Axis of Aaron

by Johnny B. Truant

  He said, “It’s just something I have to do.”

  They were standing at the foot of Pinky Slip, the rickety wooden staircase scaling the rocks behind them. The water was choppy but not overly so, and there was minimal rocking as a woman steered an approaching boat between the breakwaters toward them. It was a small vessel, for sure. But it would do.

  “Why now?” Aimee asked. “Who buys a boat in December?”

  “It’s your early Christmas gift.”

  Aimee was behind Ebon as he watched the boat near the dock, ready to receive a line when the woman tossed one his way. He turned with a smile, but Aimee didn’t return it. They’d been happy in their renovations as far as his fractured memory seemed to tell him, and he supposed they’d felt like they were settling in for the winter. He’d got a brief mental image of a fire in the cottage, and that seemed to indicate they’d completed the fireplace in the living room. Part of Ebon also recalled another fire in a much more modern-looking fireplace — this one in a bathroom. That must be Vicky’s, where the thing spanned bathroom to bedroom. If that memory was accurate, there was at least one non-platonic fireplace in play right now. Ebon just wished he could remember what had happened where, or which pieces of the shaking puzzle were safe to mention to whom.

  “Look,” Ebon added when Aimee failed to respond, “you asked who buys a boat in December? Nobody, that’s who. That’s precisely why I’m doing it. Why do you think I’m getting such a great price?”

  “That doesn’t make sense. If you have enough money to buy a boat — on an island where you could easily rent one — while not even working your regular job, then you have enough money to wait until a sensible season and pay full price. Wait until April or May, at least. She’ll only feel like she can charge more after the summer crowds get here.”

  Ebon didn’t want to argue. He needed a boat now, not in April or May, and this was his decision. His money was his money (not their money), and he had looked around for rentals. All of the island’s boats had been winterized and stored. The only reason the woman on the deck of the approaching boat had been willing to de-winterize hers and pilot it over from storage was because Ebon had offered to pay cash on the spot, and she’d admitted a divorce had left her light on funds.

  “I love being here on Aaron, but I just … ” Ebon sighed. “You know how you keep saying I need to take time to vent — to do something on my own so I’ll have space to process what happened with Holly? How I feel about the accident, and how I maybe should have ended things after catching her cheating? Well, maybe it’s this little seaside town that’s infecting me, but I keep feeling like a boat might be the project I need. My dad had one on a lake near our home, and I used to go out on it with him before I started coming here. It was nothing like this one, just a simple pontoon boat for cruising the lake, but he always talked like I’d buy my own one day.”

  “Ebon, it’s … it’s winter.”

  “Technically, it’s not winter for another two weeks.”

  “You can’t keep a boat in the water for much longer, and I can’t imagine why you’d choose December, on Aaron, as the time to take up an outdoor project. Why now? What are you hoping to do with it?”

  The truth, of course, was that he hoped to pilot his new boat around to the ocean side of the island and drive it out as far as he dared. He didn’t need to keep the boat in the water much longer to do that. He’d even do it this afternoon if he could sneak away while Aimee was on an errand or sleeping.

  But he had to know.

  Ebon’s sense of losing time had begun to feel almost normal (What had he done last week? He wasn’t totally sure), but for some reason the ocean itself had begun to feel like the truer problem. The ocean surrounded his every move, pushing him around and judging him. It was a foe, an adversary, a nemesis against which he needed a weapon to do battle. When he’d got lost pursuing Vicky, the water had pushed him back toward the shore, tilting sideways like a funhouse mirror. Then, when he’d returned one morning from Vicky’s, he’d felt the wind and the ocean as a presence — a hand at his back, shoving him forward and refusing to allow his retreat. And most recently (such that “recent” was, in fact, in the right order?), when he’d been leaving the deserted carnival (Deserted? Or gone? He wasn’t sure), Ebon found himself suddenly surrounded by the ocean, somehow ending up all the way down at the lighthouse. He’d nearly drowned that time. He probably would have, in fact, if a kind old couple hadn’t jumped into the surf and dragged him out.

