I’ll Become the Sea

by Rebecca Rogers Maher

  “David.”

  She let him come to her, let him take her in his arms and hold her. And she couldn’t help it. The shivering turned to trembling and she was crying. Gently, he pulled her head to his chest and stroked her hair.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. You’re all right.”

  Her shoulder hurt but she could hear his heartbeat and she focused on that. She let the tears come until there were no more.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  He ran his hand along her cheek to wipe away the tears and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “Raymond called me.”

  “He called you?”

  “He feels awful. And he should.”

  “No. No, I don’t want him to feel awful.”

  “He pushed you down the stairs, honey.”

  “He…he didn’t push me. He was fighting with Tyrell. They both…bumped into me, and I slipped. He didn’t mean to…”

  He took her face in one hand, looking into her eyes. His palm against her skin was gentle and warm.

  She took his hand from her face and held it. Later she would think about how intimate this was, how close he was to her on the bed, how comforted she felt that he was here, how relieved.

  “Jane, about Raymond. His grandmother…”

  She looked at his face. He didn’t need to finish. “Oh, God.”

  “She passed away last night. In the hospital. It was another heart attack. They sent Raymond to school because there was no one to stay with him while they made the arrangements.”

  “I just went to see her yesterday. I brought her coffee.”

  “I guess he didn’t have time to tell you.”

  “Is he okay? No, I know he’s not okay. Oh, God. Britney tried to tell me. On the line, before we went in. And I just shushed her. Oh, David. That poor child. And now this.” She gestured to herself. “I don’t want him to feel responsible. I don’t want him to deal with this on top of everything else.”

  “He’s okay. Don’t worry. His aunt is with him. I stopped by the house on my way here. She’s really kind. Had Raymond by her side the whole time. The entire family’s in shock, but he’s not alone. He said to tell you how sorry he is, that he didn’t mean to hurt you. He said to tell you he loves you.”

  The tears came again and she made no effort to stop them. She let David hold her. She let him stay with her when the nurse came back, and wait for her while she was x-rayed and put in a cast. She let him help her with the discharge paperwork and accepted a ride home. She was so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep.

  He brought her upstairs to her apartment. The sun was near setting. She had spent the whole day in the hospital and she was in pain. Her pupils were dilated and her speech was starting to slur. From the medication or from fatigue she didn’t know.

  David helped her to her room, helped her find some loose pajamas to wear. He stepped out while she changed and made her a cup of tea. She lay down on the bed. The last thing she heard was the kettle whistling.

  When the phone rang, she was lying on her left side, a cup of cooled tea on her bedside table. A blanket from the chair beside the bed was draped over her. Outside the door she heard the soft murmur of the TV.

  The answering machine clicked on.

  “Jane? It’s Ben. Are you there?”

  She took a deep breath and winced at the impact on her bruised ribs.

  “Maybe you’re asleep. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I just…I can’t believe this happened. I didn’t know what to say. I hope…I hope you’re all right. Please call me tomorrow. I love you.”

  The line dropped, leaving the apartment in silence.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The scent of percolating coffee woke her from fitful dreams. She tried to sit up and clenched her teeth at the quick jab of pain. Tugging the blanket aside, she swung her feet to the floor. They were wearing purple socks, she noticed. Then the blood rushed to her head and the throbbing in her arm blocked out all thought.

  She wrestled with the doorknob and stumbled into the living room, pressing her good hand to her forehead. Water was running in the kitchen. Silverware clanked against the counter. She walked toward the sound, blinking.

  David was standing at the sink, his back to her. Washing her dishes. His hair looked tousled and the back of his shirt was wrinkly.

  She ducked into the bathroom, moving through a curtain of fog. Everything hurt. The toothbrush in her mouth felt awkward and huge. Her left hand was already tired, and she’d been awake for less than fifteen minutes. She didn’t know how she was going to manage this.

  Leaning against the door, she listened to David in the kitchen. She hadn’t expected him to stay. She didn’t know what she expected really, after he sat with her all those hours at the hospital. After he practically put her to bed. She thought he’d leave a note, maybe offer to come by some evening to visit.

  But there he was, in her kitchen, hands in her sink, making coffee at seven in the morning. Looking ruffled and domestic and unbearably sexy. She hadn’t even offered him a blanket last night or something to eat. She hoped he had helped himself, but at the same time, the idea that he’d been looking through her cabinets, poking around in her fridge, made her suddenly self-conscious.

  Well, the cat’s out of the bag, she thought. He knows I keep chocolate in every drawer. She snickered weakly at herself and opened the bathroom door. A wave of pain washed over her and she reeled, reaching out to steady herself.

  David met her in the doorframe. “Hey.” He offered his arm.

  “Hi.”

  “You look like you’re hurting.” He smelled like coffee and dish soap and something else. Something sleepy and rich. His skin was warm under her fingers. He led her to the couch and sat down beside her. “You should be taking the pain pills for the first twenty-four hours. Did you take any during the night?”

