by Daisy Allen
The last time I was here, I was eighteen, sitting on a bus, backpack stuffed with three days’ worth of clothes, a crumpled letter in my hand and fear in my heart.
Scared but, I remember, I felt alive.
And oh, how alive I feel now.
A gust of wind kicks up as I walk to the car Patricia booked ahead for me, and blasts against my face. I close my eyes to shield them from the dust, while breathing in the scent of mown grass and sea air.
I throw my overnight bag into the back seat of the convertible and settle into the driver’s seat, breathing lungful after lungful of nostalgia. And something inside me starts to heal over.
I plan for the drive to Langham to take me almost half an hour. Or it should only take me half an hour, but I can’t help constantly stopping along the way. Every few miles I pull over to take in the landscape of my childhood. We didn’t take a lot of trips after my father left but in that short time when I remember having two parents, on lazy Sunday afternoons he would have us all jump in the car, then somebody would shout out a town name not too far but close enough for us to play several car games and off we would go. Off to Gray, off to Auburn, off to Reid State Park we would go, the six of us crammed into his old Buick with so much excitement sometimes I think the car ran solely on our energy.
Somehow, everything looks the same and yet everything looks different. The road signs are different, the fields of wildflowers have been leveled for farmland, the old lobster shack that you could see from the road with its red roof is faded and covered in spiderwebs. Every few miles I stop and take it all in, readjusting the images in my head of what Maine looks like now. It’s almost two hours after I land when I finally turn off the exit into Langham. I try to pretend I don’t know where I’m going but my internal navigation system steers me to the place that I’ve been longing to return to.
I turn into the half-full parking lot and the sign tells me they’re still open for the summer season. The sign still says Dairy Joy but it’s faded, the menus on the windows have changed to typed and laminated, a far cry from the owner’s messy scribbles on the chalkboard. The door is closed probably to lock in the cold air. Two kids laugh as they race their way out of the ice cream parlor to a bench under the shade, multicolored ribbons of ice cream already trickling down their arms. I slide through the closing door and the aroma that wafts into my nostrils instantly takes me back.
Takes me back twelve years to the first time I saw her. I was standing at the counter handing out some samples which she walked in the door. Something about the ding of the bell sounding different from the thousands of times before and l looked up just as she swept in, her curtain of blonde hair messy after a long day of high school but still shimmering in the afternoon light. Her face glowed with a smile, seemingly about nothing in particular, and in that moment I didn’t know it but she had stolen my heart forever.
“Can I help you?” says the man standing behind the counter, drawing me out of my reverie. It only takes a moment for the question in his eyes to linger, but then it clicks. “Xavier? Is that really you?” He shakes his head, as if to combine the image of me in his head with the person standing in front of him. He holds out his hand to me, awkwardly. It’s funny what the passage of time can do. Last time he saw me I was just eighteen. And he was my boss. Hardly the type of person he’d be offering his hand to. But times have changed and he knows why I am here.
“Hi Mr. Horsham, how are you doing?” I ask, taking his hand and giving his a good shake, then following up with a grin.
“I’m doing okay, Xavier, I’m doing good.” He hasn’t let go of my hand yet and I have no reason to pull away.
“That’s good, I’m glad to hear it.” There is another ding of the bell as a family comes in behind me. “I’ll get out of your way. I just wanted to come and see how you are doing.”
“No, please, stay for a minute. Can I get you something?”
“Sure, how about one of your famous banana splits. And don’t cheap out on the whipped cream,” I say giving him a wink remembering the hundreds of times he would tell me off for being too generous.
He laughs and steps over to the serving station. Someone comes from out back to serve the other customers while I stand there taking in the sights and sounds of my high school summers working here. It takes him less than a minute to put my sundae together and he gestures for me to follow him outside. It is still warm considering that the summer is in its very last days and the tips of the leaves are starting to turn. I let a mouthful of ice cream melts into a creamy puddle on my tongue before I swallow it.
“Xavier, I don’t know how to thank you-” he starts.
“No. Please. You don’t have to.” I cut him off.
“No, it has to be said. If you hadn’t given me that gift, that… loan, you know we wouldn’t have been able to stay in business. I’m not even sure how you knew about our troubles. I tried to contact you but… you never returned any of my calls.”
“It was the least I could do, Mr. Horsham. You helped me when I needed it most, and you taught me how much just one kind person can make a difference to your life. “”
“You know, I still regret letting you go that day. It’s just… those kids…” he says his voice dropping.
“No. It was the right thing to do. I know now how important it is to run a good business. And you always did. This place would not be the same without you. I did it just as much for me, for Langham, as for you, sir,” I say. I mean every word.
***
Banana split in hand, I find myself starting to wander down the street, the rental car left behind. I don't think too much about where I want to go, just letting my feet take me where they wish. I walk down Main Street, taking in the new businesses that have spread out beyond the old skate park I used to take Brian to. There’s growth here, but it’s slow. Maybe that’s okay. Not everywhere has to be Manhattan.
