The Watermark

by Travis Thrasher

  “I know. I need to figure out how to tell you.”

  “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

  “Gen—” I reached my hand out toward her.

  “No, don’t. I don’t want you to touch me.” Gen stood up.

  “Gen, please.”

  “I can’t believe, after all this time, you still can’t tell me about what happened.”

  “It’s just—I really messed up, Gen.”

  “When? Seven years ago? You’re still hiding from something that happened seven years ago?”

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “You’re certainly not moving on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out. Away. I need some air. Some space. Something.”

  “Gen, please—”

  “Please what? Wait around for another month or year till you decide to open up to me if you feel like it? What’s that going to take, Sheridan? Huh? Tell me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know either.”

  “You don’t know about what?”

  “About us.”

  “Come on, Gen.”

  “No. I think I understand things a little better now. Those years you took off. You were hiding.”

  “Why are you being this way?”

  “Why am I being this way?”

  “You don’t know everything that happened.”

  “Yeah, I guess I don’t,” Genevie replied, her narrow eyes distant and cold. “But I know I can’t be around a guy—a grown man—who insists on staying stuck in the past. Whatever past that might be.”

  “It’s not easy for me to open up,” I said. “This is hard for me.”

  “Can’t you open your eyes and see? This isn’t just about you. This involves me too. Or at least it used to.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t think I want to see you anymore, Sheridan.”

  The words stunned me.

  Genevie had the apartment door open and was looking back at me. “I’ll figure out what to do with Ralph.”

  “Please don’t go.”

  “You know, all I’ve ever wanted from you was honesty,” she said to me. “All I’ve wanted was someone to be straightforward with me. And I’ve been really patient. And you know, I just don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  I wanted to tell Gen that from here on out I planned on being straightforward and honest with her. I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted to finally tell her everything.

  But the door slammed shut, as it rightfully should have, before I could be brave enough to do a thing.

  part three: an unexpected future

  January 10

  Dear Amy,

  I thought I was moving on. But ever since Gen said she didn’t want to see me anymore, I don’t know what to think. Of course, it’s all my fault; she’s right for breaking up with me.

  I guess I had more than enough opportunities to tell her everything that happened.

  And now I might never get another chance.

  Sheridan

  seventeen

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I told the distorted voice of Erik on the other end of the line as I clicked off the phone and went digging for my car keys in the front drawer of my desk.

  A cassette tape caught my attention. I picked it up and looked at the case. “Genevie,” the label read. Eighteen days after I had given it to her as a Christmas present, seeing the recording simply entitled “Genevie” hit me harder than Mike Larsen’s fists and boots had.

  I had not listened to the piece since making a duplicate tape for myself. But now, for some reason, I wanted to hear it again, to listen to the melodies I had composed. I wanted to see if it still moved me.

  I slipped the cassette into the boom box that sat on top of my dresser, one I often played CDs in as I went to bed. The music began, and I could still remember how good composing it had felt. The melody started out slow and simple, just like our first meeting. I guess the whole composition, which ran about ten minutes long, was a kind of audio memory of my relationship with Genevie. It had a soft piano section in it, another using the Korg programming called Island Flutes, another with the resonance of a full orchestra.

  This was one thing I could never understand about my father. Why had he encouraged me to play the piano but had always been dead set against my working with the synthesizer? A keyboard allowed a million sounds to be conjured up. A simple piece like the one I had written for Genevie sounded more interesting simply because of the various instrumentation it used.

  I sat on my bed and listened to the song and thought of Genevie again. Her smile, her feistiness, and her sweet touch—all were gone. Once again, I had driven somebody I loved away from me.

  “I don’t want to see you anymore, Sheridan.” Did she really mean this? With each passing day, I was starting to believe it.

  As I turned off the stereo and headed outside, I wondered again what Genevie had ever seen in me. I tried to replay the steps from our first meeting in the fine arts auditorium to that first kiss on top of the Sears Tower. For me, she had been a streak of sunlight breaking through a storm-cloud-covered horizon. I should have known that the haze covering my life, covering my secrets, would eventually close in and send that beam of hope away.

  Walking outside into another wintry evening, I thought of another good-bye I had uttered to a woman I once loved. It had been a day far removed from this evening, a glorious summer afternoon when the worries of the world shouldn’t have mattered. But they had mattered. And there had been nothing I could do as she told me our relationship was over.

  I made windows of visibility on the Honda’s windshield as I scraped off snow with a bare hand. Inside the car, I turned up the CD player as loud as I could. I didn’t want to think about what I was doing. The storm brewing inside me echoed the blustery weather outside the car, and both seemed to intensify as each day went by. Everything that had happened beforehand—everything with Genevie, with Christmas, with a thing called hope that was returning to me—had been canceled in a single and violent moment when Mike Larsen came to me.

