At the Water's Edge

by Harper Bliss

  “I’d better go. I’ll let you know about dinner.”

  “You don’t have to go because of them, Ellie. Stay. Let’s have one more.” He’s already raising his hand to order the next round. “If anything, I never dreamed I’d be sitting here with you again one day.”

  “Okay.” I nod. Because, for all I’ve taken from him, I can at least give him this.

  Now that his buddies have arrived, our conversation shifts to lighter topics. The cabin. The new mayor. This and that person I haven’t seen in years. Because my dad spends most of his time hanging out at The Attic, he knows everything there is to know about everyone in this town.

  “Did you know,” he leans his torso over the table as best he can, “that Richard Ball’s grandson just came out as gay? He told me here two months ago. Wanted to have one of those difficult, drunken talks about it—you know how some men are. They can only show their emotions when they’ve had a few. But I told him. ‘Dickie,’ I said, ‘he’s your grandson. There’s nothing to talk about here.’”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Your dad wants to invite me to dinner?” Kay doesn’t stop stocking the candy shelves in the shop. “Should I be honored?”

  “I really don’t know.” I’m too mesmerized by the curve of Kay’s behind in her jeans when she bends over to unload another box. “Do you need a hand with that?”

  “Sure. If you could just pass these to me. All this bending at my age.” She straightens her posture before arching her back.

  I walk over to her and we stand staring at each other for an instant.

  “Wouldn’t miss it, by the way.” Another wink—this one goes straight to my gut. “When is it and am I expected to dress up?”

  “God no. Although I am curious to see you in a dress.”

  “If you want to see me in a dress, you’ll have to buy me one. The last time I wore one was at my prom, so I guess you’d have to be my date as well. I don’t put out for anything less.”

  “Let’s save that for a different occasion then. Wouldn’t want to waste that on dinner with the Goodmans.” I squat next to Kay—my eyes level with the golden-brown skin of her thighs—and start handing her packets of brightly colored gummy bears.

  “Dream on, Little Ella.” She smiles down at me. “About the dress, I mean. A date can be discussed.” She takes a few packets from me and her finger brushes against the back of my hand. The touch sizzles through me as if administered on an entirely different part of my body. My libido, which pretty much disappeared as my thoughts of despair increased, seems to have found a new lease on life as well.

  “I guess I’ll have to hold you to that.” I flirt without thinking about the repercussions and, for a brief instant, it feels so good I forget to be careful. “I may even cook you a meal.” The box is empty and I push myself up.

  “Oh really? And what would that be? A soufflé of breakfast bars?”

  I chuckle. “I have a few signature dishes I may surprise you with.”

  “It’s a deal then. Tomorrow I’ll have dinner with your family and this weekend you’ll cook for me. If you ask me, the order of events is slightly reversed, but I can improvise. I’m easy like that.”

  “Thank you.” I all but bow reverently. “Really.”

  “Don’t mention it.” There’s so much more lurking behind Kay’s words and it hits me that failure to communicate—to express what’s really going on—is one of the issues that put me in this situation.

  “We should probably talk.”

  Kay quirks up one eyebrow. “We should?”

  “Yes.” Nervously, I pick up the empty box and start folding it in on itself.

  “Let me do that. You science geeks are not the most practical of people.” She tugs the box from my hands and with a few compact, swift movements flattens it completely.

  “You’d better not offend me before I cook for you.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She disposes of the box in a small container next to the counter. “Why don’t you come inside so we can talk.”

  I follow Kay into the lodge where, without asking, she pours me a whiskey. We huddle around the kitchen table, nothing but silence around us—and the thumping of my heart.

  I take a sip from my drink before starting the conversation. “Look, Kay, I really enjoy your company. I think you know that.” I’m surprised at how easy the words come. “But—”

  “It’s all right, Ella. You don’t have to say it. I think I know.” Is that disappointment in her tone? A sort of unsettledness I haven’t heard before?

