Where the Sea Takes Me

by Heidi R. Kling

  “So, Deni huh?” Big Dr. Tom, the hulking heart of Team Hope—and my godfather—asked immediately. He had neither the discretion nor the tact of my dad. “What does the Spider-Man think?”

  Avoiding his eyes, I shoveled a forkful of salad in my mouth. “Why would he care?” Also, he didn’t know yet.

  “Just saying. You two are hanging out a lot lately, so he might not be keen on the idea of the Love of Your Life showing up out of the blue.”

  Classic Tom. Sporting a Tommy Bahama shirt unbuttoned halfway, khaki shorts, flip-flops, he was the stereotypical Californian hippie. He probably had a rolled-up joint hidden behind his ear, behind his graying poof of red hair.

  “Tom. Deni is married,” Vera said. “Don’t be obscene.”

  Tom held up his large, Hagrid-esque hands. “Fine, fine, I’ll drop it.” He winked at me. “For now. So, how’s school going, Ms. Ivy League Sensation Fancy Pants Goddaughter of mine?”

  “There are no Ivy Leagues on the West Coast,” I said. “And it’s been a good year, but I’m happy to be wrapping up. College is hard.”

  “Ha! Yep. Straight As I hope?”

  “Sure, Tom. Because you always got straight As, right?” Dad teased him.

  “Sure did.”

  “From cheating off of me!” Dad said.

  Tom didn’t deny it.

  First quarter, I busted my butt and did land straight As, but this last quarter was tough. And now this bomb. I had to act normal though or Tom’s teasing would never end.

  The doorbell rang, and my irrational heart leapt. Deni? But no. He was on a plane. Vera went off to answer it. I assumed it was Dad, forgetting his keys again. But it was Spider.

  “Hi,” he said, stopping in the doorway and meeting my eye. He looked freshly showered and sheepish. I stood up to meet him.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I heard you were having Nepalese food, and you know that’s my favorite.”

  Tom laughed, waving him over to the table. “Join us. We all know you’re here to check up on your girl, Spider-Man. With her ex love coming to town and all.”

  Tom expected Spider to laugh; he wasn’t mean. But he wasn’t with us at the dorm. He had no idea what Spider had asked me.

  Spider’s smile faded, and he tugged on his button-up shirt. “Ex love? That’s a little overblown, eh, bro? It’s just a foreign guest.”

  Tom turned his amused gaze on me. “He doesn’t know?”

  “Um.” I stared at my plate.

  “What?” Spider asked.

  “It’s Deni,” I said, forcing myself to look at him. “The guy who is coming. The guest? He’s a boy I met at the orphanage in Indonesia. I knew him.”

  “Oh.” He frowned at the ground, his mind clearly crunching through the information that had been presented. Abruptly his face brightened. “Whatever. Two years ago? They knew each other for, like, a week? No big deal.”

  He looked at me hopefully.

  I shrugged, not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to blow off my former feelings for Deni. They were real. And I would always stand by that.

  “I get it, though,” Spider said coolly. “The teasing from Big Tom. Remember that girl at camp I met when I was a CIT, what was her name? See. I don’t even remember her name. And I thought she was the bee’s knees that summer.”

  Deni proposed to me, Spider. And I accepted.

  I didn’t say it out loud. Of course I didn’t. But the room fell into an awkward quiet as Spider plopped down in the empty seat and wolfed down Vera’s Nepalese food, which was some sort of rice and steamed spinach hybrid. I could barely choke down a bite I was so anxious.

  “Right,” Tom said, raising his eyebrows at me. “Kinda like summer camp, right, Sienna? Especially all that sneaking out.”

  “I was seventeen. That’s what teenagers do,” I said neutrally.

  That appeased Spider, who shrugged and grinned. “Totally.”

  Dad breezed into the house, a pair of grocery bags in his arms. “Smells good, Vera. Did you save any for me, or did Tom and Spider eat everything?”

  Everyone laughed. Tom immediately began ribbing my dad, poking fun at the fact Vera dished up his plate of food like she had for Max.

