by Lisa Dale
“I’m saying that it’s time to end all this.”
“Are you asking me to stay away from Garret? From Jonathan? Even from you?”
“I’m sorry,” Sue said. “But yes, I am.”
The year after Thea had graduated high school—after Jonathan had proposed with a real ring this time and Thea had said she would think about it, and after Garret had paid his fine and started over at a two-year school—Thea became an orphan. Her mother and father had packed up what things they needed to start over in Turkey, and the deeds to the house and the Dancing Goat had been signed over to her.
She’d stood in the departure hall of the airport, escalators and sunglass kiosks and the echo of mile-high ceilings surrounding her on all sides, and when her parents had rounded the last corner of the gate and she could no longer see them, she knew for the first time what it was to be without them. In some ways, she was no longer their child—no longer a child at all. The responsibility of their business and their home had fallen on her, and she’d taken up the burdens gladly—her last connection to her family. Watching the planes nose higher into the atmosphere behind tall windows, she felt as if a part of her was going missing—as if her father had accidentally packed a piece of her heart in his suitcase with his socks, and now it was being loaded into some dark and anonymous cargo hold.
But then—from that place of such sorrow and loss—Thea felt someone take her hand. Sue. She held it firmly, solidly—less to give comfort than to give strength. And when Thea glanced up at the woman beside her whom she was only just beginning to understand was a friend, she saw that Sue had been crying too. For Thea’s sake.
They stood for a long time in the airport, long after Thea’s parents had disappeared, not speaking. Outside the windows, the sky grew subtly pink. The frenzy of the departure hall faded. And at last, Sue put her arm around Thea and spoke.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
Thea dropped two bags of groceries on the kitchen table; the day’s hours had passed like a dream she still wasn’t quite sure she’d had. While Irina prattled on, making an argument for staying up later, Thea began to put away the bags and boxes of food she’d picked up at the grocery store. She pressed play on the answering machine.
“Hi, Thea? It’s Lettie. I got a very odd phone call today, and my phone box is telling me that it was from your house. I can’t imagine that’s right. Please give me a call.”
Irina grew suspiciously quiet, leaving the kitchen quickly, and the answering machine beeped again.
“Hello, this is Len Dempsey. I’m just calling to let you know that my daughter says she got a prank phone call from this number today from another little girl. Totally harmless—the old is-your-re frigerator-running thing. But I thought you’d like to know.”
Thea stopped putting away a box of pasta.
“Um, hi. I got a call that said I was supposed to call this number back about a free television—”
She pushed stop. She looked at the sleek black answering machine. Eight new messages, it read. She pulled out a chair at the table, brown paper bags standing before her like parapets, and sat down. She knew she should be angry, should call Irina out. But how much more could a person tackle in one day? She stared absently at the groceries she’d yet to put away, watching condensation slip down the side of a Popsicle box. She felt too empty to cry.
When she heard Irina come into the room, she didn’t turn her head.
“It’s eight thirty. Aren’t you going to make me go to sleep?” Irina asked.
Thea glanced at her—the daughter who was as worried about the future as Thea was, but who had no way to express it. “No.”
Irina’s eyes narrowed. She had already gotten herself into her princess pajamas and brushed her hair so it hung straight and brown before her shoulders. The look on her face said she thought she was being led into a trap. “Really?”
“It’s fine. Watch your TV show.”
To Thea’s surprise, the furrow between Irina’s eyebrows spoke less of elation than dismay. “You’re not going to yell at me?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“No, I’m not going to yell at you.”
Irina stood looking at her for a moment, uncertain, then gave a yawn that would have earned her the starring role in her school play. “I guess I am kinda tired. I can tuck myself in tonight. You don’t have to. Okay?”
Thea closed her eyes. The tears that had been mysteriously absent a moment ago now gathered in full force. Her ten-year-old daughter—how could kids sense the things they did? When she opened her eyes, Irina was standing in the doorway with a mix of hope and confusion on her face that touched Thea’s heart. “Come here.”
