The Deepest Blue

  But with each day, I felt safer, calmer than the day before, and when we reached Wilmington, North Carolina, I was ready for anything. A few times I got my dad to let me call Julia. She would tell me she didn’t want to talk to me because I chose which side I was on, and it wasn’t hers. After a time, I didn’t want to call her at all, though Dad made me try on holidays.

  The years went by, and I honestly never thought about her other than those times when someone would ask where my mother was. I could go for months without thinking of her, and I was fine.

  Now she stands over me like a dark shadow, a bad memory that has come back unbidden. She steps away from the door like she expects me to get out of the car and follow her.

  “We need to talk,” she repeats.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” I say. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

  “This isn’t good for either one of us, and you know it. Let’s not make things harder than they need to be.” Her voice has a fake sweetness to it that grates on my already raw nerves.

  “You’re the one making them harder. Why don’t you just crawl back into your hole and leave me alone? My life is perfectly fine without you.”

  Jayden reaches over and puts a hand on my arm. “Dude, what do you want me to do?” His voice is low and serious.

  “Get me the hell out of here.”

  “What about Rachel?”

  “She’ll have to fend for herself.”

  Julia steps closer again, standing right inside the open door so I can’t slam it shut.

  Jayden revs the engine.

  “You’d better move, lady, because I’ve got no problem taking you out with this door.” I look up at her. Her jaw is clenched, and her feet are firmly planted. There is no sign that she is worried I will knock her over with the car door.

  “I swear to God, Julia, you’d better get the hell out of my way.”

  “You won’t go anywhere. You ran off on me before. Not this time.”

  “I didn’t run off on you.” The insanity of the remark makes my voice climb higher. “You told Dad and me to leave. You said we ruined your life.”

  She looks at me with a severe gaze. “Who told you that lie? Did Rich tell you that?”

  I jump out of the car, barely able to keep myself under control. I’m taller than she is by a good four inches, and my shoulders block the sun and cast a shadow on her. “I was there, remember? I heard it from your own mouth.”

  Every muscle in my body is taut, ready to run. My fists tighten, then release. Despite the rage that seethes inside me, I could never hit her. I remember that night, all the banging and slamming. I remember my dad telling me later when I asked him that she kicked the walls, threw pans and books, and threatened to throw us both down the stairs. I remember being so afraid of that kind of anger that I swore I’d never go there. But here I am. My gift from Julia, my genetic inheritance from her: rage.

  Her back is pressed against the door, and I see just the slightest bit of fear in her eyes. But it is the anger that shows most.

  “What do you want from me. I was never good enough for you. I was never what you wanted, so why do you care now?”

  “I’m your mother.” She spits the words at me as if they are poison. “It’s my job to take care of you now that Rich is gone.”

  Jayd revs the engine again, and behind me I hear hushed voices.

  “So I’m, what, a trophy? You lost the game ten years ago, and now you want your prize anyway?” A sarcastic laugh leaps out of my throat. “I’m just really a toy to you, aren’t I? Just a possession. You don’t really love me, you just want something that my dad took away so you can say you won.”

  She looks me in the eye, her face defiant, obviously unmoved by anything I’ve said. “You don’t understand,” she says. “I paid child support all these years. It nearly broke me sometimes.”

  “Oh, so it’s about the money?” I jump into the car and reach behind her for the door handle. “You’d better get the hell out of my way.”

  Julia stands her ground.

  I look at Jayd. “Just go.”

  “I can’t,” he says, motioning to the door. “Dude, we can’t do this.”

  Another figure comes to the side of the car. “Mike, you need to head out.” It’s Chuck, and he’s taking Julia by the arm, but she’s fighting him.

  “I’m calling the police,” she yells.

  “Julia, you need to step away and let him go,” Chuck says. He has her lightly but firmly in his grasp. “This will all be settled in the courts.”

  Julia spins, wrenching her arm out of his grip. Chuck steps out of the door opening and slams the door shut. Jayd sticks the car in gear and pulls away from the tangle of people who have now surrounded Chuck and Julia.