  Vera just shook her head and turned to my brother. “Try some, Max.” She always urged Max to try the exotic food. Anything other than mac and cheese or the cereal my dad had to drive twelve miles away to buy from a whole foods store was a trial for Max, so she was really pushing it this time.

  “Yuck.” Sure enough, he poked at it with his Batman fork.

  “At least one bite.” Uh-oh. Her stern voice.

  “No eat green food!”

  Vera sighed, the same Vera sigh I’d been so annoyed by when we’d been stuck working together in Indonesia. It wasn’t so annoying now. Motherhood softened her a bit, but she still strived for perfection.

  “One bite is a good idea, buddy,” Dad says, backing her up as usual.

  Vera looked at him appreciatively, but Max only dug in his heels. “No.”

  I tried a different tactic. “Have you heard of Popeye, buddy?”

  “Pop-eye?” He looked concerned.

  “Popeye,” I clarified. “Not pop someone’s eye. It’s his name. He’s a sailor.”

  “I don’t know that say-lor.”

  “Well…” I leaned in. “Legend has it, when he eats spinach, his muscles grow and then the bullies don’t bother him anymore.”

  “Sienna, I don’t think—” Vera started to say, but my dad put a hand on top of hers.

  “Which is pretty cool, right?” I continued.

  His head bobbed. “Two stories?”

  “It’s inspired by a true story.”

  Tom coughed on his lamb. “Loosely inspired,” he said.

  “Loosely inspired,” I agreed. “Anyway, when he eats it, his muscles burst out of his chest like…like…like…The Incredible Hulk.”

  “But he’s green.”

  “He is.”

  “Green like spinach!”

  “Yes.”

  “Green like kale!”

  Logic. Max has it.

  “So, I bet you want big muscles like Popeye.”

  “Yes!”

  He took a big bite and chewed it up, before spitting it onto his plate. “Yuck!”

  Vera gasped, rising halfway out of her chair with a cloth napkin.

  “At least you tried it,” I said, patting his little back. “There are much more important things in life than big muscles.”

  “There are?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Well, for one thing, the ability to build big towers.”

  Everyone but Vera laughed when he bolted from the chair back to the living room.

  “You got the magic touch,” Tom said with a chuckle. “I remember how good you were with those kids at the pesantren. You and Deni, both.” He leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, it’ll be grand to have ol’ Deni back. And a filmmaker, no less. That kid’s pretty extraordinary. We all thought so.”

  He grinned, then winked at me.

  Spider abruptly shoved his chair back.

  “Jesse!” Vera gasped. “The wood floors were just refinished!”

  “Sorry,” he said, clambering to his feet.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him, even though I was pretty sure I knew.

  Behind him, Vera inspected the tiny scratch marks on the floor.

  He stepped around her. “I just gotta go, is all.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’ll walk you out.”

  Vera mumbled about the price of wood floor work, and what was wrong with college students. Dad, wisely, filled up her wine glass and someone turned up the music.

  Anxiety spread through me as I walked him to the front door. I knew what was coming, and I was in no way prepared to answer him.

  “So, should I be worried about this guy visiting?” Spider asked me in our foyer.

  “Worried?” I asked weakly.

  “Well, i
t was pretty obvious to everyone in there something went down between you two.” He ran his hand through his hair and tugged on the sandy blond lengths. “And, what, now he’s staying here? And everyone is like, obsessed with him or something.”

  “No one is obsessed with him. They just all like him. It will be fine. He and I are friends. Like we’re friends.”

  He took my hand again, just like in his truck, and held it. “Remember what I said, Sea? Sure, we’re friends, but I’d like it to be more. And I think you kind of do, too, right? I mean, you did. Now, with this guy coming, I’m not sure.”

  He looked from my eyes, flickered to my lips, and back to my eyes.

  I swallowed.

  “Sienna!” Dad called from the living room. “We’re waiting on you for dessert and trip planning.”

  “Sorry. I gotta go. Duty calls.”

  Spider sighed. “Guess so. Have a nice evening.”

  Have a nice evening?

