by Tijan
“I do.” Julia’s hands curled into fists with Dani’s shirt. “I felt like I needed to go to confession when I burned the toast.”
“Consider it done.”
Julia broke again. A fresh cascade of tears. “And they had this ritual where Erica would start telling a story and Jake would finish it for her. They spoke their own language, Dani. How can I do that? I have no idea what he’s going to say sometimes. I tried to finish a sentence for him, and I swear, I felt like he hated me in that moment.”
Dani cracked a smile, but soothed, patting Julia’s hair.
“He still loves her.”
“But he’s in love with you. That’s all you need.” Dani felt a headache forming. “Look, you and Jake are going to be fine. I truly think that. And as for this—between you and me—it’s our family’s fault. It’s not ours. We were raised to be like this, and that’s wrong.”
Julia pulled back, giving Dani a blank look.
“I know we’re doing the comforting thing right now, but I’ve no doubt we’ll go back to fighting in a second. It’s engrained in us. I don’t know how to not fight with you now, so you can mock me. You can hate me even, but we’re still sisters.” Dani looked away, watching the water. “I’ll go visit Kathryn tomorrow. Even if she throws me out, I’ll do it.”
Julia sniffled, wiping at a stray tear. “That’s all I wanted.”
“Liar. You want me to apologize. You want me to stay away from Jake. You want me to go see Kathryn. You don’t want me at the house—I can keep going, if you want?”
Julia rolled her eyes. “Now who’s being the dramatic one?” She groaned. “I know that I love you, and I know that we’re sisters, and family stands for something, right? But sometimes, I truly cannot stand you.”
The conversation shifted. Dani couldn’t explain how it did, or articulate how she knew it did, but she felt it in her gut. Julia wasn’t talking about Kathryn, Mae, or Jake. She was talking about the one who used to burn her lasagna.
Dani pulled tight on her blanket, twisting the ends in her hands. “She would’ve still died if I stayed.”
Julia closed her eyes and bent her head.
Dani added, “I don’t think anything would’ve changed if I stayed. I wouldn’t have helped because it’s how our family is. Kathryn’s dying, and Mae won’t go near her sister.”
“She’s a coward.”
“It’s called stupidity, pride, and just too many ghosts and secrets between us. And we don’t even know half of them.” Dani spoke the truth, and felt her knot unwind—just slightly—from its hold deep inside of her. It hurt, but it hurt less.
“It would’ve helped,” Julia spoke up. “If you had been here. It would’ve helped. You could’ve been at the funeral. That would’ve helped. I really wanted you there. Even if we hated each other, I wanted my sister beside me.”
“For what it’s worth, I wish I had known. I would’ve come back.”
“Erica changed a lot.” Julia smiled for the first time and laughed even. “I know that I do stupid things. I clean obsessively, and straighten every pencil in the house, but it’s because I need my world to make sense. I’ve had so much ripped from me. I’m controlling and seeing you making Jake laugh, I can’t control that. I can’t control how much my fiancé still loves you, and I hate that. I hate you, but you’re my sister.” Her voice dropped. She was so quiet now. “But I don’t hate you, and I hate that, too.”
Fuck it.
“I knew Erica was dead because I saw her.”
She closed her eyes tight. She couldn’t believe she was saying this. She hadn’t told anyone, but it was there. Erica was there. Dani felt her. The feel of her never went away.
“What?”
“I was in a storm.” Her voice was so raw. “Before I came back, I almost died in a tsunami. There were moments I thought I was dead, and there were moments when I wished I had died.” Those same breaths that ended. They were never hers, just those around her. “But one night, I thought I was going and then Erica was there.”
Julia sucked in some air. Her hand lifted, but Dani didn’t look. She saw the movement from the corner of her eye.
“She told me it wasn’t my time. It had been hers, but I had to stay where I was.” It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. “I thought it was a hallucination.”
She heard Mae’s words again. “You missed your sister’s funeral…”
Dani said, “It wasn’t. It was real.”
“That’s how you found out?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
She didn’t know what to expect, but then Julia grabbed her hand. She whispered to her, “Then you were the last to see her. How’d she look?”
Dani looked down at their joined hands. Of all the reactions, that was the best one. She squeezed Julia’s hand and rasped out, “She looked happy. She was glowing.”
Julia snorted. “Figures. She probably looks even better up there.” A beat. “What a bitch.”
Dani barked out a laugh. Julia joined in a second later and after a moment, Dani sighed. “You were telling me that you hate me?”
Julia rolled her eyes. “Yes. Duh. Always.” She was trying not to grin.
