and I don’t want to wash them.”

  She knocks the wind out of me with this admission because it’s so naked, so honest, and because I know I’d feel the same.

  “Then don’t,” I whi
sper. My heart speeds up, and my breath quickens. “Amanda, I’m...I’m crazy about you.”

  She laughs softly, but it’s a warm sound, full of joy. “I feel like that too.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “Me neither,” she says. I hear her breathe deeply and exhale slowly. “But how does this work?”

  “This? Us?”

  “Yeah. How do we do this? You’re there, and I’m here...”

  I take a deep breath and rise to my feet, standing at my porch railing. In the distance, I can see the snow-capped peak of Eureka Mountain. Only another seven hundred and fifty miles south to Amanda from there.

  “I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship before,” I admit, wishing I could share some great knowledge or terrific insight. I want to be a man that can reassure her and show her the way, but the reality is that I’m not positive how this works either. I only know I want it to. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn.”

  “Me too.”

  “We can talk on the phone,” I say. “Like this.”

  “And email,” she says. “And text.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “All of that. And visit too.”

  “When?” she blurts out. “Not to put you on the spot, but I hate not having a plan to see you again. Even if it’s not for a month or two, I want to look forward to it, you know?”

  A month or two?

  A goddamned month or two?

  No. No way I’m waiting a month or fucking two to see my woman again. Hell no. If eight hours feels like a lot, sixty days is an eternity. No. Just...no. There’s got to be a better solution.

  “Well, let’s figure that out,” I tell her. “Kids go back to school in four weeks. Next Friday, I pick them up in San Francisco, and we drive up the coast to this little town called Coos Bay in southern Oregon. And then—”

  “I know where that is!” she exclaims. “You’ll be there on Saturday? This Saturday?”

  “Yeah. My aunt lives there. We visit every summer for a few days.”

  “Oh,” she says, her voice a little softer. “A family visit. That’s nice.”

  “Yep. Nice...” I say, but my mind is wandering. An idea is forming. It hadn’t occurred to me before now, but I wonder if she’d want to...if she’d even consider—