Unforgiven

by Anne Calhoun

“I should have come before,” he said. “I should have come when I got out of the hospital, or before I left for boot camp, or after. I should have called you. I didn’t, and that was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  They were the most pathetic words imaginable. To err was human. To forgive was divine. Neither is Marine Corps policy. He understood why now. Because fucking up left gaping wounds that scarred over if they healed at all.

  He shouldn’t have come, but here he was, flashing hot and cold, sick to his stomach. Ashamed. Absolutely riddled with a shame and regret so visceral he could taste the dirt in his mouth, smell the blood.

  He had no right to be here. He waited for the vilification he deserved.

  “Will you tell me what happened that night?” she asked gently. “The chief gave me the official version, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

  He cleared his throat. Started at the beginning. “I had a fight with Marissa Brooks over . . . well. Over something. I was angry and cocky and arrogant, a bad combination for a seventeen-year-old boy. I called a couple of friends to come party at Brookhaven. The next thing I knew, ‘a couple of friends’ turned into fifty or sixty kids and things got out of hand. I got out of hand.”

  He stopped. Breathed. Swallowed hard as he met her calm, unflinching gaze.

  “I was really wrecked. I only remember flashes of it, but somewhere along the line I got the great idea to rip the paneling out of Brookhaven’s main room and burn it in the meadow. Marissa begged me to leave the house alone, but I just shook her off. I remember Josh pulling up on his new bike. He was so proud of it.”

  This was like lancing a pus-filled boil, the stink and rotting matter oozing out, but he couldn’t stop now. “I don’t remember challenging him to a race, but it must have been my idea. I do remember that Josh didn’t want to do it, and I do remember ragging at him, calling him names until he said he’d do it.”

  How could she stand to look at him? He hadn’t been able to look in the mirror for years.

  “I was the more experienced rider, and I knew I could beat him, but Josh rode hell-bent for leather from the moment we took off. I was pushing my bike’s limits on the dirt roads north of Brookhaven. Josh angled for the inside around the last corner. I wouldn’t drop back and let him in. He hit a rut going eighty miles an hour, maybe a little faster. That’s how fast I was going. All I know is one second he was beside me and the next his bike was sliding back down the road. I managed to keep control as I braked. I found Josh in the ditch.”

  No need to tell Josh’s mother the details, how his body was twisted unnaturally, his face in the mud and cattails. He must have hit a rock that dented the side of his skull like a divot on a golf course. His thighbone protruded through his jeans, his pelvis was oddly twisted, like his hips had shifted ninety degrees to the right, and blood seeped from his nose and mouth. No need to tell her that the clarity that came when he saw the body was remarkably similar to how he felt now, how the screams in his ears sounded so very far away yet were loud enough to bring fifty kids from Brookhaven, on foot and in cars.

  He looked at Josh’s senior class picture and prayed to whatever god would listen to him after all he’d done that this image of Josh, alive, smiling, whole, would replace the shattered face in his dreams.

  He came back to the kitchen, to Mrs. Wilmont and the aroma of pie dough and sugar. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “There’s nothing I can say or do to make up for what I did, or the fact that it took me twelve years to come here, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  He was crying, he realized. The emotions from that night, driven deep into the depths of his soul, gripped his throat in a tight fist, the wet, hot drops plunking on his hands, limp and helpless in his lap. He was crying silently when he had no business doing any such thing in front of the mother of the boy he killed as surely as if he’d held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. And he was saying I’m sorry like it was a prayer, like the god who filled his dreams with Josh’s battered head would grant him absolution.

  Then she reached across the table, not for his hand, but for his face. She cupped his jaw, wet with tears, and leaned toward him. “Adam,” she said through tears of her own, shining bright but unshed, “Adam. Listen to me. You were just a boy. I forgive you.”

