Aqua's Achilles

by Kate Cambridge

  "Maybe he doesn't like massages. Dad, I'm honestly not seeing the problem here." Aqua turned around and focused her attention back on the porcelain containers with her mother’s tea concoctions. “Dad, which tea does mom prefer?” She pointed. “There are so many, I don’t know which one would be best.”

  Her dad smiled. “Try this one.” He picked up a blue vessel with an etiquette reading “The Root of all Good” and handed it to his daughter. “She likes this one. It is one of her new blends. Here let me show you.” Gavin spooned two portions of the blend into the mug and nodded.

  Aqua watched her father go through the motions, but her mind was elsewhere. She couldn’t believe Blake had turned into the self-righteous and pompous man they portrayed him to be. Banishing the thoughts from her, Aqua focused on the task at hand. It was so like her mom to insist on drinking organic and herbal. Aqua poured the piping hot water into the mug and stirred it.

  "Here, take a look at this."

  Aqua spun around when she heard her dad’s voice behind her. “Hmm?”

  Her father sat at the kitchen table, writing on a piece of paper he handed to his daughter when he had finished. "Look this up on the Internet. Then tell me what you think of Blake Stone." He grabbed a bottle of oil from beside the sink and an ice pack from the freezer. "I will make sure your mother is comfortable," he said taking the mug with the tea, as he walked out of the kitchen back to the living room.

  Aqua sighed, not oblivious to the tone of her father's voice. She thought he expected her to choose a side, and it was clear which one she was supposed to pick. There was nothing she could do at the moment so she followed her father. When Aqua saw her mother sipping the tea contently, she smiled. She was relieved that the accident hadn’t caused permanent damage, or a trip to the hospital, which would have been the same as a prison to Miri.

  “You picked “The Root of all Good” tea. A great choice, Aqua,” said Miri watching her daughter carefully.

  “Actually, dad chose it. I didn’t have a clue which one you would want. There are so many on the counter.”

  “Try it,” Miri offered, holding out the mug.

  Aqua hesitated. She shrugged and took the cup, sipping the hot beverage. “Mm, this is good. It’s got a rich, yet smooth and mellow flavor.” Aqua handed the mug back to her mother.

  “Yeah, I make it by mixing Pau d' Arco bark, organic Echinacea purpurea root, organic Dandelion root, organic Cinnamon chips…”

  “Okay, okay, mom. I get the point. Organic is the way to go.” Aqua chuckled.

  “Organic Burdock root, Sassafras bark, organic Ginger root, and organic Stevia leaf.” Miri frowned and rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to let people finish speaking, Aqua,” chided Miri taking another sip.

  “Sure, mom.” Aqua hated it when her mother scolded her as though she were ten. “I’ll just head out and clean up the yard and then I will make you and dad some dinner.” Without waiting for a response, Aqua spun on her heels and walked outside.

  Chapter 4

  After cleaning up the grounds around the house, Aqua prepared dinner for her parents. With her thoughts still preoccupied with seeing Blake, and her mother's reaction to him, she couldn't help but remember the way her parents behaved when she had informed them of her intention to pursue a career as a CPA. It was not what they had wanted for her. They’d expected her to take over their natural health store business, and continue the tradition of the alternative therapies they offered. But Aqua had no interest in that. Her mindset was different, and she wanted a stable and respectable career, and one day a family of her own.

  Throughout her childhood, her parents had always repeated the same mantra to her; they would love and accept her no matter what. But she knew the path she had followed had left them less than enthusiastic. True to their words, however, they supported her choices.

  "Hungry?" Aqua smiled as she carried two plates of food out onto the porch where her parents relaxed in matching rocking chairs. Matching in the structural sense because they were both rockers, but the resemblance ended there. Her mother had painted all the chairs on the porch in different, vivid colors, true to her hippie roots, and it was one of the ways she set herself apart from her neighbors in Burnt River. As a child, Aqua had wished her parents would at least make some attempt to fit in with their neighbors and town, but by the time she reached her teen years, she realized it was a wish that would go unanswered.

