by Meg Donohue
“Who is that?” I asked.
Amir reached for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. “Bear.”
My stomach lurched. The wind made my ears ache. I took a step back, and Amir’s grip tightened around mine.
“Careful,” he said. I had not realized just how close I’d come to the rim of the cliff.
My old impulse to run from Bear was as strong as it had ever been, and it took all of my willpower to remain still as he approached. When he drew closer, I saw that the halting stride I’d mistaken for the gait of an older man was in actuality the stumbling pace of someone who’d had too much to drink. Bear’s flannel shirt hung off his wasted frame. Where was the massive bulk of a man who used to cast such a large shadow? I could not believe how thin he had become, how deeply time was etched upon his forehead. His changed appearance did little to ease my nerves; the Bear I knew would always find a way to seize my joy.
I steeled myself, but when my brother finally arrived at the cliff’s edge, I was shocked to see that his eyes held not knives but tears. With his hollowed cheeks and surprisingly dark beard, he looked so much like my father that I felt shaken. I could not believe he was thirty-five, only a little older than Will.
“What are you doing here?” he said to me. He had slurred for nearly as long as I could remember, but now he spoke as though he had sand in his mouth. It was difficult to understand him.
“We’re here because this place is ours,” said Amir, stepping between us.
Bear glowered. I could see that my brother’s hatred for Amir was still there, even if his tears dampened its intensity. He waved his hand in the air as though Amir’s words were a spiderweb that was easily broken.
“I mean here. Right here!” He looked at me and blinked, forcing more tears to roll down his cheeks. He seemed confused. “What are you doing here? Don’t stand so close to the edge! How many times do I have to tell you?”
Amir and I exchanged a baffled look. Bear had never once, that I could remember, told me not to do something for fear of my safety. We watched as he began to sway from foot to foot.
“You should know it’s too dangerous. You should know!” He muttered something I could not make out. His lips were wet with tears.
In my entire life, I had never seen Bear cry. The sight ripped something open inside of me.
“Because of Mom?” I asked. He didn’t seem to hear me. The wind was relentless; far below, the crashing waves echoed against the cliffs. I didn’t want to raise my voice, but I did. “Because this is where Mom fell?”
“Mom?” Bear seemed startled. He raked his hands through the mess of his hair and stared at the edge of the cliff and then raised his watery red eyes to meet mine. “She cried all the time. All the time. She didn’t used to, not before you were born.” He looked down again, moving his feet as though the earth were hot below them. “She was happy. I remember her happy. After you were born, she didn’t get out of bed. She held you and she cried all the time. When I hugged her, she would cry. When Dad talked to her, she cried. Her face was different. She had been beautiful. So beautiful.” His voice choked. He looked at me and his face drained of color. I had the sense that he believed, for a moment, that I was our mother. Then he shook his head forcefully, swiping at his tears. His swaying grew more agitated. He began to walk, pacing right to the edge of the cliff he’d warned me away from.
“She went gray after you were born. Her skin, her face, her eyes. All gray.” Below Bear’s feet, rocks skittered out and over the cliff’s edge. My hand shot out and managed to grab his wrist. He shook himself loose of me with more strength than I would have thought he could muster, but he stepped away from the edge of the cliff. His eyes filled with tears faster than he could wipe them. I had never felt as scared of the cliff’s edge as I did in that moment, watching Bear stumble near it.
Amir and I exchanged a glance. It was being reminded of my mother’s tears that had made Bear hate mine so much, I understood now. My birth must have triggered something within her, releasing a dark fog of depression. I wondered why my father—or Rei—had never told me this piece of the story. Perhaps they thought that for a motherless child the story of her mother’s death was simply sad enough on its own, without the details filled in.
“Why don’t we walk back toward the house?” I asked.
Bear blinked at me. “She told me you were going for a walk that day.”
I shook my head. “No. I was a baby. I couldn’t walk yet.”