  Those incidents (the ones involving the ocean’s bullying) were the images that felt most true and real to Ebon now, as he stood on the dock and watched the small craft approach Pinky Slip. They were more colorful and vivid in his mind, more insistent than the things he found himself unable to remember for sure. So much of his time on Aaron was a fog … but the fact that he needed to confront the water? That felt sure. Solid. An anchor atop which he’d be able to stand, holding a flag, ready to plant it in the name of victory.

  But the rest of his time here was all snippets and flashes. He still hadn’t confessed his malady to Aimee. Whatever was happening was a slow creep, and he felt quite sure he could arrest its progress on his own. He didn’t need help. His disorientation would improve if he just confronted his tormentor. And if it didn’t? Well, then of course he’d tell Aimee everything.

  As he watched the boat approach, his attention wandered through the past three months. He saw scenes like stills, all of them a strange mix of familiar and alien.

  He and Aimee taking a spontaneous autumn swim.

  Sitting alone at Redding Dock, his feet in the water, thinking.

  A few afternoons spent exploring the bay’s shallows. Those times, he’d barely been able to walk twenty feet in hip waders before falling backward and getting soaked. He must have rationalized the ocean’s refusal away, though, because he later recalled exploring closer to shore where he wouldn’t be pushed, content to find mundane shells.

  And lastly, Ebon knew he’d tried countless times to reach the mainland by ferry (and, twice, to rehire Captain Jack). But none of those efforts had worked out, and for the most random reasons: The ferry’s engines suddenly requiring maintenance, a brewing storm that closed boat service, Aimee’s truck refusing to start as he set out for West Dock, a phone call from his mother that caused him to miss his departure. Captain Jack had got sick and cancelled when Ebon had booked him a second time. And when Ebon had tried for a third, Captain Jack’s phone had rung to a hardware store that informed him, despite Ebon’s using Jack’s contact entry in his phone, that he’d dialed the wrong number.

  Whatever was wrong with Aaron, Ebon had decided, the problem centered on the ocean itself. He felt quite sure about that. And if the ocean wanted to push him around? Fine. He’d push it right the fuck back, December or not.

  “I’ll work on it for a few weeks, then have it dry docked,” he told Aimee, watching her shiver in her coat. “My dad taught me how to winterize an engine. I’ll leave room in the tank for the gas to expand and add stabilizer to the fuel. I’ll close the valves, coat the spark plugs, fill the engine block with antifreeze, bleed coolant from the block and manifolds and fill up with antifreeze, then change the gear oil. Then when it gets too cold, you can help me pull it out at the north ramp. I’ll remove the cleats and lines and cover her up, bring them indoors so I can burnish and lubricate them.”

  Ebon hoped Aimee would seem convinced by all the jargon he’d memorized from the Internet before making his announcement. She wasn’t.

  “You want to spend your winter polishing cleats?”

  “Well, no. I want to spend my winter with you.” The statement was too naked, so he rushed on. “Helping you with the cottage, I mean. But in the evenings?” He shrugged. “I have to do something while I mourn and heal, don’t I?”

  The boat pulled toward the slip. The woman smiled, then held up a blue-and-gold dock line. Ebon raised his hand in reply, and the woman tossed it to him. As he began to tie off the
bow of the boat, Aimee, reluctant, moved down the dock to help with the aft line. She peeked up at Ebon as she worked. Her coat had a huge hood, but she hadn’t raised it. The hat in its place was cute on her head, with its flaps and swinging tassels.

  “You could mourn and heal with me,” she said.

  “I already do.” Ebon thought that despite his missing memories, he’d spoken the truth. It seemed to be accurate anyway, in the way he seemed to know they’d re-plastered the kitchen ceiling and added wall sconces in the hallway. “And I will. But I also need something of my own.”

  Ebon looked at Aimee. His words were a bit underhanded, given that he didn’t know what he and Aimee may or may not have discussed — or even the nature of their relationship, given that he wasn’t sure if she was aware of Vicky or his secrets. But manipulating the situation was also the best way to get what he wanted, and right now he wanted — he needed — this boat. He couldn’t simply continue to be shoved, continue to be broken like a delicate vase. He’d shove back against his tormentor, or he’d die trying.