  The sobs tore from his chest like a giant hand reached in and ripped them out, one by one, through twelve years of armor that turned out to be no more defense than gauze. He doubled over in Mrs. Wilmont’s kitchen, rested elbows on knees and linked his hands behind his neck, and cried out a decade’s worth of regret and fear and self-hatred. She patted his shoulder until the sobs tapered off, then got up and found a box of tissues. Her face was full of compassion, and sadness. She knew grief. He’d taught her grief, and that thought was more than he could bear.

  “You’ve been carrying this around since Josh died.” He just nodded. “I wondered,” she said quietly. “You seemed tightly wound when you came home. Rigid. I almost talked to you several times, but I couldn’t give you what you didn’t know you needed.”

  He thought about how he would have responded to her approaching him on the street, or at the Heirloom. He would have been stiffly formal, all walls up, barricaded behind his suit-of-armor identity, desperate to look like he had it all together. He thought about how that would have felt to her—like shame heaped upon shame. “You couldn’t give me what I wouldn’t admit I needed. I’m so sorry,” he said again.

  She sat back, a small, unreadable smile on her face. “Twelve years later and I still don’t know what to say to that. It’s not all right. It’s not okay. It’s not for the best, and I’m sorry to say this if you’re a true believer, but I hate a god who wanted my son with him, not here with me.”

  She could say these things to him because he understood. He lived the flip side of the same coin. No one ever knew what to say to him, either. They said he was young, and he made a mistake, or people avoided it, because it made them uncomfortable. Except Marissa.

  “What I do know, Adam, is that you’ve punished yourself enough. I don’t think a career in the Marine Corps was your dream. Maybe you did it for Josh, or because you thought you needed what they’d give you, discipline and honor and purpose. But for you to waste your own life and talents and gifts is to dishonor Josh. Let yourself live, and love. Let yourself be loved. If you think you owe me anything, give me your life lived as fully as you can live it.”

  He stared at her, his brain trying to work through this new angle on his life. He did owe her something. He owed her whatever she asked of him, but it had never occurred to him that she might ask for something other than rigid discipline and self-inflicted retribution.

  “Do you have any idea what that might look like, now that you’re out of the service?” she asked.

  The desire to give her a firm answer, a confident plan, nearly overwhelmed him, but he told her the truth. “I thought I did. Then I came home. Now I’m not so sure.”

  She nodded, as if she understood even that, and he finally realized where he’d seen the look in her eyes. It was the same as Marissa’s, the weary perceptiveness that came from going through hell and coming out on the other side, burned and bruised but still standing. Still walking.

  “You have time to think about it,” she said.

  He did. He had a little money, and plenty of time, if he took it. If he didn’t launch himself into graduate school. If he went through the hell he’d avoided for over a decade. He could do worse for guides than Marissa and Mrs. Wilmont.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

  “And you’ll take it?”

  “I will.” The words caught in his throat. He cleared it, and looked her right in the eye. “I will.”

  She gave him another small smile, patted his hand again, and got to her feet. “I need to finish this pie.”

  He stood, took a deep, shaky breath. He couldn’t earn forgiveness. He didn’t deserve it when it comes like the breeze that disperses a lingering, acrid, explosion-
tinged fog after a firefight, the grass that grows over ground soaked with blood and urine and shit. Time passes; it came, and accepting it was the only way to honor the gift it was. Words were completely inadequate in this situation, but he said the only thing he could say. “Thank you, Mrs. Wilmont.”

  “You’re welcome, Adam. Let me know what you decide. I’d like to hear from you again.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I will.”

  He walked out the front door, down the steps to the sidewalk, and along the street to his car. He was standing by the Charger, keys in hand and the doors unlocked, before he realized he hadn’t tripped over that invisible, ever-present spot in the street that sent him stumbling every time he ran past the Wilmont house. 84 Oak Street. Maybe that was because he was lighter. He felt like he did when he got back from patrol, safe inside the barbed-wire fences enclosing the FOB, behind the sandbags, deep in the foxhole. The red stain of shame was gone. The responsibility still clung to him. That would never leave, but he could go on.

