Innis Harbor

by Patricia Evans Cox

  “That’s what I was saying the other day. I can’t think of anyone in town that has ever even disliked you,” Anna said, handing Hamid a napkin. “Why would someone go to all that trouble and expense? It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “I guess we’ll never know now,” Amir said. “Unless they can pry it out of Charlotte.”

  “Did Jason say they’re bringing charges against her?” Loch asked.

  “He said they’re getting the charges together now, and there’s a list.” Amir raised an eyebrow and looked at Amy. “She won’t be getting to the pool anytime soon, let’s just put it like that.”

  There was a pause in the conversation while Anna opened more juice boxes for the kids, and Amir tried again to think of a way to thank Amy and Kiran, but she knew if she even tried to say something now, she might tear up.

  Anna looked at Amir, then back at the girls. “I know you’re staying with us this weekend, Kiran,” she said. “But what’s Amy’s curfew on Friday nights?”

  “Midnight.” They said it together, then Amy added, “We’ve come close a few times, so we try to keep track better now.”

  “Well,” Anna said. “This Friday night, we’re buying you guys dinner, anywhere you want to go, and Hamid has volunteered to be your personal chauffeur until midnight.”

  “I’ll happily drive your little bad asses around all damn night,” he said with a wide smile. “You just saved my sister’s ass. I’m at your service. I’ll even wear a little hat and everything.”

  He made an exaggerated bow, and the girls giggled while Amir got up and came around the table, pulling both of them into a hug.

  “Thank you doesn’t seem like enough,” Amir said, trying to talk around the lump in her throat.

  “Whose idea was this, anyway?” Hamid asked.

  “It was Kiran’s, actually,” Amy said. “I never would have thought to even ask Charlotte about it without her suggesting it. She said she owed someone a favor or something.”

  Loch smiled and locked gazes with Kiran for a long moment before she silently bumped Kiran’s fist with hers.

  The next day, Loch walked back to Samia’s house for the first time while Amir was fielding calls from clients trying to get their projects back on her schedule. Word that Amir had been cleared had gotten around Innis Harbor pretty quickly, and it seemed like the whole town suddenly had something they needed done.

  As Loch climbed the hill toward the house, she noticed right away that something was different. The dangling shutter on the second level had been replaced, the graying cedar shingles had been freshly stained, and the door had even been painted a brilliant cherry red with a shiny brass door knocker in the center. The trim was a sunny, bright white, and even the lawn had been shaped and freshly mowed. She paused before she turned the key in the door and remembered the same moment a few months before when she’d done the same thing after arriving in Innis Harbor. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. This time, she didn’t hesitate. She took a deep breath and stepped in.

  The scent of fresh paint lingered in the air, and as she walked around the house, she realized that every room had been painted exactly how Loch and Skye had described to the crew the day Amir was arrested. Soft tones of earth and sky blended into one another as she walked from room to room, melding into a calming, serene palette. The wood trim on the door frames and windows had been sanded and varnished to a high gloss; even the baseboards looked perfect. Loch walked through the upstairs, peering into the rooms that she remembered playing in as a child but now also looked brand new and full of possibilities, like a color picture superimposed on black and white.

  When she got to her bedroom, she pulled the dust cover off the only piece of furniture left in the house, Samia’s cherry wood sleigh bed that had once belonged to Loch’s great-grandmother. She’d always loved this room. Expansive bay windows looked out over the sea, and a bathroom with an old clawfoot tub and wooden floors connected it to the bedroom and the walk-in closet. As she turned around in it now, she realized how much her heart had healed. She felt balance now, between her memories and her future. It would always be Samia’s house, but now it felt like hers, too.

  She’d assumed that when she flew back to New York Amir would pull her crew and leave the house the way it was, but she’d done the opposite. She’d made sure everything was finished exactly how Loch had described and had even gone beyond that to refinish the hardwood floors, update the light fixtures, and replace the hardware on the cabinets and drawers to a more modern silver tone with a brushed satin finish.

  Loch came back downstairs and tried to imagine the furniture still in her Manhattan apartment in the house as it was now, and it blended seamlessly in her mind; she pictured her red velvet chaise lounge under the sunny window in the living room, with her linen-covered sofa in the center of the room and one of her aunt’s paintings on the wall above the mantel. She looked around again and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  Skye picked up on the first ring. “Hey, stranger. I was about to hop on a plane if I didn’t hear from you soon,” she said. “How did everything turn out with the trial?”

  “It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you every detail later,” Loch said. “But the short version is that they dropped the charges, and Amir was cleared. Even the judge apologized.”

  Loch held the phone away from her ear and waited for Skye’s cheering to stop.

  “I knew it!” Skye said finally, when she came back to the phone. “How is she after all that?”

  “Tired. but happy.” Loch paused. “So, I think I’m going to stay out here for a while.”

  Skye laughed. “There’s a shock. Do you want me to send you some clothes?”

  “Actually…” Loch smiled as she drew back the curtains on the kitchen window to let the sunlight in. “I know living with your mom is every twenty-year-old’s dream, but how do you feel about living in my apartment for the next year or so until I decide what to do with it?”