  We speed past the cars in the lot. I see Rachel coming out the front door, but we don’t stop. Her head flips as we fly by, a look of shock and confusion on her face.

  “Where do you want to go?” Jayd asks when we hit the main road.

  “Take me to the marina. I want to go to the boat.”

  chapter 16

  The boat sways and rocks in its moorings, the water lapping against the sides. I climb into the wheelhouse and sit in the captain’s chair. Jayd climbs up behind me and flops on the bench seat next to the wheel. The parking lot is almost full, so the marina is almost empty. Most of the boats are out on fishing or sightseeing charters. The Lolly Gag bobs gently in the next slip, and the Cap’n Dan is a few slots down, shifting with the wake of passing speedboats outside the harbor. Both of them are quiet and dark.

  “You okay?” Jayd asks.

  “Better.” I spin the chair until it faces backward, looking toward the dock and the parking lot beyond. “I can’t believe she showed up.”

  “Weird,” Jayden says. “What’s her deal?”

  “She thinks I’m moving back to Washington with her. She thinks I’m some kind of trophy, some kind of prize she won.”

  Jayden runs his hand through his hair, leans back, and spreads his arms wide along the rail behind him. “So how can I help?”

  “Just being here is a help. Just getting me out of there.”

  Jayd lets his head drop back. The faded blue canvas awning is pulled up over the wheelhouse like an artificial sky. It shades the small space from the pressing summer heat. He lets his head rest on the railing, his body sliding out from the bench and under the captain’s chair. “So what happens next? Do you really have to leave with her?”

  “We have court sometime tomorrow,” I say. “I have a lawyer; she’s cool. She knows her stuff.”

  “You have a lawyer? Not Chuck?” Jayd sits up. “Why not Chuck?”

  “Too much history,” I say, spinning the chair around to face the bow. “He’s afraid the judge will think I’ve been influenced by him because he knew my dad and because he’s friends with Maggie.” I rest my arms on the cool metal wheel and lay my head on my hands. “My lawyer’s name is Ms. Young. I guess she knows Chuck, or she’s a friend or something.”

  Jayd leans toward me, resting his arms on his thighs. “Can I go to court with you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask tonight and let you know.” I turn the chair forward. From where I sit, I can look out from the marina to the open water, stretching miles and miles from where we’re docked. The sun is high and the air is still. The sky is a blinding blue, and all the clouds from the storms of the past few days have moved along to pester some other part of the South. I want to take the boat out about twenty miles and just drift in the current for a while. I want to feel the rock and sway of being on deep water.

  Jayd’s cell phone rings, and he pops it out of his pocket and taps it with his fingertip. “Yeah,” he says. “Just hang on. It wasn’t like that.” He moves the phone away from his ear and covers the mouthpiece. “It’s Rachel,” he says, then hands the phone to me.

  I put the phone to my ear. Rachel is shouting something, but I can’t understand her. “Rachel,” I say loudl
y into the phone. She stops yelling. “Rachel,” I say again, softer than the first time. “I’m sorry. I had to get out of there fast.”

  “Michael, what happened?” She sounds slightly angry, but mostly worried.

  “Julia found me in the parking lot,” I say. “She made a scene, tried to get me to go off with her or something.”

  “Are you okay? Where are you?”

  I sigh. “I’m okay. I’m someplace safe.” I don’t want to let anyone know where I am. I can’t take the chance that Julia will find out and come looking for me again.

  “But where?” Rachel says. “I want to come and see you.”

  The sound of her voice is as soft as her skin. My body aches to have her close. “I’m at the boat,” I say, figuring Julia doesn’t know who Rachel is, so it’s probably safe. “But don’t tell anyone except Maggie or Chuck.”

  “Can I see you tonight?” Her voice is gentle, like it was at the house, like when I lay with her.

  “I don’t know. I want to, but I don’t know if it will work.” I feel a tightness in my chest, an anxiety about wanting to be with her. I want to feel her skin against mine. I want to touch her and kiss her and smell the soft perfume of her skin.