  * * *

  HE DROVE HOME on autopilot, unaware of his surroundings, until he pulled into his mother’s driveway. A touch of the garage door opener sent the door creaking up to reveal his mother’s Buick and the space cleared when he took his boxes to the new apartment. The interior of the garage smelled musty as he walked to the cover-draped object sitting in the dark, the looming thing he’d pushed to the edges of his consciousness ever since he came home. One tug pulled back the protective poly-cotton cloth covering the Hayabusa.

  He draped the cover on the Buick’s hood. Still curiously empty, he rocked the bike off the center stand and pushed it out of the garage, into the late-fall sunlight, then walked a slow circle around it. The exterior was clean. Oddly clean. After sitting for twelve years there was no way it would start, let alone run all the way to San Diego. He’d have to haul it into Brookings and have one of the bike shops there do a total engine overhaul and put new tires on it.

  Except the tires were ninety-five percent treads and plump with air. The gas tank read full. The keys were in the ignition.

  Driven by intuition, he straddled the seat and twisted the key.

  It started.

  The engine ran smoothly, purring with the high-intensity idle that signaled speed. The vibrations rippled through his calves and thighs, up into his chest cavity. He gripped the handlebars and twisted the throttle. The engine revved into the red zone without a hiccup.

  No way in hell could a bike sit for a decade and start on the first try. He throttled back, then a flash of green caught his attention. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway, arms folded at her waist, watching him.

  He cut the engine when she opened the door and walked down the cement steps. A little smile danced at the corners of her mouth, half-pleased, half-wry.

  “It’s as good as new,” he said in disbelief. “How?”

  “That night, Marissa pushed it into her barn. After your induction ceremony she suggested Clem down at the garage ride it here. Some months I didn’t need the money you sent,” she said. “I used it to pay Clem to maintain it. He rode it when the weather was good, idled it when it wasn’t.”

  He’d left the bike nearly two miles from Brookhaven. The image of seventeen-year-old Marissa pushing the Hayabusa along those dirt roads and down the slope to the barn made his heart crack wide open. “Why?” he said shakily. “Why would you two take care of my bike for me?”

  “Marissa said she thought you might want to ride it again someday,” she said simply. “And I agreed.”

  He bent his head, inhaled carefully, at the thought of his mother and Ris taking care of his dream when he couldn’t. “I loved this bike. I thought it was my future.”

  “You are your future, honey. The bike’s just a way of getting you there.”

  He looked at her, saw himself in her eyes. “I’m leaving. I’m going back out to San Diego.”

  “I know,” she said again.

  “I’ll get a storage unit in Brookings,” he said.

  She smiled, with a hint of sadness, but she knew how to let him go. “Good. Get a helmet.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He kissed her on the cheek, then ran his hand over the engine housing. The Marine Corps drilled courage into his soul, his bones, but it paled in comparison to a mother’s courage necessary to let her children go, just for a couple of hours, for a few months, or forever. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” she said. She patted his cheek, then stepped back.

  He started the engine again, then opened the throttle and the bike surged forward, kicking adrenaline through his veins. The soles of his boots scraped the cement as long-unused skills came back on the fly. He balanced and the bike gained speed, then he rocketed down the street, driving right into the setting sun. He stayed at the speed limit as he rolled through town, taking one last look around. The Heirloom Cafe, nestled in the main shopping district. The library. The gas station, then the long curve to the highway.

  A couple of miles outside of town, Brookhaven loomed to the north, rocking on the ocean swell of the hill like a boat, all white and orange and red, the figurehead pointing west. A toy truck of a moving van sat in front of the double doors as the new owner set up her retreat center on the plains. Adam pulled over to the shoulder and stopped the bike, staring at the house. That’s where the dragon was born, in the clash between his turbulent feelings for Marissa and his determination to be something more than just a waste of breath and space. As a teen he hadn’t known how to channel passionate emotions; as a Marine he’d learned to ignore them. Love. Longing. Desire. But mostly love.

  Marissa taught him how to feel. How to love. And the dragon was gone.