  “No. I couldn’t seem to wake up enough to do anything.”

  “Okay.” He brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Wait here.” He grabbed an afghan off the arm of the sofa and laid it over her.

  She hadn’t realized she was cold. She leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

  In a few minutes he came back with a plate of toast and a steaming mug and set them on the table beside her. He pulled a bottle from his back pocket and handed it to her. “I’ll get you some water.”

  She reached for the mug, breathing in the steam and taking a long sip of coffee.

  “Eat that toast,” he told her, smiling.

  Her eyes filled, and he came to sit beside her.

  “It’s not going to hurt like this forever. The first day is the worst, and then it gets better.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m just…” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Where did you sleep?”

  “On the couch.”

  “Ugh. You must have been miserable.”

  “No, it was fine. I grabbed the blanket.” He fingered the edge of the afghan on her lap. “Somebody make it for you?”

  “Grandma.”

  “I thought so. Hope you don’t mind me using it.”

  “No, of course not.” She held a handful of the blanket, absently kneading it with her fingers. “Listen.” She laid her uninjured hand over his. She had to release him, give him a way out of this. He’d done more than enough.

  “I took the day off, Jane. I’ll stay as long as you want.”

  A small hiccup of a sob rose out of her, and she almost laughed. He turned his hand over beneath hers, lacing his thumb between her fingers, his eyes on her.

  “Ben called last night.”

  She stiffened, withdrawing her hand. “I heard him.”

  “He’s not coming home?”

  She shook her head.

  The wind beat a tree branch against the window glass, releasing a play of shadows and sunlight across David’s face. “I’m sorry.”

  In the distance, a dog barked. The soft sound of passing c
ars filled the silence of the room. David ran a finger gently over the line of her sling. “It isn’t the first time you’ve been hurt like this. Is it?”

  Leaning back, she thought of the children on the staircase, of how desperate she had felt. Of the panic closing over her in just as long as it took for Raymond to throw that first punch. The sound it made, the nauseating thud, the gush of air. She was launched backward, into her family kitchen, to the sound of her mother’s breath, forced from her lungs. The smell of beer sweating out of her father’s pores.

  “No.” She was quiet for a long time, staring at the floor. “My father drank. He never hit me. But my mother, he beat her. When he was drinking.”

  He watched her face.

  “He’s in jail,” she said. “Second degree murder.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “He killed this man, after I…” She didn’t know why she was telling him this. Why now, of all times. Her arm was aching, the pain meds beginning to cloud her head.

  “He was going to kill her. At least, I thought he would. I sent him out of the house. He got in the car, and then he went to a bar. He killed someone there in a fight. A man with a wife and a five-year-old boy.”

  “That wasn’t your fault.” He said it automatically.

  “I’m the one who sent him out. I told him to leave. I knew he had been drinking. I knew he was dangerous.”

  “And maybe if you hadn’t you’d be sitting here telling me your mother was killed. Maybe you would have been killed.” He tried to make her look at him, but she turned away.

  “One life for another then.” She shook her head. “Tell that to the man’s family.” She rose, unsteady, reaching for her dishes on the table. “Anyway, my mom doesn’t see it that way. She says I made him go.”

  “Jane.”

  “He’s up for parole in July. They asked me to…to contact the wife of the man he killed. She asked them to open the parole hearing, to the public, so that she could make a statement, and my dad’s afraid that…”

  He stood up. “You can’t do that.”

  She faced him across the coffee table. She began to sway on her feet. He rounded the table and went to her, taking the plate from her hand.

  “You can’t do it, Jane.” He put his arm around her waist to brace her.

  “I have to.” She turned into his shoulder.

  His hand brushed over her hair.

  She softened against him, her breathing slowing, deepening.

  “I think you need to lie down. We’ll talk more later.”

  She nodded.

  Leading her to her room, he helped her get back into bed. He lifted the blanket over her, waited until she settled back against the pillow.

  “I’ll fix you some soup when you wake up. We’ll watch Dr. Phil.”

  She laughed, turning her head to face him. “Just what I need.”

  He laid his fingers over her cheek for just a moment, grazing his thumb over her lips. Tears were still spilling down her face, slowly now, but steady.

  “I can’t seem to shut myself off.”

  His eyes were gentle. “Maybe that’s good.”

  She felt him beside her as she drifted into sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tucking a bobby pin into her hair and slipping on her heels, Jane turned away from the mirror. The careful makeup she’d applied could only do so much to hide her swollen eyes. She’d managed to find a black skirt and a cardigan that draped over her sling. She was hot from the shower and her head ached, but at least the pain was duller today.

  It would be at least a half hour until David arrived to take her to the funeral. The apartment felt empty without him.