  And that was the way it should be. It had all been too good to be true.

  God sent a messenger to give me what I deserved.

  Now, besides still carrying around a black eye, I once again felt alone and silent.

  I had tried numerous times to contact Genevie. She would not return my calls. Twice I had seen her on campus, surrounded by her friends, and she had walked the other way. I know I deserved this, too, but at the same time it seemed like all I had gained with Gen by my side had quickly slipped away.

  Unable to pray, I had grown cynical again. Unable to erase the past and extinguish my guilt, I decided to try to find forgetfulness through an old, familiar habit. As the old saying goes, I was going to drown my sorrows.

  I wasn’t proud of this. Yet in my snow-cocooned car, the music deafening with its guitar and wailing lead vocal, I knew nobody knew. Nobody except God, the same God who already knew what was in my heart and soul—and apparently had given up on me.

  My car slid over the barely paved backstreet of Chicago as I steered it toward Joey O’Douls bar. It had been a long time since I had stepped through the doors of what used to be my favorite college haunt. At one point in my life, I had thought I would never step through its doors again. But earlier this morning, I had mentioned to Erik that I might go to Joey’s with him tonight. His stunned reply had consisted of one already known word: “Sure.”

  The traffic light three blocks down from the bar had always been badly timed, the red light seeming to last forever. As I waited for it to change, my thoughts kept straying back to Genevie and the first time I had seen her. I remembered the way she looked as she sat in front of me, watching a movie while she sneaked a few glances at the guy behind her. Somehow between that night and the new year, I had fallen in love with her. That love had not died.

  So what are you doing he
re, Sheridan?

  I had not talked to Genevie in eleven days. Those days and nights not only felt clouded and empty—they felt like a prison, a gulag of pain and guilt. I needed to contact her. I needed to finally be open with her and tell her everything—every single thing I could.

  So where are you driving? Where are you going?

  I thought of a line from the movie that played during our first meeting—The Shawshank Redemption. It was a quote from a letter at the end of the film: “It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living—or get busy dying.”

  I knew what choice I had made. What path I had decided to travel down. As I approached the orange glow of the pub, that road seemed completely inviting. I could imagine the jokes, the camaraderie, the cold liquid sliding down my throat, the warm glow that would help me forget.…

  Isn’t that what you’ve tried doing for the last seven years? a voice asked me. And where has that gotten you?

  Annoyed, I shook off the voice in my mind. I spotted a parking place and steered toward it. The bar lights beckoned. Then I remembered one of the last things Gen had said to me: “Can’t you open your eyes and see? This isn’t just about you. This involves me too. Or at least it used to.”

  Thinking of those words again did something to me. Perhaps I understood them for the first time. At any rate, instead of failing like I had countless other times, I did something unexpected.

  I turned the car around.

  The wheels slipped on the slick street, and the car rolled up to and smacked the curb. For a second the car stopped, waiting. Just like I did. More than anything, I wanted to go into that bar, to sit down with Erik and toss back a beer (or two or three), to laugh and let my life slip back into its comfortable, numbing rut. But this time I couldn’t.

  “This involves me too.”

  I just couldn’t let her go that easily.

  I pressed the gas and headed back to my own street as fast as I could. Minutes later I was standing in the middle of the Chicago side street while thick snowflakes fell around me. I looked up to the heavens and felt the flakes melt against my forehead and cheeks. “Please don’t give up on me, Lord. Not yet. I’ve made it so far, Lord. I don’t know what all I have to do. I just—I just don’t think I can do it without Gen. Lord, I need her. I know I should have been brave enough with her. I know I should have trusted her. I know I should trust you. Lord, you gave me a second chance. And I’m trying. I know I need to try harder. But, please, Lord, let Gen give me another chance as well.”

  As I stepped back into my apartment, thankful that I had not entered through the door where Erik and disappointment awaited, I was aware that the Lord still waited on me.

  Maybe, just maybe, Gen did too.

  January 21

  Dear Amy,

  A year ago, I probably would have given up on Gen, just like I have given up on so many things. But this time I’m not giving up on her. I know she has every right—and reason—to stay clear of me. But if she does walk into my life again—if I have even the slightest bit of a chance—I know what I have to do.

  Sheridan

  eighteen

  At the end of our one-hour lesson, Nita asked me what was wrong.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You seem really sad,” the young girl said.

  “I’m sorry. Things have been busy lately. You’re playing very well, though. Have you talked to your parents about possibly finding another teacher?”

  “I don’t want another teacher.”

  “You’re going to need one. You’re getting too good for me.”

  “You’re good too.”

  I laughed. “Thanks. But sooner or later I won’t be able to give lessons anymore. So we should think about getting you started with someone who can really help you.”