  The house receded as he headed south and east, to Brookings. As he rode, he compiled a list of things to do in his mind. Buy a helmet. Break his lease. Move his stuff into a storage unit. Pack what he could carry in his duffle and head west.

  Where he belonged. With Marissa. It was time to find his dream.

  23

  MARISSA AWOKE TO a foreign sound, erratic, gentle, with a faint slap to it. She lay with her eyes closed and absorbed stimuli, the rocking motion under her, the unusual triangular shape of the bed tucked into one side of the bow, warm air on the length of her arms and legs, exposed by a thin pair of cotton shorts and a tank top.

  She lay in a bunk on a boat, wearing not sweats, a sweatshirt, and socks under three blankets, but shorts and a tank, one cotton sheet, and a lightweight quilt she’d kicked off during the night. She exchanged the sleepwear for the bikini at the end of the thick pad that served as a mattress, and was dressed for the day. A pair of khaki shorts made the bikini modest enough for casual morning wear, and her wind-and-dreams silk wrap warded off the slight chill of morning in San Diego.

  The sounds. A soft thump as the boat drifted against the dock, and not quite a sloshing, not quite a patting. Waves. Waves gently rocking the sailboat she now owned. Her dream came true in the form of a Westsail 32 that needed some interior refinishing but was mechanically sound, simple to sail, and comfortable for cruising. Nicknamed the “wet snail,” her new home was no classic racing yacht, but she loved it fiercely, dearly, even after just a few days onboard. In tribute to her past, she’d named the boat Prairie Dream.

  No one she’d met in the marina thought she was crazy for dreaming of wind and waves. The forty-foot boat next to hers held a family of four, parents and two kids who left a home in Indiana to cruise around the world while homeschooling their eight-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son in both the sailing life and traditional coursework. The kids took great pleasure in teaching her all about her new home, how things worked, cooking simple meals, and the parents were no less enthusiastic about sharing their sailing knowledge. Early in the mornings Ashley often hopped over to Marissa’s boat with a blueberry muffin or a plate of pancakes to share. Marissa returned the favor by gently guiding Ashley’s husband, Tony, through his cabin renovation project. Apparentl
y carpentry skills would come in handy in a marina.

  She scooted to the bottom of the bed and stood up, which put her in the kitchen/dining area. Cabinets with clever little fasteners hung above the stove and over the counter space. She boiled water on the stove, then poured it into the French press containing the last of the Intelligentsia coffee from Chicago. While she waited for it to brew, she unlocked the hatch and swung it open. Fresh salt-tinged air flowed down the stairway and into the kitchen area. For a moment she simply stood there, rocking slightly with the boat’s motion, face tipped upward as sunlight and happiness patted her with gentle palms.

  Right where I belong.

  The thought rose to the surface of her mind. She had no schedule beyond the day’s sailing lesson, no plan other than Make a plan. The Southern California coastline offered dozens of short trips, opportunities to hone her skills within sight of land before she launched out, perhaps to Seattle, perhaps to Hawaii and on to Thailand, perhaps through the Panama Canal into the Caribbean. She had time, and knew how to live frugally. She owned a boat. Sun and wind and water were free.

  What she didn’t have was Adam.

  They e-mailed and Skyped. She’d seen his apartment through the camera on his computer, everything neatly organized and stowed, heard his plans for spring semester courses and internship applications. But three days ago the contact ended abruptly. He wasn’t on Skype and hadn’t answered a single e-mail. She told herself he was busy getting set up in Brookings, attending orientation meetings for the incoming students, and reminded her aching heart that some things just weren’t meant to be.

  She missed him so much that she wondered if she liked what she’d started. Saying good-bye to Brookhaven tugged at her heartstrings until she saw the ocean. Saying good-bye to Adam still knotted her throat. She loved him, both the boy he’d been twelve years ago and the man he was now, strong enough to set her free rather than keep her for himself. But only he could decide whether to stay trapped in his past, or build a new future.