  “Call me and let me know where you will be. Maybe I can come to you.”

  “Come to the boat,” I say. I don’t know why. It’s the middle of the day and there is almost no privacy on the boat, but I just want her close.

  “I’ll see if I can get a ride.”

  We say goodbye, and I hand Jayd his phone.

  “Is she coming?” he asks.

  “She’s trying to find a ride,” I say.

  “Do you want me to go get her?”

  I think about it for a minute. “No, but thanks. I need you here, just in case.” But I don’t know what I mean by “just in case.” Nobody would come over here. I don’t think Julia knows where it is or even that we have a boat. Did Dad ever tell her about it? Did she look him up and find out? If she went to the funeral, she might have heard it, but how fast could she find it, and would she even look here?

  Jayd looks at me. “Anything to drink on this tub?”

  There is a small chance there are some cans of soda down in the galley. “I’ll go look,” I say. I climb down the ladder to the deck, then the four steps into the cabin. There’s a small refrigerator in there that we sometimes put sodas or bottled water in. The power has been off at the boat for almost a week, so I doubt there will be anything cold. I pull it open and find two bottles of water. They are lukewarm, but I guess that’s better than nothing—unless I want to walk to the fish market and pay tourist prices for a soda.

  I come out of the galley and see Jayd standing at the top of the steps.

  “How about I take you to get some food? We’ll come back with lunch and hang out for a while.”

  “Better than this,” I say, putting the bottles on the small table next to a big rubber squid lure.

  We drive to the closest fast food place and grab burgers and drinks. Back on the boat, I move the squid, mindful of the big hook inside, and we sit at the table. I slide open the small windows to let some air into the cramped space. It smells like fish and cleanser and rubber lures. And it smells like my dad. I take a bite of the hamburger. There is no flavor to anything, but I eat and drink because I need something to do with my hands, to keep myself occupied so I don’t have to talk.

  Jayd takes slow, small bites from his burger and then pops a few fries into his mouth. He stares at his food and then looks out the little window to the left. The boat is almost still, but I feel nauseated for some reason.

  “Mike?” Rachel calls from the dock. “Are you down there?”

  I head out of the galley and up to the deck. Rachel is standing on the dock, arms crossed and hugged close to her body. She makes a move to climb onto the boat. “Take your shoes off,” I say, looking at the heels she’s wearing. “You’ll break your neck trying to get on with those.”

  She slips off the shoes and holds them in one hand. I reach out and take her other hand as she steps over the back onto the cooler, then jumps to the deck. As she lands, the boat begins to sway in the slip. I put my arms around her and pull her close.

  “Thanks for coming.” A light breeze cools the sweat at the back of my neck. She smells like magnolias and sunlight. Finally she moves a step away from me.

  “Let’s get out of the sun,” she says. We move to the covered part of the deck.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask. “There’s fries and a burger that I only took one bite out of.” I motion down the stairs.

  She shakes her head. “What happened?” she asks. “How could she just show up and think you would leave with her?”

  I climb up and sit in one of the sailfin chairs that’s mounted to the deck. “Chuck’s secretary called Julia and told her what happened because she didn’t know the situation, so I guess Julia contacted Chuck and told him she was coming to get me.”

  Rachel drops her shoes with a clatter and climbs into the other chair. Jayden emerges from the galley and stands in the shade in the doorway, sipping from the straw in his drink as he leans against the wall.

  “So Julia thinks I’m moving back to Washington with her. We have to go to court tomorrow morning to get Maggie to adopt me and keep Julia from ruining my life.”

  “Maybe she’s not so bad,” Jayd says.

  I turn backward in the chair, and it groans. “You saw her. She’s a nut case,” I say. “When I was five years old she told my dad that I ruined her life, that she never wanted me, that I was his fault.” My throat tightens around the words as they burst out of my mouth. “We had to bail out in the middle of the night because she was slamming things and throwing things, punching holes in the walls . . .” I can feel the rush of heat and anger in my face.

