by Natasha Boyd
“Because you didn’t know he’d do that,” Pete answered. I must have spoken aloud. “Marjoe’s tellin’ Big Jake,” he went on, listening to someone on the other end of the line and reporting to me. “JJ’s not there. Can Big Jake go? Jake’ll go.” He hung up and looked at me. “We’ll get to her, Tommy.”
“But I did know, Pete. It was a real and dangerous variable, a big one, and I chose to ignore it.” I covered my face with my hands, trying to regroup. To think.
He nodded. “You jus’ leave me here. Go on.”
“Pete…”
He climbed off my boat onto his, and then untied the line.
I was adrift.
The wind was strong.
I undid the sail ties and checked the reefing lines, taking comfort in the routine safety checks. The fastest way back would be to let the boat run with the wind, not the engine, and I needed to get back as fast as possible. She could probably handle two reefs, so I fitted them and unfurled the sail slowly, even though I wanted to yank the line. When it was up, I set the course.
Big Jake was heading to check on her, and so as long as Cal didn’t get to her first, she’d be okay. She would be fine. She knew to go to Mama’s. She’d be okay. Please, God, let her be okay.
The boat sliced through the waves, the salt spray showering my face with every dip.
Please.
Please.
IT WAS COLD. So cold. My body rattled the teeth in my skull. But I was under something heavy, it was soft, but it smelled like mildew and old iron. A boat tarp?
I could breathe. Air. There was air. But it hurt to breathe. My face throbbed and my lungs burned. My mind frantically cast back through memories and the seawater, the surface of the water. I was drowning. I drowned. There was no one who could have saved me.
Except the only other person in the water with me. Cal.
I gasped and the breath seared pain through my chest. It was too much… my mind went quiet again.
VOICES WERE TALKING, and then I was carried. My body was carried close to a warm chest and a heart that pounded with exertion. Resignation had settled deep inside me, and I no longer felt curiosity or a need to see and hear where I was. My thoughts drifted to Tom. He’d done so much, I was sad it had all been for nothing. Abby was right. Love was beautiful and light. All I had to do was think of it, and nothing else mattered. My mind was living in an empty vessel and soon, when Cal killed me, my mind would be free. I’d be like one of the daughters of the air from the fairy tale. Dancing on the sea foam and earning my immortal soul.
“LIV, LIV, LIV.”
I felt my name rather than heard it.
Or was someone asking me to live?
“OLIVIA?” A FAMILIAR, scratchy female voice. A safe voice. “Livvy? Can you hear me, honey?”
Oh my God, the pain. I was on something soft. Very soft. So comfortable compared to the fiery burn and breathtaking agony in my neck and chest.
I willed my mouth to move, or my eyes to open, but there was no response. There was something down my throat. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. Or my neck couldn’t move.
“Honey, I’m not sure if you can hear me, but don’t try to talk, okay? You won’t be able to. You‘re in the hospital.” There was a long pause. Someone squeezed my hand tight and sniffed. The voice, when it resumed, was wobbly. “You almost drowned, so they have a tube in you. Two, actually, one for your lungs and one for your kidneys.”
Tom, my mind screamed. Where’s Tom? No one answered.
Days went by, I think. The pain came in waves. Perhaps when the drugs they gave me wore off.
The comforting voice was always back eventually. But no others. Thank you Marjoe, I wanted to say. Thank you for not leaving me here by myself.
Who else would I expect to be here? Not Bethany, of course. Something bad must have happened to Tom and maybe Pete. Oh, poor Marjoe!
Or Tom had left forever, like he said he would.
Every time I was awake, my mind thought about opening my eyes, but the signal never made it. Eventually though, I knew I could. My mind was no longer as foggy, and I got used to the rhythm of the hospital. The rounds, the visits.
The tube was out of my throat, but I had no recollection of them removing it. Waiting until it was dark behind my lids, I tried opening my eyes, just to know I could. It was dim, and I was in a hospital room like Marjoe had said. Alone.
Completely alone.