  I slugged back into the house and met with Team Hope about trip logistics before excusing myself upstairs to my room to clean, reminisce, blast music, and freak out alone for a while. When I came back downstairs, the dishes were finished, the company was gone, and Dad was in his office looking at his computer.

  “What are you up to all alone in the dark?”

  He glanced up from his mahogany desk with one lone reading lamp pointing down at an open folder.

  “Looking at your college acceptance essay.”

  “Why?” He hadn’t mentioned that in ages.

  It was about our trip to Indonesia. The tsunami. Meeting the orphans, meeting Deni, and then saying goodbye. I didn’t cut corners; I spilled it all. All that achy, angsty, painful stuff that I’d been holding on to since I returned from that fated summer. No one was going to see it but the admissions board, so I didn’t feel like I had to hide any of it.

  I didn’t tell Spider about it.

  But Dad knew. He’d had a front row seat when it all went down.

  “Because it was wonderful.”

  I flushed. “Oh, please. You’re just saying that because you’re my dad.”

  “And it was brilliant,” he said with a spark in his eye. “And you are wonderful.”

  “It wasn’t brilliant. It was just…true.”

  All of it. Every. Single. Word.

  “That’s what made it brilliant.”

  “Like I said. You’re my dad. Your opinion doesn’t count.”

  “A certain university thought my opinion counted.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I grinned. I stood behind him and looked over his shoulder at my words.

  After Indo, things changed with Dad, too. He got a professor gig and wrote a book, a bestseller called Life After Grief. It didn’t get a stint on Oprah, but it did fairly well and made him a household name in cross-cultural psychiatry. So the bounce in his step wasn’t all Vera, contrary to what Spider said.

  But Deni. Deni.

  “I can’t believe he’s coming here,” I said, wistfully glancing over Dad’s shoulders at my essay. I attached the favorite photos I took while I was there, and looking at them made it feel like it was yesterday.

  “I know,” Dad said. “I was surprised to hear from him, too. How are you feeling about it?”

  “Confused. Shocked. I mean…it’s just so weird.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s been two years. What if he forgot me?” I hinted pointedly, hoping Dad would grab the end of my string and tell me more.

  That trip changed me. It mattered. Deni mattered in a way nothing had since, really, except Max, and maybe wouldn’t again. I imagined Deni playing with Max like he played with sweet, darling Elli, whom I missed dearly. Two years later. Where was she now?

  I couldn’t hide the goose bumps running up and down my arm.

  Picturing his smile, I let myself remember his soft kisses on my face, under my hair, along my neckline.

  Fighting through the tight lump in my throat, I had to ask. I had to ask about her.

  “What about Rema?” I gulped out.

  “Rema?” Dad looked perplexed.

  “His fiancée? The one we found in Jakarta?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry. I forgot her name.”

  That name had been etched in my broken heart. I’d never forget it. The image of her clinging to Deni the day we said goodbye was forever in my mind.

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. “Deni didn’t mention her.”

  My heart tripped over itself. “I thought they’d be married by now. They were engaged when they lost each other in the tsunami, and once he found her, once we found her, I assumed…”

  Assumed Deni was a husband now. A father. That he was happily ensconced in a little house like the one we stayed at in Aceh, living day to day with his wife and two children that he barely remembered my name.

  But maybe that wasn’t his reality. If he’d gone to a university instead…

  Dad shrugged. “Just because he didn’t mention her doesn’t mean she’s not in the picture, but we only spoke briefly. He gave me a rundown of why he was coming, his traveling visa, and the logistics of getting around here…and then I invited him to stay with us. There was a lot to talk about in a short amount of time.”

  I had to know.

  “Did he…ask about me?”

  It felt like years went by while I waited for his response.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Of course. Wait. He asked about me but didn’t mention his wife?

  Okay. Calm down, Sienna. This means nothing.

  I leaned forward like his words held all the universe’s secrets. “What did you tell him?”

  Dad grinned. “I said you were in college and doing well. You know, the truth.”

  “Ha ha. Well, did you tell him about Spider?”