  Jayd’s eyes are wide, like he’s just stepped on a cottonmouth, and it tried to bite him.

  “Mike,” Rachel says in a firm voice.

  I look at her—her brow is furrowed and her eyes are worried. “Don’t you understand? Julia wants me to pack up everything and move to Washington. I’m a trophy that she is trying to win. She doesn’t want me there because she loves me—she wants me there because she knows my dad would hate it.”

  “But you don’t really think she’s going to be able to just force you to move?” Jayd is leaning on the door frame, his drink in one hand, his free hand stretched above his head and holding the top of the opening.

  “She can’t force me to do anything,” I say, though I’m not completely convinced of this. My head is starting to swim, and I am regretting that one bite of hamburger I managed to swallow. “That’s why I have a lawyer. That’s why we’re going to court tomorrow.”

  The more my thoughts spin, the more my stomach churns. I leap off the chair and run to the side of the boat, spewing the few bites of food into the water for the harbor fish to find.

  Jayd moves beside me, one hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” he asks.

  I nod, trying to pull the pieces of my brain together into a solid thought. All I want is to lie down on my bed, in my cool, darkened room, and wake up a few months from now with all of this resolved.

  “I need to go home,” I say.

  We clean up the boat and lock the galley. I decide I’ll come back later in the week and pull the boat covers out until I know what to do with it. We drive the fifteen minutes to the house.

  “Go slow,” I tell Jayden as we get close to the driveway. I look around the bend to see if there are any unfamiliar cars around. No one is there.

  I climb the stairs and fish my key ring out of my pocket. “You coming in?” I ask my friends.

  “I’d better get home,” Jayd says. “My mom doesn’t know what’s going on.”

  I nod. Rachel looks at the step she is standing on. “I need to go. I don’t have another way home.”

  “It’s okay.” I’m disappointed, but I understand. I probably wouldn’t be good company, anyway.

  “I
’ll call you later,” she says.

  “I’ll be online later tonight,” Jayd says.

  A bone-tired ache overtakes my whole body. “Talk to you later then.” I put the key in the lock and shut the door behind me.

  It’s cool and dark in the house. I wander to my room, toss my jacket and tie on the foot of my bed, then lie down. Before I know what’s happening, I feel myself rocking on the boat. It’s an off-balance, awkward feeling that shifts me from side to side. I can smell the salty mist off the waves, feel it speckle my face with cool droplets. The sun bathes everything in a whitewash of brightness.

  “Dad?” I call out. But there is no answer. I climb the ladder to the wheelhouse. No one is there. Beneath the blue canvas awning, I look out across the calm water sparkling like a million pieces of glass shattered on blue silk. The blue of the sky is deep and seems to reach out forever. I feel it pulling me. I climb over the railing on the second level of the boat. The wind picks up and whips around me, the mist shifts into sand that pelts and stings my skin. The boat bobs up and down, leaning farther and farther from one side to the other. I grip the railing in sweaty hands, looking for a way down. The boat dips as the waves swell, then surges back the other way, leaving my stomach in a ball in the pit of my abdomen. Another great swell pushes up, and the water draws open like a gaping mouth. I feel the boat tipping past recovery, so I dive into the churning ocean. The huge wave folds over me, and I sink beneath it, watching the last few rays of light grow dimmer as I drop into the silent, cold, blue ocean.

  chapter 17

  “Mike.”

  A cool hand touches my cheek.

  “Mike, honey,” says a soft voice.

  I strain to figure out where I am. I take a deep breath. There is something familiar about the scent. My eyes roll around in their sockets, but the lids refuse to open.

  “You need to sit up a little.”

  It’s Maggie’s voice instructing me. I try to raise up on my elbows and find that my left arm is pinned beneath my body and totally numb. As I move my torso, prickles of sensation work their way down my arm like a thousand needles. I force my eyes open, but they only move enough for me to see a thin line of a darkened room between my eyelashes.