I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again. Even when Marjoe announced on her next visit that: “Pete asked me to marry him,” I couldn’t bear to open them. “About damned time too,” she continued. “You better get your ass up soon and bake me a wedding cake. Now, I know you ain’t done one before, but Big Jake’ll never forgive me if I don’t get one of your grandmama’s recipes. We’re gonna have a shrimp boil and roasted oysters, play some Lowcountry folk music and generally celebrate life. And you have to be there. So just hurry on up.”
The knowledge that Pete was okay dangled like a carrot. Had he been with Tom that day? I was starting to think the reason Marge didn’t mention Tom was because there was something she didn’t want to tell me.
Expecting to hear my parents’ voices, and the fact I didn’t, was the most compelling evidence I could think of for Tom being near. Only he would know to keep me safe from my family.
“Tyler got arrested, did I tell you that?” Marjoe informed me. “What a drama that was. His father too, if you can believe it. Beaufort County Sheriff came and chained up the farm, but you know Big Jake and JJ still sneak in there and make sure the veggies don’t die. Now I’m payin’ them direct. They did all the work before anyway.” She cackled. “But damn I was mad at Pete for that hare-brained scheme. Can you imagine, dumping all that pot in the marshes and calling the Coast Guard? He could have been shot. Very nearly was. Plus, he was high as a kite, having helped himself to a little on the side. And, well…” she trailed off. “One of these days, I’m going to say something that’s gonna get you curious enough to open those eyes. I’m sorry, honey, that I didn’t stop you running back home. Big Jake set out to check on you, but by that time you were… gone. Thank the sweet Lord JJ was on the beach that mornin’. Anyway, today I have a surprise for you. Ah, there you are. Come on in. There you go. Just put the little fella right on her chest. Shhh, do it quick before the nurse comes round again. Thank you, JJ.”
A light weight pressed gently on me, and I felt the soft vibration of a purr settle into my heart. I squeezed my eyes tight, my nostrils flaring to stop the sting of tears, but in the end I lay helplessly as they leaked out from under my eyelids.
The hand that held mine squeezed.
The little vibrating body was removed and Marjoe left, and the night came.
“Come back to me, Liv. Please.” A throaty voice sounded in my ear. My lungs ceased their shallow labor and my heart, like a bag of fragmented shards in my chest, shifted painfully toward hope.
Tom.
TOM’S HEAD WAS tilted back on the chair he slept in. It looked small and uncomfortable under his large frame. I turned my head on the scratchy hospital pillow, wincing at the pain in my neck.
The lights were off, and only a dim yellow glow came from a counter light where there was a small sink and cabinet in the corner. It was enough to see he wore his trademark jeans, and a white T-shirt. His legs were apart and his strong arms were folded across his chest, hands tucked in flat under his arms. His hair must be tied back, I thought, seeing it scraped back from his temples. His beard had grown out again like when I’d first met him.
His profile was mesmerizing, nose straight, forehead long. Why had I denied who he was for so long? I’d only seen him once, I think, but… I imagined his beard shaved off.
No wait, I really wanted to do this right. I mentally got up and stood over him. Over his tilted face. I lathered him in shaving cream, smoothing it all over, and ran a razor gently down his cheek in one smooth motion. His eyelids would open, but he wouldn’t move. I’d continue run
ning the razor, revealing his chiseled face bit by bit. Revealing his beautiful lips. Until his face was bare and he couldn’t hide any flicker of emotion from me. Then I’d dampen his hair and run my fingers through its length, combing it back from his smooth forehead. His eyes would watch my every move, silently, intently, like a jungle cat.
In my mind, I carefully took his hair chunk by chunk and clipped it short, letting the heavy soft handfuls of it dust the floor. I revealed the perfect round tops of his ears, and his lobes, and the line of sinew and muscle that arced down the side of his neck. I’d see the tic of a nerve in his temple like I always did, but this time I’d also see it in the flex of his smooth cheek. I lowered to kiss it, and his face turned, his lips finding mine.