  “No.” I shake my head firmly. “I need to say it.”

  “Okay.” Her glance has gone vacant. The guarded stare of a woman who has been hurt one too many times.

  “I like you. I mean, I really really like you.” My earlier found eloquence is already starting to elude me. “If the circumstances were different, we would have gone on a date already, but, uh, I need you to understand that romance—or anything resembling romance…” My cheeks start burning brightly. “That’s not something I can deal with right now. It’s a distraction. An easy way out. A cop out.” I repeat the words I spoke to my dad earlier. “I didn’t come here to fall in love.”

  Kay doesn’t speak for a few moments, just stares into her glass. “As much as I appreciate your candor, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself a bit here.”

  “Oh.” Did I read this situation wrong? Were we not just flirting heavily in the shop?

  “I don’t mean I’m not attracted to you. I think you know that I am, being the heart-on-my-sleeve kind of person that I am. Shit. I’ve barely left the West Waters grounds since you arrived. It’s not really my habit to look in on guests several times a day. Or to go skinny dipping with them at midnight.” Kay fixes her gaze on me. “Just now, you invited me to dinner with your parents. For moral support, I presume. Which implies you trust me on a very primal level. You have done so from the beginning. You opened up to me and I don’t suspect you do that with many people you just ran into again after twenty years of absence. So, I guess what I’m asking is why would you think you wouldn’t be able to trust me with this? With us? Do you really think I would let you fall in love and forget about why you came here in the first place? That I would ever allow you to see me as a mere distraction?” There’s genuine hurt in Kay’s voice.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. I just, for once in my life, wanted to be absolutely honest.” I shove the whiskey aside. It’s too strong—just like the memories that cling to it after the last one I drank. “I guess you have to know what I’m like to fully understand. Back in Boston, losing myself in a new relationship was my favorite means of escape. The thrill of the chase. Those exhilarating first months. Peaking dopamine levels that made me forget about myself. A temporary fix. Until that moment came when I realized I had fallen for someone for all the wrong reasons—again.” I barely have the nerve to glance at Kay. “I really can’t afford that to happen here. Not now, when I’m this fragile. I’m not strong enough.”

  “No date then?” A kind smirk has found its way to Kay’s lips. My heart leaps at the sight of it.

  “I’ll cook for you anyway. I feel as if I have something to prove now.” I reach out my hand across the table, eager for Kay’s touch.

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Ella.” To my relief, Kay covers my hand with her palm. “Just tell me this.” A sadness has crept into her gaze again, but there’s tenderness, too—and understanding. “Are you glad to be alive?”

  “Yes,” I say without hesitation.

  Kay squeezes her fingers tighter around my hand. “Then don’t write this off just yet.”

  I shake my head, too fraught with emotion to speak. Kay lifts my hand off the table and cups it in both of hers. “And I will come to dinner with Dee and John.” Her thumb runs across my palm. “Unless you think it’s a distraction.”

  I get the point she’s trying to make loud and clear. I also see that Kay is nothing like Thalia or
any of the women who came before her. Those women whose only mistake was to fall for someone as lost as me.

  “Thank you.” It’s all I can say.

  “Quid pro quo, Little Ella.” The touch of Kay’s fingers is starting to produce a familiar heat in my blood. “I’ll go with you tomorrow if you stop apologizing and thanking me for nothing.”

  A giggle escapes me, but we both know that what Kay is doing for me—not just accompanying me to dinner with my parents, but simply being her patient, good-natured, wise self—is not nothing. She’s saving me.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I can tell by the look on my mother’s face—tight smile, dismissive glint in her eyes—that she’s not particularly happy with Kay’s presence. But for me, it changes everything. Kay’s an easy conversationalist, sucking at least half the tension that always hangs heavy at my parents’ house out of the air.

  “I’ll never forget that time when Patrick serenaded Mabel at the bonfire.” My dad, on the other hand, is going out of his way to make Kay feel welcome. I don’t even want to think about the conversation he and my mother must have had when he announced she’d be joining us for dinner. “Now that was true love if ever I saw it.”