  “Are you kidding?” Skye’s words tumbled over one another with excitement. “I’d love that!”

  Loch smiled. “And if you pack up all my shit and oversee the movers I send out there, you can live there rent-free.”

  “Are you serious? Then I have to find some boxes, like, today. Mom has taken up singing in some old people’s choir, and they practice in the house.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Every night.”

  “Oh, god, seriously? Well, you have the key, so if you can get Georgia boi to help you pack my stuff up, the movers should be there by next week and you can start moving in.”

  “This is amazing, thank you.” Loch heard the emotion in Skye’s voice. “I can’t wait to come out there and see you. I forgot how much I love Innis Harbor.”

  “Anytime,” Loch said. “How’s it going with the new girlfriend, anyway?”

  There was a pause while Skye searched for the words. “I’ve seriously never been this happy in my life. She’s amazing. You’ll love her.”

  “Definitely bring her with you when you come out here to visit. I have a feeling she’d love it, too.”

  They talked for a few more minutes about a swim meet Skye had coming up, then Loch got off the phone with a promise to send pictures of how the new paint colors looked on the walls while the house was still empty.

  Loch clicked the phone off and put it back in her pocket, then walked to the door of Samia’s studio. It was the only room in the house Loch had left untouched, and she felt Samia’s energy hovering in the sun-warmed air the second she turned the doorknob and heard the familiar creak as the door swung open. A domed skylight filled the circular room with light, and dust-covered paintings were stacked up against the walls in organized chaos, some with splatters of paint on the exposed sides. Sensuous nudes in velvet shades of scarlet and graphite hung high on the wall next to vivid sea landscapes in unexpected colors and textures. Samia’s art covered every inch of the studio, and the tops of the highest frames even butted up against the bottom of the skylight, as
if vying with the sky for more space.

  Loch walked around the studio, trailing her fingers over the edges of the frames, her memory warmed by seeing the canvases she’d watched Samia paint during her summers in Innis Harbor. Most of the art looked familiar, but there was one painting of her and Skye when they were little that she’d never seen before. She picked it up, running her fingers over the driftwood frame. In the picture, they were playing in the sand on an Innis Harbor beach. She recognized the local landscape and cliffs in the distance, but she knew Samia never painted outside the studio. But then the black leather sketchbook Samia always carried in her back pocket caught her eye. It was lying on the edge of a paint-splattered easel across the room. She must have sketched them playing on the beach, then used it to paint the scene later. Loch turned the painting over and read Samia’s tiny script across the brown paper that covered the back of the canvas and frame.

  My Heart, March 14, 2019.

  Loch looked for any paintings with a more recent date but found none; it was the last painting that Samia had completed before she died. Loch picked it up and carried it into the sunny living room where she placed it on the mantel, leaning it lightly against the wall and stepping back to admire it.

  The doorbell rang, and Loch stepped backward, taking a last look at the painting before she went to get the door. It was Amir, holding white takeout bags stamped with the market’s sandwich shop logo.

  Loch took them and pulled Amir inside, holding her close in the empty room and drawing in a deep, soft breath.

  “What are you thinking, beautiful girl?” Amir tucked a stray lock of hair behind Loch’s ear when she finally let her go. Loch smiled up at her.

  “I’m thinking how good it is to be home.”

  Later that afternoon, Amir was at the hardware store when she got a text from Cara.

  Can you meet me at the diner? It’s important.

  Amir furrowed her brow and tried to think of any reason Cara would need to see her. They’d always remained friendly, but even back when they were seeing each other, they didn’t really talk about their day-to-day lives. The diner was only two stores down on Main Street, so she paid for the bolts she’d chosen from the hardware sale bin and walked into the café.

  “Hey,” Cara said when she looked up from the register. “What did you do, teleport down here?”

  “Yes,” Amir said, choosing a bar stool and turning her coffee cup over. “Are you impressed?”

  “Always,” Cara said as she poured Amir’s coffee. She went to the fridge and slid the cream down the counter to her, pouring herself a cup and meeting Amir’s gaze. “You’re not going to believe who was just in here.”

  “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?”

  “Yeah,” Cara said, glancing through the glass doors as if she was expecting whoever it was to walk back in. “That’s pretty much guaranteed. It was Charlotte.”

  “Her parents sprung her out of jail, huh?”

  “For now. From what she said, they pretty much threw the book at her, but she’s still a minor, so it won’t be on her permanent record.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She wanted to tell you something, but I told her it might be better coming from me.”

  “That’s an understatement.” Amir smiled and tried to ignore the feeling of dread building in her chest. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it.” Cara paused, leaning closer so no one would be able to hear her voice. “The person that hired her to frame you…” She hesitated. “…was your dad.”

  “What? That makes no sense at all.” Amir shook her head, trying to process what Cara was saying. “Why should I believe her?”

  “I know. I didn’t, either, but she showed me the texts on her phone.” She paused. “They came from your dad’s number, Amir. You gave it to me once when I was looking at renting that house on the beach.”

  “Do the police know that?”