  "Yes thank you, love." Miri took the plate and smiled at her daughter. "You didn't have to go to all of this trouble." She looked back down at the plate containing the vegan stir-fry Aqua had prepared. The colorful mixed vegetables cooked with Seitan peanut butter in a sticky sweet and spicy sauce looked great. “Wow, I turned you into quite the cook, Aquarius.”

  Aqua rolled her eyes. "It was no trouble, Mom. I'm just glad to get to spend time with you both." Aqua settled in a third rocking chair and relaxed for the first time that day. She let her gaze wander over the pristine countryside. The vista was truly spectacular. In the distance, she could make out the rugged mountains with the white snowy caps. Above them, the sky had cleared, leaving a sense of immense vastness. Once again, the State of Montana defended its name as the Big Sky State.

  "I owe you an apology, Aqua. I know that Blake is your friend, and I should never have spoken about him or to him so harshly. I do try to keep my peace and avoid judgment. But well, I find it difficult with him."

  "It's okay Mom. You're entitled to your opinion of him. Besides, I barely know him. We didn't keep in touch during college.”

  "I'd guess, not after the way you broke his heart." Gavin rocked back in his chair. He tucked into the food with gusto. Off-and-on, he grunted his approval.

  "What do you mean?" Aqua blinked and then she stared at her dad. "Why would you say something like that?"

  "Hm?" He furrowed his brow and swallowed down the food in his mouth. "Was it some kind of secret?"

  "Gavin…" Miri set her plate with the untouched food down on the table beside her with a rap. "You know we don't have secrets in this family."

  "I don't understand." Aqua looked between the two. "Blake and I both agreed to the breakup. Mom, Dad, is something else going on?"

  "Your mother never told you, Aqua?" Gavin looked at his wife with reproach in his eyes. "I thought you said you would discuss it with her." He didn't hide his surprise.

  "I considered it, but it never came up in conversation. Sometimes a clean break is best." Miri blushed and looked down at her hands with the interlinked fingers. "I only wanted to protect you, Aqua."

  "Umm, hello. I’m sitting right beside you. Protect me from what?” A pause. “Come clean you two." Dread launched deep into the pit of her stomach. What could they be talking about? After graduation, she and Blake had agreed to go their separate ways. They were starting a new phase in their lives, and it seemed like the best course of action. She'd not heard a word from him since, until now. On a lonely night in her third year of college, she tried calling his number, only to find it had been changed and his old number was no longer in service. Since then, she'd heard bits and pieces of information from mutual friends about Blake’s success in medical school, his internships, and occasional stories about his plentiful girlfriends, but nothing that gave her any real insight into his life. Aqua preferred it that way.

  "Sweetheart, Blake might have let you think it was mutual, but after you left, he came here, looking for you." Gavin sat forward and looked into his daughter’s eyes. "He had… a ring," he said, at last, his gaze downcast.

  "A what?" Aqua’s heart dropped. "You mean an engagement ring?" Aqua looked at her mother, whose gaze was steadfast on the floor.

  Gavin nodded. "I sat him down in the kitchen, and we had a talk. He was heartsick over you. I told him, that if it was true love, it would find its way in its own time, and that he couldn't rush it." Before anybody could ask him anything, Gavin attacked his plate again.

  "And you never thought to tell me?" Aqua looked between he
r parents, incredulous, waiting for their answer. Suddenly, the image of her naive and peace-loving parents morphed before her very eyes. Instead, she saw two people with secrets—maybe more than she could ever have imagined. "Mom?" She demanded. "Is this true?"

  "Honey, I knew he wasn't right for you. You two were so different, and his family." She cleared her throat. "I knew, in the end, it would just cause you pain. You were so happy when you left for college. I mean, obviously, you didn't feel the same way about him. I thought if I told you what happened, it would cause you needless guilt. I just wanted you to be free. You were far too young to even think about getting married."