  “And he could barely hold a tune.” Kay is her relaxed, unassuming self. “Unfortunately, I inherited his singing voice. But at least I don’t make a fool of myself that easily.” She dressed up in jeans and a glittery spaghetti strap top I would never have pictured her in, but it suits her so well—brings out the sparkle in her eyes. I realize that, with Kay here, I feel as close to relaxed as I can ever remember being in this house.

  Dad and Kay both chuckle, while Mom and I still shuffle nervously in our seats.

  “Shall we eat?” Mom asks. “Your father has been slaving away in the kitchen all day.”

  “A hobby I picked up after retiring.” Dad addresses Kay again. I’m beginning to think he invited her more for his own sake than mine.

  “Otherwise he’d be spending all his time at The Attic,” Mom cuts in again, that typical edge to her voice. She was never good at cracking jokes, always needing to convey some hard truth in them, or at least put Dad down in the process.

  “You won’t hear me complain about that either.” Kay’s the first to rise.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about my open tab. Is there no special discount for loyal customers?” Dad gets up as well and practically elbows Kay in the biceps.

  “I just own the place. I don’t interfere with management, John. Otherwise half the town would be asking me what you just had the audacity to suggest.” She shoots Dad a smile. “Can’t wait to taste your stew.”

  We gather around the table and I sit next to Kay, her presence like a shield around me. Dad serves us while Mom pours more wine. My eyes linger on her own more than generous helping.

  “This is truly delicious, John.” Kay turns to face me. “You have big shoes to fill.” With Kay at the table with us, it almost feels as if I’m part of an every day all-American family. Not without its secrets and painful memories—just like any other family—but at least capable of normal, stress-free dinner chatter. “Ella promised to prepare me a feast this weekend.” Kay stares both my parents in the face without qualms, as if there’s no place she’d rather be, but I can’t imagine she’s actually enjoying this. “I bet you’re quite the cook as well, Dee?”

  “Mom’s an excellent baker. What did you make for dessert?” I ask my mother, who has barely touched her food and is, in my opinion, much too focused on that giant glass of wine looming in front of her.

  “Just an apple tart. I was feeling a bit off this afternoon. Not enough energy to spend much time in the kitchen. Besides, when your dad’s in there, there’s no room for me.” When I glare at my mother’s face, it’s like looking into a fast-forward mirror. Is this me in twenty-five years? An existence depleted of all joy. A marriage of, I guess after all these years, convenience to someone I can’t bother to show respect for, least of all in public. At least I won’t have children for whom it’s too difficult to come home more than every few years, or, in Nina’s case, ever.

  “Having health issues?” Kay is kind enough to ask. She doesn’t know that my mother suffers from most ailments known and unknown to mankind, albeit not always substantiated by blood work or a doctor’s diagnosis. Funnily enough, most of my mother’s health problems started cropping up just after she found out about my dad’s affair.

  Mom shakes her head in defeat. “I’m an old woman. It’s been all downhill for a while now.” She drinks some more. I don’t really want to think about it, but I know exactly where this evening is going. I try to exchange a glance with my father, but he stares at something on the opposite wall with an empty look in his eyes.

  “Not everyone gets the chance to live past their retirement age,” Kay says, an unfamiliar hint of hardness in her tone.

  “While that is unmistakably true, clearly, not everyone wants to, either.” My mother’s obvious jab at me hits me straight in the gut.

  My dad slams his fist on the table. “The only daughter we’re on regular speaking terms with is sitting right in front of us. She’s here. With us. You can at least try to be happy about that, Dee.”

  “Happy?” Mom gives a disdainful huff. “What a joke.”

  You are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness. I focus on Dr. Hakim’s words—the ones I clung to the most.

  Under the table, I feel Kay’s hand on my knee. I gather strength from her touch, despite the rage building in my gut.