“You and Mom,” Bear said. “Mom and you. She hadn’t taken a walk in weeks. Dad was in the orchard. She said she was going to take you for a walk, but I . . .” He trailed off.
“What?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes and I saw a hint of the old daggers in there, dull below his tears. “I didn’t like it. Something about the way she said it.”
“You thought she was going to hurt herself.”
Bear’s tears came faster. “And you. She was taking you.”
Amir reached for my hand. If Bear noticed, he didn’t say anything.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I told her not to go. But she left anyway. She walked out onto the back porch and down the stairs and she was crying and then you were crying. I said, ‘Mama, let me hold Merrow,’ and she did because I was good at getting you to stop crying. I always made you laugh.”
I stared at him. I had no memory of Bear ever making me laugh. I had only the memories of his hatred for me. But I had no memory of Bear as a ten-year-old boy. I could not picture myself in his arms. I could not imagine his face smiling into mine. I could not imagine him loving me. The person he was describing was not the Bear that I knew.
“She handed you to me. She said she would be back soon. I looked down at you and tried to get you to laugh, but that day you just kept crying and crying. When I looked up, she was far away, walking toward the cliff, and then she was gone.”
“Oh, Bear. You saw her fall?”
“She didn’t fall. She just kept walking until there was nowhere left to walk.”
I had never really considered exactly what our mother’s death had done to my brother. I had not had time to know her, but Bear had had ten years with her. My father had told me that my mother was magnetic, that once you met her you could not imagine life without her, that her smile warmed its lucky recipient from hair to heel. Bear had known our mother, really known her, and he had watched her walk away. He had known, somewhere deep inside himself, where she was going, and he had saved me. But he had not been able to save her. He’d lived with that guilt his whole life. As long as I’d known him, he had never been anything but unhappy. He had never had a single friend. He had no one, and I had my love for the sea and the earth and my animals. And I had Amir.
If one of the kids at Learning Together had told me this story, I would have had all the sympathy in the world for what he had been through. I would have forgiven him for any crime.
“Thank you,” I told Bear. “Thank you for saving your baby sister. You were a good brother.”
He sucked in a big breath that seemed to rattle his entire body. And then he stumbled closer to the edge of the cliff. He steadied himself and moved away from the edge, eyeing me.
“I don’t want you to worry about where you’re going to live,” I said. “You can have my third of Horseshoe Cliff. This land is yours every bit as much as it is mine and Amir’s.”
Bear released a laugh that dissolved into a hacking cough that sounded unnervingly like my father’s. “You think I want this piece of shit land? I don’t! Never have. This land never brought our family anything but trouble. Good riddance!” He threw his hands toward the sky and when he did his leg slid out from under him, pushing into a piece of earth that was suddenly not there. A strangled cry hung in the sky—it might have belonged to any of us—and then Bear was gone.
I sprang to the edge of the cliff. Amir yelled my name. There was Bear: his hands clutching the side of the cliff, his feet scrambling for a hol
d. I dropped to my stomach and wrapped my hands around his forearms. “I have you,” I said, though my heart thundered in my ears. My brother’s eyes were round with fear. Earth crumbled out from under him and tumbled down forty feet to the beach below. Amir was beside me then, reaching his long, strong arms toward Bear. At the sight of him, Bear’s face twisted, curdling like wasted milk.
“Let me go,” he said in a low growl. “Don’t touch me.”
Amir immediately released him. Bear shuddered a few inches down the side of the cliff, his arms sliding through my hands. I grabbed his wrists. A line of red bloomed on his chin where his face scraped the cliff.
I yelled for Amir to help, but Amir did not move. “Look at me,” I begged him.
Amir’s face churned with a terrible mix of anger and pain and love. I did not want to ask him to save his abuser, but I had no choice. Bear slipped another inch in my hands. I gasped as I slid forward with him, dragging my toes against the ground behind me. My nails sunk into Bear’s skin. His head sagged down onto his chest, and I worried he was on the verge of passing out.
“Don’t do it for him,” I said to Amir. “Do it for me. Please.”