  "But, it should have been my choice, not yours." Aqua could barely form the words in her mouth. How could she have gone ten years without knowing the truth? Her stomach twisted as she wondered if Blake hated her. She’d always done her best to think of how her actions impacted other’s feelings. But clearly she'd broken Blake's heart, and she had never even realized it.

  "I'm sorry Aqua, I really am. I trusted my intuition. Was I wrong?" Miri reached out and took her daughter's hand.

  "No." Aqua sighed and closed her eyes. "You weren't wrong in one sense, Mom. I would have been upset if I had known how much I hurt him, and it wouldn't have changed anything. You're right, I wouldn't have married him, and I would have felt very guilty about it.” She swallowed. “But I still had the right to know--no more secrets, okay?”

  “Okay...” Miri dropped her eyes to her hands but squeezed her daughter’s hand again. “I'm just glad that's over with. You know, I try to love and accept all people, but this man.” She pursed her lips. “He’s just so horrible.”

  “Mom, really? Blake isn't bad he believes differently from you and dad. Have you considered that, or maybe it’s that you don’t want to.”

  “Hm.” Miri nodded and sipped her tea. The steam from the hot beverage traced the contours of her face as paused, then she sighed, and placed the cup on the table.

  It was clear she would not answer, and Aqua didn’t want to cause any more stress than her mother had already been through. She did her best to memorize this moment with her parents as they sat together on the porch. Seeing her mother on the ground earlier had frightened the living daylights out of her. If there was any remaining question about moving back home permanently, it appears it had vanished. Seeing her father clear his plate, Aqua noticed her mother had hardly touched hers. “Are you okay, Mom? You need to eat to get your strength back.”

  That evening after her parents had settled in for the night, Aqua folded her legs in the middle of her old bed and placed her computer in her lap. It was time to find out the truth about Blake Stone. She picked up the scribbling her father had handed to her in the kitchen earlier that day, opened up a browser, and typed.

  After a brief search, Aqua brought up the articles Blake had written. Although he didn't specifically target her parents in the articles, he did, however, systematically debunk just about every service they offered. She found her muscles grew tight as she read each article carefully. The desire to defend her parents was strong. While she knew their beliefs and practices were not mainstream, she didn't find them to be harmful. To her, everything had its place and potential for healing, from medical treatments to holistic therapies. If it made someone feel better, and it didn’t cause harm, people should simply live and let live. With that, she fell into a restless sleep.

  Chapter 5

  Aqua woke with a start after a restless night. The bad taste in her mouth still lingered. In concert, a dull ache began in her temples. Was it possible that Blake went after her parents so intently because he still harbored resentment toward her? The thought plagued her as she stretched her limbs and began a simple yoga sequence that always helped prepare her for the day.

  She went through the motions of the day without even consciously knowing what she was doing. Several times she picked up her phone to text him to cancel their date at Evie’s Diner, but she couldn’t.

  Or was it even a date? It was just coffee after all.

  If her parents noticed her preoccupation, they didn’t mention it. Aqua and her father doted on her mother, and as instructed her dad had faithfully woken Miri every 2 hours all night long. Although stiff, it appeared her mother was going to be okay.

  Now, what was she going to do about coffee with Blake? In her heart of hearts, she wanted her rendezvous with Blake to be a date. Seeing him the day before had awakened feelings in her that she had long buried, but had never let surface. Yesterday, they had come back with a vengeance. She felt his presence as though he were in the room. His smell. The sound of his voice. His touch.

  Still lost in thought, Aqua made her way to her room, and brushed her hair and tied it up in a ponytail. With her silky tresses in place, she tugged on the plait and frowned when she saw her reflection in the mirror. “Not right,” she muttered. Aqua quickly removed the hairband and let her hair fall to her shoulders. Muttering, she decided to hit the shower and wash her hair.