  The woman on the boat was plump and short with a halo of tight brown curls peeking beneath her pink stocking cap. She hung a pair of white bumpers off the boat’s sides, then stepped onto the dock before greeting them.

  “Heya,” she said. She held out a hand. “Bonnie. But I guess you probably figured that, seeing as I’m the only lady come ‘round in a boat today.” She looked at the empty docks surrounding them.

  Ebon shook her hand and offered his name, then turned to Aimee and introduced her. She was shivering. He felt fine, but he also had more insulation under his skin than Aimee. She’d always been thin, and time hadn’t changed it a whit.

  “I got a few stares when I asked them to drop it back in the water and got a bunch more motoring around from Dick’s,” Bonnie added amiably. “Folks in their cottages saying, ‘Hey, lady, it’s not time for fishing!’ But what the hell, eh? They don’t know I’m not going deep-sea marlin hunting.”

  Ebon looked at the boat, knowing the woman was joking but unable to summon a decent laugh. She looked like a lifelong island dweller, or possibly an import from Canada, where knowledge about water and ice and winter came like knowledge of breathing. There was a slight elongation of her vowels that made him think she might know the north far better than he did, and might fish in harsher conditions than he ever would. The fact that even she assumed the vessels’s winter-worthiness and deep-seaworthiness to be worth joking about set Ebon’s teeth on edge. But it didn’t matter. He’d be crazy to do what he was planning under even the best of circumstances. But given that he felt sure he was going crazy anyway, he might as well double down.

  The woman extended a key on a bright-yellow floatation bob. Ebon took it.

  “And you said a check was okay?” Ebon pulled a prewritten slip from his coat’s inside pocket and extended it. “I swear it won’t bounce. I wasn’t able to get to the bank.” That was just another part of the larger problem, of course. The island didn’t have a bank, so he’d have had to hit the mainland for a cashier’s check.

  “Ayuh,” said Bonnie, nodding amiably. “I know where you live. Saw you walk down as I was coming ‘round the bend yonder.” She pointed at where the cottage would be, though it wasn’t visible from the dock. “That’s the Frey place, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Aimee. “I’m Aimee Frey.”

  “Are you then?” Bonnie said, nodding with realization. “Well, good thing I’m giving you a discount. Aaron owes your family a lot. But I heard the cottage was in sad shape. Rundown, like. You’re fixing it up, I suppose?”

  Ebon tapped his foot. Bonnie was being nosy. He was eager to move along, but didn’t feel comfortable doing so until she’d left. He wanted to get his hands on the vessel, to start the engine and play with the rudder and make sure everything worked. He’d told Bonnie on the phone that he’d take her at her word (which said the boat had been ship-shape when her ex-husband had pulled it out midsummer, as their divorce had rolled into its contentious period), and in return, she’d agreed to accept a rather large personal check without so much as an ID. Asking to kick the tires felt wrong, despite the size of his purchase. Besides, any problems could be ironed out later. Ebon didn’t know where Bonnie lived, but did know her phone number. And Aaron wasn’t so large — especially in wintertime — that he couldn’t find out if he wanted to know.

  “That’s the plan,” Aimee said. “Would you like to come up and see?”

  Ebon caught Aimee’s eye. He wondered if she was trying to slow things down on purpose, to give herself time to pry and interfere. But this wasn’t her business, and she should stay out of it. Time had felt slippery for the past weeks (Or was it months? Days? Years?), and Ebon couldn’t shake the impression that it was sliding past him even now. Time was supposed to proceed in seconds, but Ebon’s recent memories were all plateaus jutting up from rough seas, scattered like oases with nothing in between. He needed to get out into the water. He had to get away, into the unchanging blue of the ocean, and see the island from a distance. He had to travel out to the vanishing point, far enough away to turn the highest bluffs into mere strips on the horizon. If he could do that, Aaron would finally feel small enough to handle. Something was wrong with this place. The only way to fix it was to flee far enough to force a reset.

  Except that you are the only one who sees or feels anything wrong.

  He shook the thought away as Bonnie waved off Aimee’s offer with thanks.

  “Nah, but much obliged. I need to be getting back.” She looked at Ebon. “You said you could give me a ride?”