  “No. Believe it or not, she was savvy enough to switch SIM cards before the trial started.” She looked around and dropped her voice again. “Only you and I know, and I told her I’d kill her myself if she ever told anyone about it.”

  Amir thought for a few long seconds, staring into her coffee, then looked up at Cara. “Thanks for handling her. I owe you one.”

  She was almost out the door when Cara gestured for her to come back and pressed something into her hand.

  “What is this?”

  Cara smiled. “You didn’t think I was going to let her walk out of here with the SIM card, did you?”

  Amir pulled up to her parents’ house a few minutes later. Only her dad’s work van was sitting in the driveway; she knew her mom would still be putting in her volunteer hours at the library. She walked in and up the stairs, stopping at the door of her father’s study. He was working on paperwork at the desk, humming and tapping his pen on the surface.

  She knocked lightly on the door but didn’t come in when he turned around in his chair to face her.

  “Amira, what are you doing here?” He paused, confused. “Were we supposed to look at a house or something?”

  He turned the page in his datebook, then looked back to Amir.

  “Dad.” Amir ignored the tear she felt drop onto her cheek. “I know.”

  Mr. Farzaneh leaned back in his chair, covering his face with his hands for a moment before he looked back at Amir, his jaw set, his face expressionless.

  “Amira,” he said. “What I did for you, I did out of love.” He looked her in the eyes. “I don’t want you to waste your life. You should be thinking about your future.”

  “So, you thought it would be better if I spent the next twenty years in jail?”

  Her father shook his head, and his face fell for just an instant.

  “I never intended it to get that far. I never told her to report it to the police, I only wanted her to start a rumor in town.”

  “Dad, why would you do that to me?” Amir sank into the tweed chair beside her father’s leather-topped desk. “What good could possibly come of that?”

  “I’ve tried to steer you in the right direction, Amira,” he said, his knuckles white as he gripped the arms of his desk chair. “But you are so stubborn. You don’t know what you’re giving up to be…”

  His voice faltered, and he looked down.

  “Be what, Dad?” Amir tried to control the anger starting to simmer in her mind like a distant tornado. “To be gay?”

  Her father said nothing, just looked down.

  “So, that was the point of all this?” she asked. “To punish me for being who I am?”

  He looked up at her finally, and Amir saw the emotion in his eyes.

  “I knew people would hear about it, and I thought if your business slowed down, you might finally think about getting married and starting a family.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Amir struggled to keep her voice at a respectful level. “You wanted to shame me into marrying some man I’d never love?”

  Mr. Farzaneh slammed his fist on the desktop. “You don’t know you’d never love him!” Tears shimmered in his eyes. “I didn’t even know your mother when I married her, and we have a wonderful life and two beautiful children. I want that for you.”

  A few long seconds passed before he spoke again, his voice tinged with a softness Amir hadn’t heard since before she came out. “I want you to be happy, to have someone who loves you in this world when your mother and I are gone.”

  “Dad, is that really what you think? That I’ll be alone?”

  Mr. Farzaneh turned and wiped his eyes with his arm.

  “I’m in love with someone now that I hope to be with the rest of my life. She’s amazing, and frankly, I don’t deserve her.”

  “Is that Samia’s niece?”

  Amir nodded.

  “I’m…” His voice faltered, and he stopped and started twice before he got the words out. “I am sorry I brought th
at boy over to meet you. Your mother is still angry at me.” He paused. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”

  Amira leaned forward. “I’m not angry anymore. I didn’t know what was happening then, but I think I’m starting to understand.” She hesitated. “But I need you to tell me the truth. Do you hate me because I’m gay, or were you just worried I’d never have what you and Mom have?”

  “Amira.” This time, he didn’t bother to wipe the tears falling down his cheeks. “I’ve loved you from the moment I first held you in my arms. I could never hate you. I just wanted to be sure you’ll be happy in life, and I didn’t know how that would happen with…” His words faltered. “…the gayness.”

  Amir smiled, then laughed, and finally even her father’s face cracked into a smile.

  “Really?” She tried to stop laughing, but it was just too good to pass up without a comment. “The gayness? Really?”

  They laughed together until Mr. Farzaneh got up and poured Amir a short glass from his secret stash of bourbon, then one for himself.

  “Does Mom know you drink?”

  “I don’t drink. I’m a Muslim,” he said with a straight face. “There are certain things wives never need to know. Like the fact that your mother has also always been too good for me.”

  Father and daughter clinked glasses and took the first sip just as Amir’s mother rounded the corner and stood in the doorway.

  “I thought you were at the library,” Mr. Farzaneh said, sliding the bottle back into his desk drawer.

  “Don’t bother hiding it, darling. I’ve known about your little stash for thirty years.” She rolled her eyes, then looked at Amir. “Are you staying for dinner?”

  “I can’t, I have somewhere I need to be, but I’ll come down and hug you before I leave.”

  “Fair enough.” She paused, her voice suddenly soft. “It’s good to see you two getting into trouble together again.”

  She left, and Amir waited until she heard her go down the stairs before she pulled a tiny metal square out of her pocket and put it in her dad’s hand.