The anger on Amir’s face was replaced, almost immediately, with resolve. He reached down again and grabbed Bear’s forearms.
“No,” Bear groaned, rearing his head. “Let me go. Let me go!” He began to struggle against Amir’s grip, but I knew that Amir would not let him go now. Together, we yanked Bear up and over the edge of the cliff even with him thrashing and cursing us. We fell into a pile together, breathing heavily. Bear rolled away, muttering a stream of hateful curses. He managed to stand. Streaks of blood webbed his chin and arms. He stared out at the sea, his chest rising and falling violently. My heart pounded. He could jump off the edge of the cliff whenever he chose.
“Bear—”
He looked down at me as though he did not recognize me, but his eyes were the same green-brown color as mine, as our mother’s. “Leave me alone,” he said. He turned away from us, and from the sea, and began a meandering path back toward the road.
Amir put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him.
“Your poor mother,” he said.
“I don’t remember any of that. I was just a baby, but still . . . I wish I could remember the last time she held me.” In the distance, a gull floated on the water, bobbing up and down as the sea moved below him, carrying him steadily away from the spot where he’d landed. “She must have been in so much pain. I’m sure she walked off in search of peace. I can’t imagine being Bear . . . seeing that . . .”
“It’s hard to imagine that he was once a little boy.”
“If he hadn’t stepped in, my mother might have brought me over that cliff with her.” I looked at Amir. It was impossible to think that I might have lost the chance to meet him. My mother had given me life, but my brother had insisted that I keep it.
“So all this time I have owed Bear everything,” Amir said. With his eyes on mine, a molten sort of warmth spread through me. I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it, too. We had always been like this—our thoughts were not identical, but they were symbiotic, each one of us drawing inspiration, joy, and hope from the other. My passion felt deeper when I was with him, my appreciation for and connection to the natural world more profound.
“All these years,” I murmured wonderingly, “I really thought you were watching me. I could feel you there.”
Amir’s hands moved to the sides of my face. “You felt me near you because I never left you, Merrow,” he said. “I was always with you, just as you were with me.”
My eyes filled with tears. I knew that I could not marry Will. I loved Amir. I had always loved Amir. Sitting beside him on that cliff, with the sea tumbling below us and the wind in my hair, my entire being felt alive with my love for him. I did not want to go another day without knowing where he was, without feeling the heat of his skin against mine.
Amir moved to kiss me, and though my body wanted desperately to meet him in that kiss, I managed to shake my head. “I have to tell Will,” I said. “He deserves it . . . and we do, too. I was always made to feel so ashamed of how I felt about you when we were younger, and I don’t want shame to ever come near my feelings for you again. I want to be with you, wholly, without anything hanging over us.”
I knew that Will would be hurt whether or not I kissed Amir. I had betrayed him already in far more meaningful ways. But it would be hard enough to face Will without the memory of Amir’s kiss playing in my mind.
“I hate the thought of waiting another second,” Amir said. “But I will. I’ll wait as long as you need me to wait.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It was nearly midnight by the time we returned to the city. Amir and I sat for a few minutes in the cab of his truck.
“You’ll call me tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes.” I leaned over to kiss his cheek, and when I did, he wrapped his arm around my waist and held me there with my cheek against his. It felt so right to be in his arms that it was nearly impossible to pull away. “I have to talk to Will,” I said softly.
Amir nodded, but I could see that he was unhappy. I ran my finger over his cheek and he gave me a sad smile.
When I stepped inside, the house was so still and quiet that I wondered if Will was even there. I walked up the stairs and opened our bedroom door. The room was awash with moonlight. Will was in bed. The covers rose and fell with his silent breaths. I whispered his name, but he did not stir.