  “Oh, sure.” He’d tossed out that little nugget when, on the phone, Bonnie had begun to spool off the many logistics involved with getting the boat over to the cottage. It would need to be trailered, and Bonnie didn’t have a trailer because her ex had got the truck in the divorce. So she’d need to borrow one, and find the time and money, which Ebon could advance her — but then she’d need cash, and Ebon had none. He didn’t want it arriving by trailer anyway, because then he’d need Aimee’s help to drop it in at the boat ramp up north. No, he needed the boat to come by water, ocean-ready. And that meant giving her a lift back to where she’d started.

  “I can take her home,” said Aimee as they began walking toward the steps on the rock.

  “No, it’s okay, I’ll do it,” Ebon said without looking back.

  “It’s no problem. I’m bored anyway. You can tinker.”

  Ebon didn’t want to tinker. He wanted to put the key in the ignition, motor out, and head for the horizon. The day was calm enough to let him, and the water wasn’t yet deadly cold if he happened to fall overboard. He might even be able to do some motoring about if Aimee drove Bonnie home, but if she did, then Aimee and Bonnie would talk. And as little as Aimee usually meddled, she’d meddle now because she was worried and thought she knew best. Ebon felt resentment claw up from his middle. It didn’t matter that he was in his thirties now. Aimee still thought he couldn’t conduct his own life without her guidance, same as always.

  “I’ll do it,” Ebon repeated.

  “We can talk about island history,” said Aimee. “And the illustrious Frey family.”

  Ebon kept his pace brisk. His thigh muscles were starting to burn. Now she was poking him. A gust of wind caught Ebon off guard and made him almost lose his footing. His side struck rock beside the staircase and the rickety structure creaked. He looked back at Aimee, feeling angry as if she’d caused the offending gust, but she and Bonnie were watching him the way they’d watch someone trip over their own feet. Neither seemed to have been buffeted by the wind. It was as if the bay and its breeze had struck at Ebon, and Ebon alone.

  “I said, I’ll drive her,” he growled.

  “Sure,” said Aimee, blinking. “Of course.”

  Watching Aimee’s gaze retreat, Ebon felt his anger drop away, now seeing himself as if from the outside. Why was he so on edge? His mind formed a picture of himself walking atop thin glass
, suddenly aware that dumb luck was the only reason it hadn’t yet broken.

  “I’m the one who wants a boat, so it’s my responsibility,” he explained, trying to smile.

  “Sure.”

  “You can finish painting the bookcase while I’m gone.” Like you were supposed to do instead of following me out here to save me from myself.

  Again, Ebon saw the image of fragile glass beneath his feet as a new voice spoke inside his head.

  This has gone on too long. This isn’t healthy. You’re ignoring the truth. You need to face some inconvenient facts, or you’ll make things worse. You should talk to Aimee. You should tell her what’s wrong with you.

  What’s wrong with the island, said another voice. That distinction was very important. But the other mental voice didn’t respond — and its absence, to Ebon, felt smug and annoyingly righteous.

  “Okay,” said Aimee.

  Ebon tried another smile, but it felt two sizes too small. Aimee was looking around, trying not to seem bothered. Her demurring felt strange. Usually, Aimee insisted on controlling the stupidest things. But then again, Ebon realized, he’d never really had a spine. Growing one now brought its own satisfaction. He was getting better. He was healing after all.

  They arrived at the top of the staircase without further discussion, late autumn’s cry of gulls and lapping waves the shore’s only sounds. Ebon looked back down at the slip to watch his boat bob for a moment, but the others had kept moving.

  He double-timed to catch up, then took the lead. When they reached the driveway outside the cottage, Aimee wordlessly handed him the truck key. He didn’t like the look on her face. It was tentative. Stunted. Impotent in the face of worry.

  Ebon took the key. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “When I get back, I’ll help you paint.” The words hurt a little. In truth, what he wanted most when he got back was to head down and fire up the boat. Settling in to paint felt like walking away from a prison door while the guards left it ajar, but he knew he couldn’t seem too eager. Aimee was nervous for Ebon at best, nervous about him at worst. If he didn’t want to fess up, he’d need to play the game for a bit longer. He’d need to brush away his urges, to feign disinterest in what interested him most.