  Over the weekend he’d showered in her bathroom and laundered his clothes piecemeal in her washing machine. He’d gone home this morning to get his suit and to shave. He’d let his beard grow in. It was reddish and brought out the blue in his eyes.

  Tucking a wad of tissues into her sleeve in memory of her grandmother’s lifelong habit, she sat in the chair by the door and waited for David.

  Beside her, the telephone rang.

  All weekend she had avoided Ben’s calls. She didn’t want to speak to him and knew she had to.

  She picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Jane, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. I was worried.”

  Feeling the way her heart flipped over, she knew why she hadn’t answered his calls. She had wanted him to worry, had even hoped he might book a flight and come home. She was an idiot.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you in pain?”

  “I was. The first few days.”

  “Was anybody with you? Did Sarah come down?”

  “She’s in Chicago for work.”

  “So you were alone?”

  “No, I wasn’t alone. David stayed with me.”

  “David.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  He was silent for a moment. The question she didn’t ask hung in the empty air between them.

  “You know why I didn’t come back, right? I’m totally swamped here. I can’t leave everyone in the lurch.”

  “Not everyone. Just me.” She hadn’t intended to say it.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I have responsibilities here. I can’t just abandon everything every time you…every time you have a crisis.” He blew out a breath “This past year, it’s one thing after another. First your grandmother. Then your dad’s parole. Now this. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened at that school. It just never…it never stops, Jane.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I have anything left.”

  A strange quiet came over her. She watched herself speaking as if she were sitting in a chair across the room. It was a conversation they had tried to never have. It was a relief to finally be having it.

  “Are you saying I’ve asked too much of you?”

  “Yeah, I guess that is what I’m saying. Look, one of the things I always admired about you was your independence. When we first met, I saw how much you had accomplished on your own, and that floored me. I didn’t expect that it would be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “God, I don’t know. Like this. Like you wanting to spend so much time together, and wanting to move in together, and wanting to get married.”

  “You don’t want to get married?”

  “I didn’t say that. But I mean, rushing it like we’re doing.”

  “We’ve been together six years, Ben. Normal people get married after that amount of time.”

  “Normal people. What is that? We don’t have to be like everyone else, do we?”

  “No, but…”

  “I just need some time to do my work here. I need you to respect that. I’ve been there for you through all kinds of things this past year, and now I just need to focus on this film without you giving me a guilt trip about it.”

  “A guilt trip? I haven’t said anything to you.”

  “Oh, come on. Every time I talk to you, you give me attitude.”

  “I just need you in my life. I need to know I can talk to you sometimes, that you’ll be there.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t need me so much.”

  Outside, David’s truck pulled up to the curb. “I have to go.”

  “Jane.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to go. David is here. He’s taking me to the funeral.”

  “What funeral?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Goodbye Ben.”

  She hung up the phone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He wore a black suit, crisp and surprisingly tailored for a man who usually dressed in faded pants and T-shirts. He hesitated at the curb, looking up against the morning sunlight
and seeing her at the door.

  He took the steps one at a time. She remembered the way he felt sitting next to her on the sofa, watching their third Netflix movie of the day. The way his bare feet looked on the coffee table, large and athletic. Her absurd urge to take them in her hands. He’d heated some chicken soup for her from the cupboard, arranging it on a tray.

  She was losing her grip, she could feel it. The ground underneath her was shifting and breaking away. She knew that soon, very soon, she’d be left with nothing to stand on, nothing to keep her from falling.

  He reached for her and she clasped his arm, whispered hello. They walked down to the car together.

  At the funeral home, friends and family huddled around photographs of Mrs. Johnson in her younger days. Standing in a white dress and matching hat in front of a church, her husband beside her in a tux, on their wedding day. Holding one of her babies in an old armchair, beaming up at the camera. Crowded with her children and grandchildren around a picnic table at a family reunion. There was Raymond, on her lap, eating ice cream from a dish and grinning, a dripping spoon in his hand.

  Jane felt the hush of voices around her and breathed in the floral, carpeted scent of the rooms. She only knew Raymond here and she hadn’t seen him yet. David stood beside her, studying the pictures, hands clasped behind his back. They waited for the moment when the inner room would open, when they would be invited to view the body.

  The doors parted and Jane and David joined the line moving toward the coffin. Raymond’s grandmother never wore makeup, yet here she was powdered, hair sprayed, hands folded in white gloves over her motionless ribcage. It helped, Jane guessed, to show you that the person you loved was gone. When you could see so clearly that she wasn’t there inside that body anymore.

  Jane knelt before the casket, making the sign of the cross, and said a prayer.

  Making room for David after her, she moved to the side of the room. Raymond was there, sitting in the rows of chairs before the casket. A young woman beside him had her arm around his shoulders and was whispering in his ear. He looked at Jane. His eyes were red and swollen; she could see it across the room. She smiled at him, watched the lady next to him nod and give him a gentle push out of his seat.