Dani murmured, “I love you, too.”
Julia sighed too. “I really miss Erica.” She came to Dani, resting her forehead on Dani’s shoulder again.
Dani rested her forehead against the side of her sister’s head. “I miss her, too. I miss Mom.”
“Me, too.” Julia brushed at her face, her blanket swiping against Dani. “Okay, enough of our dysfunctional family bonding.” She pulled away, giving her sister one long look. There was no hatred. No loathing. Just sadness and a deep mourning that only Dani understood.
Julia sniffled. “I hate you.”
Dani murmured as her sister left, “No, you don’t.”
“You don’t hate her either.” Jake stood in a different doorway from behind her.
She didn’t ask if he heard it all. She could tell he did. “Are you happy with her?” She pulled her blanket tight around her again.
Jake considered the question for a moment. “Yes, I am. Do I still love you? Yes. I still love Erica, too. I’m not in love with either of you, but you know that. Julia needs me, and I need her in ways that I never needed Erica or you.”
He stared in the direction Julia had gone, then leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “Your Aunt Kathryn. She’s going to be gone soon.”
She looked down. “I know.”
He straightened back up. “I don’t know if you meant it, but go and see her. Do it for Julia.”
“I’m going to.”
She’d go to say good-bye. This time, she could.
The room was dark except for the light flooding in from under the door. A small makeshift bed was left open for her. Jonah wasn’t there, but she curled underneath the blanket, and when she woke—he still wasn’t beside her.
She found him in a back room, standing, watching the river through a window.
“What time is it?”
Jonah glanced to her, lifting his arm up. She moved underneath, resting her head against his chest. His chest vibrated as he said, “It’s seven.”
Dani felt wiped with two hours of sleep inside of her. Jonah got none. He held a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. “How are you?”
“Better.” She relaxed against him. “I told Jake that I’d visit Kathryn. Is the nursing home okay?”
“They’re safe. The nursing home is on high ground. They should withstand double what the water is outside.”
“It’s still high out there?”
“It’ll go down later today. Most of the town is okay. Some of it’s underwater, but the town’s square and the north edge are fine. Did you want a boat ride in? I have errands to run anyway.”
“Let me go to the bathroom. Got any toothpaste around here?”
“Yeah, there’s a staff bathroom. I should’ve shown you last night. You didn’t need to use the regular bathroom every
one else does. We’ve got toiletries and the like for nights when we stay up sometimes.”
“Are there a lot of those nights?”
“You’d be surprised.” Holding her hand, he led her down a small hallway, opening a door at the end. “Drownings and rescues—one of us always has to be here and on duty. We pack this place up, just in case.” Flipping the lights on, there was a shower. A pile of towels was stacked up on a counter. Jonah knocked on a cupboard door. “You can rummage through here. We keep some extra clothes. You might find something your size.”
He stepped back as she went inside. His hand trailed over the small of her back. “I’ll be up front when you’re done.”
She was cleaning up, but then she stopped. She looked at herself.
Her hair had grown. It seemed a little lighter than her dark brown color. It had sun streaks in it now. It was past her shoulders, and she touched it, running her fingers through it. She lost weight before coming home. She gained a few pounds, enough so she wasn’t gaunt anymore. She touched her cheek now. She looked almost healthy. There was a glow to her skin.
After the stress from last night, Dani would’ve assumed she would’ve looked battered and beat down. She didn’t.
Her eyes were—she touched the corner of her eye. The emptiness was almost gone. The loneliness. The haunted look she had when she first looked at herself in Mae’s cabin. She didn’t look dead anymore.
Her eyes were dark, but there was a little light in them now.
Coming home did this to her. Her home.
Dani smiled, seeing how there was no downward curve at the ends, like it used to do. She would smile, but it would look sad at the same time. That was gone. She touched there, too. Her smile was actually a smile.
Her chest lifted.
She looked alive.
Hearing voices, she finished cleaning, then went off to find Jonah. He was waiting where he said he woud be, and he handed over a small phone. “I nabbed this from the back room. My line is programmed in under star 2. Trenton is star 3, and Hawk is star 4. They both volunteer with me, so this is what we use to communicate sometimes. Keep it hidden. I want to make sure you have it.”
She frowned, but tucked it away. He held her hand, leading her back to the door. He said that like someone would try to take it from her, but she stopped thinking about it when she climbed aboard a smaller boat than what they rode in a few hours ago. Soon, Jonah was steering them toward the town’s square.