  “Well, I don’t think so,” she said, then changed the subject. “Play something for me, Mr. Blake.”

  “Play what? Play this?” I gestured to the Chopin Etude lying open in front of us on the piano.

  “No. Play one of the pieces you’ve written.”

  I shook my head. “Look, I’ve got to get going soon.”

  “Please. Just play me anything.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Anything. Please, Mr. Blake?”

  If it had been anyone else, I would have told her no and stayed firm on my decision. But Nita was special. This little girl had so much potential, and somehow, in some mysterious way, I had helped her begin to discover it. How could I do anything to discourage her? She wanted her teacher to play one of his songs. So I nervously obliged.

  I recalled one of the last pieces I had composed on the keyboard and began to play. Midway through, Nita asked me what it was called.

  “Hummingbird,” I told her.

  It wasn’t anything too complicated, just a set of chords that grew into a simple, chromatic melody. But it sounded light and optimistic, hence its title. After a few minutes Nita began touching one key and then another, composing her own part to the song. The simple melody turned into something more moving, more powerful than I ever thought it could be. Nita invented new directions, a new melody, a different beat, a completely different song. I changed directions as she did, and soon we were jamming like a couple of jazz musicians who had played together for years. Occasionally we would land on something that didn’t sound particularly correct, but then Nita or I would correct our chords and continue on with the song.

  I was the one to stop us.

  “That was really great,” Nita said. “I liked that song.”

  “It got a lot better when you started playing.”

  “But I wouldn’t have known where to even begin. You’re really, really good, Mr. Blake.”

  “No, really—”

  “I always want to make up pieces but I never know where to start. I can add to a song once I hear it, but I can never make one up myself.”

  “If you play from your heart, you’ll be able to do it,” I told Nita as I stood and prepared to leave. “If you keep working hard and don’t give up, you can do anything.”

  “Just like you?”

  I smiled into the young girl’s eyes and simply nodded.

  That night I dreamed of hummingbirds. Six of them, flying in front of me on a porch as they took turns sipping from a feeder.

  I sat in a rocking chair on the porch, swaying back and forth. My hands looked tanned and wrinkled. I opened one hand and looked at it in amazement.

  “Play me that song,” a familiar voice asked me.

  I looked to my right and saw Genevie. She looked… older, but more beautiful than I had ever seen her before. The years had been kind to her. Her pleasant and amiable disposition seemed to have blossomed in her sweet smile and her kind eyes.

  “What song?” I asked her.

  “The one you composed for me our first Christmas.”

  “Our first Christmas?” I asked. “There were more?”

  “Stop being silly. Play it for me.”

  And then I found myself at a piano, softly stroking the keys with an ease I had not felt in years.

  Genevie stood behind me and rubbed my back. “I love you,” she told me.

  “Gen, I need to tell you so much.”

  “It’s okay. Just play for now. Do you remember when you used to close your bedroom door and play the keyboard for hours on end? Do you remember that?”

  “I do, but—”

  “Remember how you would make a mistake, and then you would just compose new music around the mistake and make it disappear?”

  “But how do—”

  “Just remember that no matter where life takes you, no matter what you’ve done, God can turn your mistakes into something beautiful. He can turn your dreams into something better than you ever dared imagine. Look at the two of us.”

  “But I… where are we?”

  “Just keep playing.”

  I knew this was real. At least it felt real. Gen’s touch felt warm and genuine. I could smell h
er next to me. Her words seemed to brush against my ear.

  “You know what I always wanted?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Someone to grow old with.”

  “And I’m that person?”

  “You can be, Sheridan. You still can be.”

  February 8

  Dear Amy,

  Dreams can be funny things. The other night I had one that I awoke from with a certainty that I would see Gen again. I don’t know when that will be, but I know it has to be before she leaves for California. I won’t let her board the plane without hearing what I have to say.

  I don’t know what she will say to me. Perhaps she won’t say anything. But I know what I need to say to her.

  Sheridan

  nineteen

  My winter of seclusion ended with a simple phone call. A simple phone call made late one night in March of my final college semester—the night my life would once again change and I would come face-to-face with the two loves of my life.

  “Is this Sheridan?”

  “Who’s this?” I asked, fearing another phone call from Mike Larsen. Since the beating, I had not heard anything from him.

  “Sheridan, this is Mark. Mark Everly. Remember a while ago, a few of us visited your apartment—”

  “Yeah, hey,” I said quickly, making it clear I wasn’t in a chatty catch-up mood.

  “Sheridan, something bad has happened.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your roommate, Erik. Well, I guess he’s still your—”

  “What about Erik?” I interrupted. “Where is he?” My mind was still trying to get around the fact that it was Mark calling me. How did he know where Erik was?