  “Dad’s right. I’m sitting right here, Mom. Whatever you need to say to me, you can say it.” I realize I’ve barely spoken all night. My voice feels tight and unused, my throat swollen.

  “I can’t.” Mom shakes her head in despair. “What if I say something that makes you try again?”

  Kay digs her fingertips into the flesh around my knee.

  “That’s not going to happen. I’m not the same person I was before.” Instinctively, I shuffle closer to Kay. “Also, Mom, what I did had nothing to do with what you might have said or done. Nothing. It was me and only me.”

  Dad fumbles with his napkin, pushing it against his wet cheeks. Mom’s head hangs low, as if her body has given up already. Next to me, Kay sits with a straight back, the expression on her face not giving away much.

  “I came back,” I continue, “because this family is as broken as I am. Because we all need to heal. Not to assign blame, but because this is where my life started. This is where I grew up. You’re my parents and, well, we may not get along as well as we’d like, but what I did was not your fault. I’ve been depressed for a long time and my mistakes are my own.”

  “Was it a mistake, Ellie?” Dad’s voice crackles. “Or did you really want to die?”

  I can’t reply to that. Not even Dr. Hakim has asked me that question and gotten anything resembling an answer to it. I certainly didn’t want to live anymore. Is that the same as wanting to die? Or is there nuance in everything?

  I suppose, in the end, I couldn’t care less if I lived or died. Except that every minute I had to drag myself through my sad existence was one minute too many. Every day I had to go through life with a brain that constantly questioned even the smallest decisions was one day too many. But what weighed on me most of all was how the imbalance in my brain chemistry had me convinced that, despite short bursts of happiness—which were possibly only so vivid and joyful because of the contrast with the utter bleakness of any other day—the future was always, unquestionably, black.

  I did want to die. But I lived.

  “Maybe we should call it a night.” Kay stands up and curves an arm around my neck. “Maybe that’s enough for now.”

  “It’s just that, Ellie,” my father doesn’t stop, “your mother and I live in constant fear that you’ll, uh, do it again.”

  Has this brought them closer together as well? I’m not used to either of them making a statement for both of them as a couple. I want to get up, but I�
��m afraid my legs will fail. Both Kay’s hands rest on my shoulders and she squeezes the tight muscles there softly. I try to visualize Dr. Hakim’s solemn face. The response we came up with—I came up with after long minutes of silence from him—sits too far back in my brain, in that obscured place I can never reach under pressure. They would never say something like that, I had assured Dr. Hakim. Never in a million years. My family doesn’t say things out loud. We prefer to imply things wordlessly—not enough room for misunderstanding and frustration otherwise.

  His reply: They may surprise you. Traumatic events change people. Makes them say and do unexpected things.

  So far, Dr. Hakim has been proven right many more times than I care to count.

  “I won’t try again.” It’s easy enough to say with Kay gently massaging my shoulders—and I know it’s the exact reason why I can’t get romantically involved with her. Not now. “I’m getting better. Working hard at it.” These are not the words I’m supposed to say, but they’re all I’ve got. A stop gap. A quick reassurance, like my mother used to give Nina and me after we’d taken a clumsy fall that had shocked us more than hurt us. Stop crying and it will all be over in a few seconds. She was usually right, but this hardly compares. “I know it’s not easy, but you’re going to have to trust me. There’s no other way.”

  I imagine my mother having to triple her dosage of sleeping pills to get any sleep at all. She shouldn’t even be drinking with all the medicine she swallows on a daily basis. A few years ago, when staying with them over the holidays, I checked her medicine cabinet—the one in the bathroom she stocks for daily, frequent use. I found Valium, Xanax, Prozac. The works. And to think she scolds my dad for drinking too much.

  “Okay.” My father pushes his chair back and, to my amazement, puts his hand on my mother’s shoulder. The only time I can remember them touching is when my mother prodded him in the arm violently when he was snoring so loudly she couldn’t hear the TV. “We trust you, Ellie.”