In a moment Irina was in her arms, clinging tight with her head turned to the side. Thea kissed her hair. It smelled of strawberry shampoo and that indescribably sweet scent that Thea had come to love when she’d first caught it on her daughter’s infant skin. Irina had been through so much—and with each day her acting out grew bigger and more dangerous. If Sue was the moral compass that guided her family, Irina was the measure of the family’s emotional health. And she was wilting as any seedling in the pressure of drought and sun.
Thea rocked her gently, the resolve to protect her daughter as deep and enduring as on the day Irina was born. The feeling was more than duty—it was need. The promise to give safe passage through childhood. To guard against unhappiness while the opportunity was there.
Thea stood from the chair, carrying Irina with her gently, and walked her upstairs to her bedroom. She turned on the night-light and shut the blinds. She helped Irina into the covers, brushed back the hair from her forehead, and kissed her there.
It had been a hard year, filled with sweeping changes, the foundation of their family life shifted not by degrees but by miles. Thea had believed her and Jonathan’s civility toward each other would be enough to reassure their daughter that life would not substantially change. The plan might have worked too, if Thea hadn’t gone and selfishly altered the balance—believing in a weak and naive moment that she could have Garret without complications, that she could have everything.
Irina turned over onto her stomach, and Thea tucked the covers in around her. What had she been thinking? Last night, Garret had held her and promised her that they were doing the right thing, that their family would want them to be happy. But now, what fragile accord the family had found was gone. Jonathan was angry at Thea, angry at Garret. Sue was frustrated with all of them. And Irina—whether she knew it or not—was picking up on all the negativity and feeding it back to them in the form of torn-up textbooks and prank calls.
In the doorway of Irina’s room, Thea paused, pain opening her up and deepening like a dark pit. This morning, she’d felt as if she’d finally—finally—had Garret back, but now, for the sake of her daughter, it looked like she would need to give him up again. The thought of life without him, of how close they’d almost come …
She shook herself out of her self-pity. The future was clear, without alternatives. It shone before her—forgiveness, redemption, acceptance—bought at the price of love.
That night, she wrote to Jonathan in an e-mail:I left a message that I needed to talk with you. I found some things under Irina’s bed—a knife and matches. I worry that she’s smoking. And apparently she’s been making prank calls.
We need to be together, all three of us. As a family. Let’s do something together. Let’s go to a zoo. Let’s carve pumpkins. Anything. She needs to know her family is solid, that we’re all behind her. Call me tomorrow—we’ll set something up.
I know I’m the last person you want to talk to right now. But I’m not writing about us. I’m writing about Irina. I trust you, completely, to help me give Irina the best life I can. Will you trust me to do the same?
She started to write her name in closing, but when she looked over the letter one last time, she realized she hadn’t said all she needed to say.
Jus
t so you know, I’ve decided that it’s best Garret and I not see each other.
The cursor blinked before her, asking her to write more. One sentence could not undo everything that had happened. No number of sentences could. So she erased it quickly, then without time for second-guessing, hit Send.
From “The Coffee Diaries” by Thea Celik
The Newport Examiner
To kick the coffee habit, many people give up outright.
There are a number of theories about where the phrase quit cold turkey came from. Some say it’s related to talk turkey, which at one point was slang for speaking bluntly without thinking first. Others believe it’s from the idea of serving turkey cold—without preparation.
Regardless, quitting cold turkey is asking for trouble. Symptoms of caffeine withdrawal can be brutal—headaches, irritability, drowsiness, insomnia, stomach cramps, and more. To mitigate the discomforts, many experts recommend that caffeine be reduced gradually over time—as opposed to all at once.
And yet for some people, the only way to quit is to quit fully and completely. Weaning oneself off caffeine little by little may be more difficult to bear.