It was another surreal moment. This was her home, and half of it was destroyed. That was what water did. It washed away memories and keepsakes, leaving stains and rot behind. This had happened to her, but now it happened to everyone else, too. This hadn’t been across the world. It was right here, right where she was, where her family was.
A deep sadness filled her, but there was another emotion. She was content. She was with Jonah. She was on top of the water. She was surviving.
Dani caught sight of the road that led to Mae’s Grill. “Jonah, what about Mae? Can I go see her?”
“She’s not there. They were all taken to the town center. Most of the town should be there, and later, people will be allowed to return to their homes to grab keepsakes and stuff like that.”
“What do you mean, allowed?”
Jonah fell silent and hunched down on his driver’s seat. “There’ll be an announcement made this afternoon.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” She gazed around. “The water’s high, but a lot of people have houses that might not have even been touched by the flooding. Why wouldn’t they go back to their homes? What’s going on, Jonah?”
“I don’t want to say anything, just in case. Not yet. I’m hoping I’m wrong.”
“Jonah.”
“I can’t, Dani. I’ll tell you when I know for sure.”
“Give me a coded message. Then decode it.”
Jonah chuckled briefly. “Just give me the day. I’ll tell you tonight.”
She read between the lines. “We’re not in the clear, are we?”
“Not by a long shot.”
She turned back to watch the rest of the town pass by. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m going to see my aunt. She’ll probably not even talk to me, and that’s if she doesn’t kick me out. Your cryptic message is safe with me.”
Jonah’s jaw clenched, but he loosened his grip on the steering rod. “The dire and doomed visit to the dying Kathryn, huh?”
“Pretty much. You have no worry about me panicking. I’m more stressed about seeing her.”
“Trenton said you and Julia got into it last night. You okay?”
“He could hear us? Great. I wonder who else did.”
“He shut the fire doors so you were cut off from the atrium.”
“Remind me that drinks are on me at Mae’s Grill one night as a thank you.”
He chuckled lightly, and Dani closed her eyes, letting the sound of his laugh warm her. When she opened them, they were passing one of the cafes in town. The tops of the red umbrellas that covered five or six tables outside the entrance were the only things they could see now. “Look at that.” Dani gestured toward them.
“I’m surprised more of the tables aren’t gone. Winds were dangerous last night. They picked up an hour after we got to headquarters. We were lucky we got there when we did.”
Dani felt a shiver down her back.
Just then, they turned the corner. She noted, “The gas station is still the hookup for drinks.”
Two boats of teenagers were drifting around the corner. A bottle flashed as it caught the sun between one hand to the next.
“Don’t they have something better to do?” Jonah answered himself, “No, I would’ve been doing that when we were younger.”
“You were the rebellious leader type back then.”
“I just wanted to have fun, but, yeah.” He grew quieter. “Some things pissed me off.”
“Like when you beat up Trenton Galloway.”
“He was going on and on about how he was going to ‘score’ with some chick on prom night, and then he was going to ditch the girl for his real date that night. Made me mad.” Jonah fell silent. “He reminded me of my father—just ready to use and discard someone. I saw red that night, but Trent turned out to be a good guy.”
“It was just for show.”
“No.” Jonah shook his head. “Some guys can do some pretty cruel stuff. You never know what consequences can happen from something reckless.”
“I was always scared of Hawk.” Dani thought a moment. “I still am scared of Hawk.”
Jonah laughed, steering the boat behind the local laundromat. “Hawk’s a good guy. One-track mind about sex and girls, but he’s decent. He sees through a lot of bullshit.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Dani glimpsed the nursing home ahead, then the flat runner drew abreast the ground. Jonah cut the engine, hopping out and pulling it the rest of the way on the embankment. He helped Dani get out, placing his hands on her waist and lifting her. She held on to his arms. “Looks like I’m walking the rest of the way.”
“You’ll be okay?” He nodded to the right. “The town’s center is a block down. There shouldn’t be any water around it—”
“I’ll be fine. It’s a block away.” She stretched up and kissed him, whispering, “Good luck with your top-secret meeting.”
“I’m not—” He stopped and admitted, “I am.”
“I know.” Dani backtracked up the hill, toward the hospital. “Still rather be doing what you’re doing than what I’m about to do.”
Jonah gave her a wave before pushing the boat back into the water. He lithely jumped back in, and after a second wave, floored the engine. He was gone from eyesight within seconds.
Dani smelled freshly brewed coffee when the doors slid open. She almost groaned. The receptionist looked up and smiled. Dani saw how tired she was.
“Are you here to see your aunt?”
“Yes.” Dani readied herself
. “And just so you know, she might have you throw me out. I won’t hold it against you if that happens.”