It’s not long before I find myself away from the busiest part of town. The houses and buildings are more sparse, interspersed between empty land and trees.
In the distance I can hear the water crashing over the dam and I close my eyes and listen. There must've been some rainfall in the last few days. Even after all these years, I can tell what month it is just by the sound of the waterfall.
A car whizzes by and I open my eyes and continue on my walk. There’s no doubt where my feet are taking me now. I don’t fight it.
The trees grow thicker on either side of the road. There are bushes and branches I remember so well, I automatically duck to avoid the thorns as I pass them. The path is paved now though, no longer just dirt and pebbles and errant weeds under my feet.
It’s not too far now, my destination.
My body turns into the gap in the trees even before I really realize where I am. It’s more overgrown than I remember; I have to push aside some branches and my feet stamp down on the ankle-high weeds before I emerge in front of the lake.
But once I do, it’s like I never left.
I gasp, just like that first time. Just like her first time seeing the lake from this very spot.
No matter what time of day it is, the reflection of the sky off the water’s surface is breathtaking.
I sink to my feet and sit down in the long grass, looking out over the water. A bird chirps behind me, and I can almost hear the sound of Malynda’s twinkling laughter as she used to sneak peeks into the nests to watch the baby birds grow.
The first night I slept here, it was right under the stars. My mother had come home after a double shift, the twins were screaming, and Brian had slammed the door and locked himself in his room. As soon as I could I disappeared out the back door and ran and ran and ran until I ended up here. The chaos in my head was still so loud I could barely hear the water over the buzzing. I’d dived under the water, and it was only under there that I found silence.
I’d loved my little sanctuary out here.
I’d thought it was because I liked being alone, and that maybe that’s just
the sort of person I am. A loner. A hermit. A romantic isolationist.
But then I brought her here.
Without knowing anything about her, without having ever really spoken to her, I brought her here. And I loved it even more after that. After all that time, I spent here before her, it's her ghost that now haunts this place.
I should’ve perished in New York. After I moved there, to find her. I shouldn’t have lasted a week, a month, let alone all this time. And I wouldn’t have if I was really the loner I thought I was back then. It turns out, however, I just hadn’t met the right people. I think back to those who have been there for me all these years. And I wonder what I ever did to deserve friendships like those.
Eighteen-year-old Xavier was a fool. The self-imposed isolation only ever hurt me.
I sigh and I push myself up onto my feet.
One more place to go.
***
I can see the wall is covered in faded movie and concert posters even before I come up close. I’m not sure what I was hoping for, but it would’ve been unrealistic to hope that her mural would still be visible. But other than that, nothing about this place has changed. The basketball court lines are almost invisible after decades of sun and rain. The hoop has lost its original red tint but still stands tall and strong.
I walk up to the wall, eyes scanning the concert posters peeling at the corners, the dates barely readable. My eyes close and there she is. Dancing in front of me, arms and body and legs moving to the music inside her head as she arranges the paint swatches on her work of art.
I need to see it; I need to know what she was working on all those hours. I need to know what I’d inspired in her.
I start ripping at the posters, peeling them away from the wall, layer by layer, careful not to disturb what lies beneath. The adrenaline starts to course through my body as I feel myself getting closer and closer. I start to tear at the sheets of colored paper, tossing them on the ground, not caring when the wind kicks up and carries them away.
Yes!
There it is! I spot the first corner of a paint swatch, and I feel myself hurtled into the past. I’m careful again, pulling the last layer away, slowly exposing her work inch by inch by inch until there’s nothing left covering it.
I take a deep breath and I stand back.
And see it for the very first time.
It’s hard to take it all in at once, it’s so big, but it’s beautiful. Breathtaking.
It’s unfinished, but there’s no doubt what it’s was meant to be.
And there’s no doubt that it came from her.
The background stretches outward in an array of vibrant colors that surround the central image; one hand outstretched to another.
Me and her. Hers and mine.
I’m just not sure who is the one offering their hand and who is the one taking it.
In my mind, I always thought it was me.
All this time.
Even now.
I thought I was the one meant to be saving her.
But she had it right all along, we were meant to save each other.
Even by not telling me about what had happened with her attack, and then subsequently her shame about doing what she needed to survive, she wasn’t protecting herself. She was protecting me.
All this time, I thought I was the one protecting her. I thought fighting over her was the same thing as fighting for her.
I was wrong.
Fuck. I’ve been so wrong!!
I stare at the unfinished mural, hidden under layers and layers of history.
Unfinished. Just like us.
No. We need to continue what we started. And something tells me, that starts with her finishing this mural.
I stand back, taking a mental picture with my mind.
Malynda, I will help you finish.
If it’s the last thing I ever do for you.
To remind her who she was, and how the things that have happened don’t change that, don’t change who it is she can be now.
That she was put on this earth to make art like this.
Forty-Two
Him
“Can you drive any faster, man?”
The Uber driver just shrugs, but I feel the car lurch forward and knock me back into my seat.
“What’s the hurry?” he asks over his shoulder.