  When the heat of the water hit her skin, Aqua sighed. She let the warm water melt some stress away. Shaking her head and dipping it forward, the watery cascade drenched her hair. Aqua picked up the tube of shampoo from the small niche in the wall, flipped the cap and sniffed. “Aw, Mom,” she muttered when she did not recognize the scent of any brand-name product. She had learned long ago not to question what was actually in the shampoo bottles or shower gel because sometimes the ingredients her mother put in her homemade products literally grossed her out—like the time her mother admitted that she crushed a particular bug in order to achieve the perfect body scrub. Aqua cringed from the memory, taking a peek at the liquid inside the shampoo bottle.

  Resigning herself to the inevitable, Aqua massaged the thick gooey liquid onto her scalp. To her surprise, the very subtle and light scent, perfumed with just a touch of chamomile and rosemary extracts relaxed her. She worked up a gentle lather and then rinsed it out. After rubbing her physique clean with another homespun mixture, Aqua turned the nob and exited the shower.

  She spent a moment studying her reflection in the mirror. It was difficult to see the full contours of her frame due to the condensation on the glass. Grabbing a towel, Aqua assured herself that her body was still fit even though she wasn’t working out like she had in the city. Her exercise here consisted of actual labor, and it felt good to workout under the beautiful Montana sky.

  When she was dry, Aqua brushed her hair back. “Darn,” she sighed when she realized that her parents didn’t have a hairdryer. It was another one of those hippie things that irritated her. They tried to use as few electrical appliances as possible so as not to strain the environment, or create EMF pollution in their home.

  After she had done as best she could to dry her hair with only a towel, Aqua let her hair fall down to flow over her shoulders. To her surprise, it was smooth and had a magnificent natural sheen. “Wow, Mom,” Aqua whispered. “You should sell that stuff. It would go like hotcakes back in the Big Apple.” Aqua tossed her thick mane into a braid and mimed her approval to her reflection in the now clear mirror. She was as ready as she would ever be to meet Blake for coffee.

  Why are you even worrying about all of this? Aqua chided. It was totally out of character, and she wasn’t in high school anymore. Aqua had strong beliefs about beauty coming from within, and she didn’t really care about what anyone thought about her. She believed that confidence was a precursor to beauty as was making a difference in her life. She admired women from history who had impacted the world around them, and the future in significant ways. That was a true beauty in her book, and she suffered none of the insecurities many women had about their appearance.

  Logically she knew all this, she believed it, yet here she was borderline obsessing about the way she looked; there was no question in her mind that seeing Blake had again stirred up feelings she didn't think still existed. But that didn't mean the same had happened for him. That last thought ate away at her. It was a bit shocking
to realize that she wanted Blake to still want her. Adding a bit of gloss to her lips, Aqua started to turn away. Yet, her reflection in the mirror haunted her. What was that shadow in her eyes? Guilt? Sadness? Questions about what might have happened between them?

  Maybe I just shouldn't go. I can just text him that something came up. But Aqua knew she couldn’t do that. Trust was paramount in any relationship and she wasn’t about to start lying now—or keep secrets. She and Blake had always been honest with one another, and that was never going to change.

  It was clear what Blake’s opinion of her parents was questionable, although you would not guess that with the way she had treated her mother, but in a different setting would he come clean about how he felt about them? She wasn't sure that she could bear hearing him criticize them, or remain calm if he did. On the other hand, what her father had revealed to her about Blake’s visit as she was heading off for college made her heart ache with the desire to ask for his forgiveness. Aqua just had no idea how she would bring it up, or if it would make a difference to him that she apologized, yet she found herself wanting to say it just the same. Yes, she needed to meet him, if only for this one time.

  When she was dressed, Aqua grabbed her handbag and walked through the doorway into the hall. With a deep breath, she entered the kitchen and wrote a brief note for her parents to let them know she was heading into town, rather than disturb their siesta on hammocks in the backyard. Even as she backed down the driveway and turned onto the road, she considered turning back. As she parked in front of the Evie’s Diner, she wasn't certain that she would actually get out of the car and go through with meeting Blake. Being close to him physically was proving to be a challenge, and if a short amount of time with him could make her think about him almost constantly, what would spending even more time with him do?