  He eyed at me strangely, his smile fading. “No. Why would I mention Spider?”

  Because he just asked me to move in with him.

  Because he admitted, out loud, he wanted to be more than friends. Much more than friends.

  “Because it…just matters,” I grumbled. Will matter to Deni. Maybe. I tugged on my ear lobe. Why did I let my piercings close up? An earring to spin around right now would help.

  “I’m not sure you listen to many man-to-man exchanges, kiddo, but we rarely spend a lot of time exchanging details of our loved ones’ romantic lives.”

  “Oh my God, Dad! I’m not saying anything about romance.”

  I was just thinking about it.

  I sucked down a long sip of ice water and felt my throat freezer burn. I didn’t have a clue what to do, so I did nothing but sat and stared at the fireplace and watched the flames dance.

  “Want some more popcorn?” Dad asked. “We still have an hour before we head to the airport.”

  In less than two hours, Deni would be in a car with me.

  I was going to be sick.

  “Sienna.” His right eye twitched. He didn’t wear glasses anymore. After laser surgery (Vera’s idea) he didn’t need them. I still wasn’t used to his eyes without the glass cover. “I honestly don’t know about his wife. I assume she’s still around. Let’s just focus on the fact he’s coming to visit, okay? It’ll only be for a few days. And then, we’re off to Cambodia.” He patted my hand. “This means you won’t get much of a break after finals, but you don’t mind showing Deni around a bit, right?”

  Did I mind? It was only what I’d dreamed of for the two years since I tore myself out of his arms on the broken shores of Banda Aceh, no matter how hard I tried to keep the memory of Deni in my past.

  “No, it’s okay.” I didn’t want to show him my range of emotion. How torn I felt. How huge this was for me to see Deni again after finally getting ready to move on with Spider. I wouldn’t want him putting Deni in a hotel.

  I felt like Dad and I should be on the same page about this summer, though. About what Spider asked.

  “Want to hear another thing making this summer interesting?”

  “Sure.�
�

  “Spider asked me to move in with him.”

  Dad choked on a popcorn kernel. “What?” he asked, sputtering. “First Deni is coming, and now a boy wants my daughter to move in with him? Your old dad is going to have a heart attack.”

  “Believe me,” I said. “None of this was my idea.”

  “Are you and Spider dating? I thought you were just good friends.”

  “Well, we aren’t dating, but… He said he wants it to be more.”

  It felt weird to talk about this with my dad, but we’d bonded in Indonesia. Things had been a lot better between us since then.

  “How do you feel?”

  I got up and started to pace. “I like Spider. I always have. But why now? Why did this have to happen the same morning we find out Deni is on his way? I mean, obviously Deni is married but still…having him here will be weird.”

  Dad considered me. “Sometimes life presents you with the perfect storm, and it’s up to you to figure out how to navigate your way through it.”

  Perfect storm? More like a tsunami.

  And I wasn’t ready.

  Chapter Four

  An hour later, I found myself in the bathroom hyperventilating.

  Dad knocked on the door. “Sienna, you fall in the toilet?”

  Down the rabbit hole was more like it.

  “Yeah, hold on. I just have to…” Finish my panic attack before heading to the airport.

  I was as mentally prepared to see Deni as I’d been to leave him, which was not at all. My hand clutched the letter he wrote me the night before I left. The one I read on the plane.

  “Sienna. We don’t want to leave him sitting around in an airport after how long he’s been traveling. Let’s hit the road!”

  Heart in throat, I gave my reflection a pep talk: You can do this. Just open the door and let Deni back into your life. No big deal.

  Would he recognize me? Would he expect me? It’d been two long years since I said goodbye to him on the shores of Banda Aceh. The coastline where he lost so many. Where I found him waiting for me, where I lost him soon after.

  Breathe. Just breathe.

  I hadn’t felt anxiety like that since before Indonesia and a bit during. I lost my nightmares then, the recurring ones about drowning. Sure, I still had other nightmares, but I had good dreams, too. Dreams that stayed with me, that I wrote poems about, that I sometimes felt in my bones days later.