My heart pounded, my breath was shallow. I’d carried around an unrealized hatred for this person for years, and now he was in front of me, and I kept waiting for the anger and the hatred to come and it just… wouldn’t. Even the sting of betrayal from his lie was gone. All I could feel was the distance between us, with him sitting five feet away and me lying helplessly in a hospital bed. And I felt him waiting. Waiting for me to be fine, so he could leave with a clear conscience.
I WOKE CURLED on my side. A small, warm body vibrated against my belly. It was light beyond my closed eyelids.
“Mornin’, honey,” Marjoe said, somehow knowing I was awake now. “So, Bethany’s been asking to come see you. It would make her so happy. She’s been feeling awful since that day. We are all so happy that you are okay. And well, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s office has a ton of questions for you. Although, I may as well tell you, maybe it will help, but Cal Richter’s body was washed up near Port Royal. At least, we assume it was. What was left of him, anyway. Thank the good Lord. Turns out we won’t be the only ones sleeping better at night, now he’s gone.” She sniffed, and her voice wobbled. “It’s a miracle you’re with us. But now, young lady, you need to get the heck up. I need you, okay. We all need you. And your little furball, I refuse to call him the f-word, needs you.”
“Eric,” I whispered.
“What? Oh my stars, you spoke. What did you say?” I felt her come close and smelled her unique perfume of lilacs and kitchen grease.
“Prince Eric,” I whispered again. “The cat.” Way better than Fuckhead. He saved me from Cal Richter, it was only fair he should carry the name of the Mermaid’s prince. And in the Disney version, they lived happily ever after. Way less depressing.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m helping you get ready for a wedding in the hospital,” Bethany groused. I was sitting on a rolling stool, a bed sheet around my shoulders, my hair wet, and Bethany’s skilled hands were chopping off huge hunks to leave only my natural color. “A wedding was the only thing that could get me out of here, I guess.” I laughed, my voice still grating and tender from having a tube down my throat so long. “I’m so happy for her.”
“Aren’t we all? Marjoe better not touch her hair and makeup before I get back. I’ll only have time to touch up.”
“She won’t risk your wrath, trust me. Thank you so much for doing this.”
She exhaled. “You’re welcome.”
I swallowed, my tender throat making me cringe. “Why are you being so nice to me? After what I did?”
“Well,” Bethany pulled back to look at me, “I feel bad for the way we left things, and you almost dying, kinda puts things in perspective. It was my fault you ran back to the cottage.”
I shook my head, but she gave me a look.
“Okay, I think I’m almost done.” Her fingers combed through my shorn locks this way and that, styling it. “I told you it would be stunning short, and it is. Wow.”
She handed me the small hand mirror. My face was pale and thin, my eyes a stranger’s, especially with the unexpectedly short pixie hair. There was a small white dressing on my neck. I handed the mirror back. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Whatever. Let me do my stuff.” She hauled out her makeup bag.
“Bethany?”
Her forehead scrunched as she mixed some foundation in the palm of her hand. “Yeah?”
“I hope you and Tom are happy together. I’m sorry I got in the middle of you two.” My heart pounded and squeezed tight.
Bethany stopped and looked at me. “Hasn’t he been here? I thought he was pretty much prowling the halls every day, after practically carrying you here himself.”
Not sure how to answer, I waited. He’d been here that one night when I saw him asleep, but that was it.
“We’re not together, Liv. We haven’t been since before, well, you know. And… you know he’s leaving, right?”
Of course he was. Like before, only it was delayed because of Marjoe and Pete’s wedding. Nodding, I pressed my lips together until they were smashed white to avoid my face betraying me.
“When I saw his face that day, when he thought…” Bethany’s eyes filled before she blinked rapidly.
I bit my lip. “What? That I drowned?”
“Or that Cal got to you first. Well, it was easy to forgive you. Both. You should tell him how you feel,” she said and went back to blending in her palm.
“He knows,” I whispered, watching her pull a new makeup sponge out of a bag so she could paint my face.
She stopped what she was doing for a second, then she sighed and gave me a tight smile, before reaching forward. “Tilt your head and close your eyes.”
She worked quickly. “Okay, so I only had two dresses I thought would fit you. I’m sorry if you hate them both—”
“Thank you. I’ll love either one of them.”