EIGHTEEN
The alleyway of the Dancing Goat was dark and cold, but Garret hardly felt the chill. The days were growing shorter, the brittle skeletons of leaves chattering along the brick walkways and skittering into corners. Above, the stars were obscured between the high walls of the buildings, but the clouds were white gray and moonlit, passing quickly as if they were sliding down the sky.
At last, Thea and an older woman emerged from the coffee shop, and when the woman looked up and saw Garret there, she gasped and jumped back. He recognized her a moment later: she was Lettie, who’d been at the Dancing Goat since he was just a boy. She used to give him a hard time for wearing his pants too baggy when he was a teen. He was glad to see her, glad she was still around.
“It’s okay,” he said, holding out his hands. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m here to talk to Thea.”
“Garret.” Lettie put a hand to her chest while Thea locked the door. “You nearly gave an old woman a heart attack!”
“Sorry.”
Thea looked at him a long moment; he didn’t like the distance in her eyes. “You waited for me out here?”
He shrugged. Standing in the cold had seemed like the best idea; he didn’t want to end up milling around awkwardly in the coffee shop, waiting for Thea to close up, making pointless small talk while bigger issues loomed. “I just got here a second ago,” he said.
Thea tipped her chin down; she obviously didn’t believe him. But she said, “It’s okay, Lettie. You can go.”
Lettie gave her a quick look—even Garret could see it meant Are you sure? But the older woman took Thea’s cue, cinched up her heavy coat, and started down the alley. “Good to see you,” she said as she walked past him. “I hope we run into each other again. Though perhaps without the heart failure.”
Garret laughed politely, and then, a moment later, he and Thea stood in the narrow alleyway alone. She wore faded jeans, a heavy black peacoat, and sturdy sneakers. She pulled a knit wool hat over her ears—it was thick and embellished with red and white Norwegian stars, and she tucked her hair inside.
“So what are you doing here?” she asked.
“I needed to see you.” She stood a few feet away—too far. He wished she would come toward him, put her arms around him. But she only stood still. “Walk with me?” he asked.
“Okay.”
Together, they made their way slowly out of the alleyway and onto the main thoroughfare of Price’s Pier. Most of the stores had already closed for the evening, and the pier was nearly empty, lit only by streetlights and the glow of seasonal window displays. The scrimshaw shop, where old Charlie Rourke etched schooners onto recycled piano keys, had been decorated with oversized pumpkins, stalks of brown and white corn, and bales of hay. Soft shadows nestled beneath empty benches and clung beneath eaves.
“Let’s go to the edge,” Garret said.
“All right,” she said, her voice blank.
The cold air blowing in from the harbor stung Garret’s cheeks and made his eyes tear. At his side, Thea wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck, shivering slightly, and Garret knew they wouldn’t be able to stay outside very long. They walked out to the old lobster market, a warehouse that sat at the far end of the pier. In the dark, its weather-beaten boards and doors the size of truck beds seemed vaguely ominous. Beneath a single lamp, Garret leaned his shoulder against the planks, facing Thea. The building blocked some of the wind.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“I heard you had a fight with Jonathan.”
“Did my mother tell you?”
Thea nodded. Her gaze slid away for a moment—a flicker of something he couldn’t read.
“He wants me to choose. You or my family.”
“I know,” she said. She looked out into the distance. The water was dark as pitch tonight, all that opaque black speckled by boat lights as if by stars. “I love your family,” she said.
“I know you do.”
“I won’t make you choose between me and them.”
He moved closer, took her hand, even though all he could feel was her gloves. “What if it’s a choice I want to make?”
She looked down at their fingers locked together. “You can’t leave them again. Not after having been away for so long.”
He sighed, and he knew she was right. He was only just beginning to see how much he’d missed—and how much he regretted—all the years of tension between himself, his brother, and his parents. And yet, some part of him was prepared to do anything to keep her at his side.