“I need to see a girl. About something. Something long overdue.”
“Ah. Well, we’re almost there. You sure you know what you’re going to say?”
“Yes. I just don’t know how she’s going to respond.”
The youth center looms ahead and I point to it. “Over there! Just pull over!”
I jump out even before he’s come to a complete stop.
Turning almost immediately back into traffic he yells, “Good luck, man!” out the rolled-down window, and merges into the throng of cars.
I spin around to face the building, eyeing the signs and banners announcing today as the grand opening. I don’t have time to take in the finished construction before she comes walking around the corner.
“Malynda!” Her name comes spilling out from deep in my gut and onto my lips.
She instantly stops in her tracks, her hands full with a box of decorations, causing a chain reaction of people almost banging into her and each other. Someone curses as he jumps to the side to avoid her.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment.
I don’t say anything for a moment longer.
I thought I knew what I wanted to say. But seeing her in front of me right now makes all the declarations, all the revelations, all the promises seem unworthy of what I feel. Unworthy of her.
“I didn’t know if you were going to come today,” she finally says. And I nod. I can see why she might’ve thought that.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, I was out of town. But I’m here now,” I say, as if I need to convince her I’m real. Just as I had needed to convince myself over and over that she was real in those first few days she came back into my life. It was so much easier to think that she’s been just an aberration. Memories are much easier to deal with than reality.
But now, we are both real and both here. Just where we’re meant to be.
“Do they know?” she asks, her eyes giving nothing away. I feel more nervous than I ever have in my life. My fingers feel clammy and I shove them into my pockets to stop from fidgeting.
“Jade and Kaine?” I ask. She nods in reply. “Yes. They’re the ones who told me what time you’d be here,” I say before I think that that might come across as a betrayal to her.
“Where did you go?”
“Maine.” My answer makes her eyebrows shoot up, but she doesn’t respond.
I take a step closer, the letters slowly starting to form into words and sentences again in my head. And then I speak, and say all the things I should’ve said a long time ago.
"Malynda. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. The things I said, the things I did. I was wrong. You're right, all this time I've been trying to pass it off as my need to protect you, but it was just my misguided machismo at having failed you all those years ago. I should've been here convincing you, showing you that the things that happened to you mean nothing in the scheme of how I see you, how I respect and admire you… how I love you. I was off nursing my own bruised ego, and getting more bloody bruised in the process. And then to blame it on you? I don’t even know why you’re still here listening to me. I don’t deserve it. But I need you to know how sorry I am. The truth is, I’ve been in a state of suspended animation for so long. I thought I’d grown up, matured, when I've just been making excuses for my immature way of thinking. While I've been waiting and searching, I should've been working on making myself worthy of you, for the day you might come back. I realize that now. I also realize that my role was never to protect you; it’s to support you. It’s not to inspire you; it’s to help you inspire yourself. And that I should never have put that burden on you, to be my reason for living. And I sho
uld’ve told you, there’s nothing you can’t do without me. You don’t need me. I need you. Then, you might’ve known that there’s nothing you should’ve been afraid to tell me. Because I would never have stopped loving you because of something that had happened to you, or something you had done. My love was never contingent on you staying the same. You were always meant to grow. I just wanted to get to watch it. It’s still what I want.” I take a deep breath and say the final thing I came here to say. I hold out my hand to her, outstretched, open. “Come with me. Please, I want to take you somewhere.”
She doesn’t answer me right away, just stands and stares at me for a moment.
She looks down at my hand and there’s the slightest shake of her head.
“I can’t, Xavier. It’s - it’s the youth center opening today. I have to be here. And so do you.”
Her words slash through the breath I’m holding, and I feel every cell in my body convulse.
I had never thought about what would happen if she said no. If she wouldn’t let me take her back to where it all happened. I had never thought about the fact that I could be too late. I drop my hand and take a few steps back, tripping over the curb behind me and stumble onto the street.
A car horn beeps and startles me out of my thoughts.
"Xavier!" She runs over and grabs my arm pulling me back onto the footpath. "You idiot!"
She lets go and looks me over, “Are you okay?”
I nod, the years ahead of me without her in my life arranging themselves in my head and weighing on my heart.
“Er, yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. It’s your day.” I say.
She frowns. “No. It’s our day. You’ve worked on this for much longer than I have. Don’t let me ruin it for you. And anyway, I have something to show you.” There’s a twinkle in her eye and this time it’s her reaching her hand out to me. “Are you game?” she asks.
And I say the only thing there is to say as I take her hand, “Fuck, yes.”
I’m not sure what I’m expecting as I grip her hand and she pulls me through the entrance of the youth center. I haven’t been here in two weeks, since I checked in one last time before I left for the airport and out of New York for the first time in twelve years. At that point, the construction was almost finished, but as most people know, that’s when it can look the worst. There had still been debris everywhere, the partitions were erected by still bare drywall. The cement floor was covered in layers and decades of dust and the erratic pattern of footprints of the construction workers.