She laughed. “Wait until you see them.”
“Oh,” I managed a few minutes later when I caught sight of the pink fabric. Bright. “Is that… is that…”
“Fuchsia? Why yes, yes it is. Such a happy color.”
“Okay, what else?” I grumbled.
She unzipped a bag to reveal a lilac, sateen dress with ruffled sleeves. “My prom dress. What do you think?”
I stared at it, speechless.
“Pink it is then. And thank heavens because I had the worst luck in that dress. Chip Saunders dumped me to have sex with Reagan Sauls. That slut.”
“I’m not surprised now I’ve seen the dress,” I joked.
Bethany swung around, shock on her face.
“Too soon to joke?” I asked, cringing.
Her mouth dropped open and she laughed. “It is pretty bad. And I sweated like a pig in it all night.”
“Don’t you own anything black?” I asked.
“Of course I do. But for you? Nope. This is it, I’m afraid. And it’s cotton, lucky you.”
It wasn’t all bad. It was short and strapless, and after Bethany pulled it in and pinned the back, it looked like it was made for me.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Pete’s waiting for us at Palmetto Bay Marina.”
We swung by the administrator’s office. Marjoe had already given them the address at Mama’s to send the bills to, so I signed my name one hundred times promising to be responsible for the astronomical balance, and we set out. I’d spend the rest of my life paying that off, but I couldn’t dwell on it right now.
Nerves at seeing Tom soon made me feel lightheaded as we took a cab from the hospital. I was still a bit weak, having lain flat on my back doing nothing for nearly two weeks.
The sun sparkled on the waters of Broad Creek. The sky was crayon box blue, and the marsh grasses were fresh and bright, stirring in the breeze. I breathed the salty air as deeply as I could with my chest still bruised inside and out. I’d endured long bouts of resuscitation efforts, and my ribs still felt it.
Pete was wearing pressed khaki pants and a striped button down stretched over his belly. And his trademark cap, though he would surely take it off for the wedding.
“Don’t you clean up nice?” I said by way of greeting as I climbed aboard his boat.
He wrapped me up in a salty bear hug, almost crushing me.
“Easy,”
I gasped.
He released me and wiped a fist under his left eye. “Sorry. I’m just so glad to see you.”
“Me too, me too.” I laughed and went in for another hug. “And I’m so happy for you and Marjoe. Congratulations.”
“Any time next week you want to come back and make your statement to the Sherriff’s office, you just let me know. I’ll be glad to take you, okay?”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
Swallowing my nerves, I sat down. As we reached the open water of the Calibogue Sound, my heart rate tripled. I glanced at the surface of the water for a brief moment then scrunched my eyes shut. I’d received a prescription for anti-anxiety medication at the hospital. I fervently hoped I wouldn’t have to start taking them again. Bethany’s hand found mine and squeezed. Grateful, I squeezed back and began counting.
“All right,” Pete said, picking up speed. “Let’s get this thing moving so I’m not late for my own damned wedding. ’Sides, there’s someone else who’s been waitin’ for you to come back to us, too.”
I PACED DOWN the jetty for the twentieth time, squinting across the water. Fuck it, I should have been the one to go get her. Was she okay being on the water? Was she scared?
Big Jake strolled toward me. “They’re comin’. ’Bout twenty minutes ’til they dock, I reckon.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged his large shoulders. “Jus’ do.”
I shook my head and stuffed my hands back in my pockets. With Pete not allowed to see Marjoe before the ceremony and her needing all hands on deck here to get the place ready, it was only reasonable that he would be the one to go get Liv.
The music was already warming up, a bluegrass trio who called themselves Low Country Boil, led by a guy who played the fiddle like the devil would take his fingers if he stopped. And the devil probably would, now that I’d heard some of their hilarious and risqué lyrics. Typical Marjoe.
“Well, I don’t care how you and JJ know the things you do, I’m just grateful. Has JJ managed to communicate anything about what happened on the beach that morning? How he found Liv? What happened to Cal?”