“What if we just take a break?” he asked. “We can wait a year. Two. Five—I don’t care how long. Things might look different then.”
“They might,” she said, offering a watery smile. “But right now, I know this can’t work. I’ve got my daughter to think of—she’s already been through a lot this year. You’ve got to think of your family. It’s bad timing.”
“I know.” He leaned his forehead against hers for a moment. “I think if this had happened to us when we were kids, we would have just said screw it. Eloped. Gone and bought a house out West or something and never come to Newport again.”
“But we’re not kids,” Thea said, drawing back. “So it’s not that easy. And I love you too much to see you cut off from your family because of me.”
For long moments, he looked at her—her brown eyes, the thick knit stitches of her hat running along her forehead, her pretty skin the color of tea. He felt the distance between them, the distance she’d wedged there, meant to lessen the pain. But he couldn’t stand it—all this intentional numbness. If they were going to do this, he wanted to feel it—all of it. Everything good about what they were together and everything that made him feel like his heart was being ripped from his chest. He couldn’t stand by and let her disengage—pretend this wasn’t happening and that everything was going to go back to normal. He didn’t want to be the only one acknowledging the pain.
“Thea …”
She looked into his eyes, some of the flatness already giving way.
“Dance with me?”
She hesitated: he could see the war within her, one part of her wanting to linger and savor these last private moments together, and the other part urging her to shut down her emotions and flee. He helped her make the decision. He took off his glove, lifted his hand to brush the backs of his fingers along her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed, her breath drawing in, and he pulled her against him. His cheek pressed hers as he swayed with her, his arms holding her as tight as all their clothes would allow. He loved the cocoon of warmth they’d made together, tucked away in the shoulder of the lobster market. The wind’s moan, the creaking boards of the pier, the clang of a hard rope knocking a flagpole—if he listened right it almost sounded like music. When he pulled back to look at her, tears had gathered in her
eyes.
“Garret,” she said, his name a plea.
He kissed her. Wanted to memorize her mouth, her taste. Memories stored up for days and years down the line. She leaned into him, her lips parting beneath his, and fire rippled beneath his skin. Everything he’d ever wanted, the life he dreamed of, was locked inside her heart. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids. He held her tight and buried his face in the crook of her neck, swaying with her body. He felt the wetness of her tears against his face.
“I’ll always love you,” he said, the words so important and yet so futile. “No matter what happens. No matter where I go or what I do. That won’t change.”
“I know,” she said.
He kissed her again, long and slow. He felt her shivering, less from emotion than the bitter cold. He wished the evening were more gentle—a warm breeze, a pink sunset. But the hard Atlantic winter was already creeping in, and the time for bittersweet goodbyes had lapsed long ago.
He eased his grip on her, though it cost him so much. “Can I walk you to your car?”
“Please—don’t,” she said, her voice breaking as she inched away. “Just stay here for a minute. Wait until I’m out of sight. Then—then, you can go.”
He nodded. She squeezed his hand once, her eyes full of words, brimming over, words she couldn’t say. And then she turned and ran, the wind blowing her scarf behind her in the streetlight. He waited in the shadow of the building, watching, until she had disappeared.
Dear Thea,
I have no interest in seeing you. What you did is awful. You are awful.
I don’t think Irina is smoking. You didn’t find any cigarettes, did you? And she doesn’t smell like smoke. I think it’s pretty clear what you should do: take the matches and knife away, explain that they’re dangerous. Irina’s a smart cookie. She’ll get it.
And as for prank phone calls, don’t forget you made your share when we were kids.
Jonathan
The windows of the old Newport library shuddered and clanged, and falling leaves danced in the streetlights outside. Though the library was warm, damp drafts drifted in among the shelves of books from hidden places. Jonathan had left his coat on during the discussion—Lori Caisse had too. The little group had been talking for an hour, and the librarians were beginning to mill about the doorway, a sign that they were getting anxious to close.