In the bathroom, I washed my face and changed into my pajamas. I lay down beside Will on the bed, above the covers. I blinked up at the ceiling. I rolled onto my side and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. I watched Will. My lovely Will, who was so generous with his love. My chest ached at the sight of him, vulnerable in sleep, the sweep of his blond hair against his forehead. I ran the events of the last few days over and over again in my mind. On another night, I might have pressed my head against Will’s chest and let the beat of his heart, the steady catch and release of his breath, calm me. But I could not do that now. Eventually, I rose from the bed. I scribbled a note on a slip of paper and left it on my pillow.
I’m home, it said. Can’t sleep.
Downstairs, I took a throw blanket from the den and walked out to the patio. The moon was so bright that the flagstones glowed beneath my bare feet. I curled onto a lounge chair and wrapped myself in the blanket. The sea was a vast mirror, the glinting shards of light an echo of the moon and stars. Far below the patio, the waves hit the shore with a gentle hush, and in the sound, I heard my mother murmur, It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. I had no memory of the sound of her voice, but I was sure it was her, that the ocean held her, was her, that I swam daily in her embrace, that she had never left me but had, in fact, been with me all along.
I AWOKE TO find Will looking down at me with an amused expression.
“There you are,” he said. He sat at the end of the chair and pulled my feet onto his lap. The sky behind him was draped in pink gauze.
I straightened. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven. Were you out here all night? Weren’t you cold?”
I shook my head. “The strangest thing happened.” I told him how I had heard my mother’s voice in the sound of the waves against the shore. I waited for him to make a joke about my mystical powers.
Instead, after a beat, he asked what my mother said to me.
“She said, ‘It’s okay.’”
“‘It’s okay,’” he echoed. “What do you think she meant?”
I swallowed. “I think she was trying to comfort me.”
Will had been slowly rubbing my calves, but now he stopped. His hands became so still that I wondered if he was holding his breath. I wondered if he knew, if there was a part of him that had always known.
“Will.”
“What happened up there?” he asked quickly. “Did you see Bear?”
I nodded. “He’s not
the same. I hardly recognized him. I told him he should stay at Horseshoe Cliff, that he could have my share of the land.”
Relief washed over Will’s face. He reached for my hand, and I felt the press of my engagement ring against my skin. “So Bear and Amir will own the land together.”
I looked down at our entwined fingers. When I spoke, my voice was strained with emotion. “No. It will still belong to all three of us.”
“I don’t understand.”
I forced myself to lift my chin and look at him. I saw a flicker of understanding and hurt in Will’s gaze before it hardened in anger.
“What happened up there, Merrow?” he asked again.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I said. “Except to say that I . . . I realized that I need to be with Amir. Now that he’s back—”
Will yanked his hand from mine. “You need to be with Amir? The person who disappeared when you needed him most?”
“He thought I was leaving him. He heard me—”
Will shook his head. “You know what, I don’t care. I don’t care about what happened between you and Amir when you were kids.” His expression softened. “I love you, Merrow. I love our life together. Amir is your past, but I am your future. Don’t you see that?”
“I thought I did. I was ready to live the rest of my life with you.”
Will’s shoulders sank. “Love isn’t something that you turn on and off like a light switch.”
“You’re right,” I said quietly. There was so much that I could not bear to say to Will because I could not stand the thought of hurting him any more than I already was. I could answer his question and tell him that what had changed was only that Amir had returned, and all the years that we’d spent apart had simply fallen away. That the overwhelming love I’d felt for Amir when I was a girl I still felt now as a woman, and more so. That my life and Amir’s life were bound together—by fate, by nature, by sorrow and cruelty and comfort and joy and profound understanding.
Would explaining the depth of my love for Amir have helped Will to process why I was leaving? Perhaps. But I did not want to risk bringing him more pain. I did not want to reveal to Will that my feelings for him were a tidy pasture, green and lovely, but that my love for Amir was a vast, unruly landscape with a wild sea and windswept land from which, against all odds, beauty and sustenance grew. It was a love that I would be pulled toward my entire life, a love that I felt in the very core of my being. Our love felt transcendent; it was a protection from sadness, a gift of being wholly seen, wholly known. My life was this love, and this love, my life.
