The Sea Horse Door

by Gina Rossi

  I thank her and drive off, following rustic signs pointing the way to the main road at every fork, intersection and turn.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The minute we get home, Alice—high on sugar, admittedly—turns clingy and whiny. She wants supper, she doesn’t want supper, she’s thirsty, she isn’t thirsty, she doesn’t want to bath, she does want to bath, she cries in the bath, she cries while I dry her. I put her to bed half an hour early. She doesn’t want a story. All she wants are her blue pyjamas and her Daddy. I can only provide one of those precious items. I sit on the edge of her bed, studying her photos of Lucas, stroking her back until she falls asleep. Where is he? Why doesn’t he come home?

  Later, outside, I stand on the sea porch and look at Agat’s little crosses. I’m actually here to clear them away, but something’s stopping me. I don’t want to touch them. I call the sheriff’s office, and a young officer, Nate Harris, is dispatched to assist. He arrives within minutes, asks a million questions and takes copious notes. He asks if I’d like to lay a trespassing charge. I don’t. All I want is for it not to happen again, and that’s what I tell him. That done, he pulls on a pair of latex gloves, goes down the porch steps and removes the crosses into a plastic bag, which he seals. He doesn’t touch them either, come to think of it, with his gloves and all. Why didn’t I think of that? He’s kind and considerate, super-polite, but I feel like an idiot who’s wasted his time.

  Lighting trembles in the black clouds bunched over the sea, and there’s a spit of drizzle in the wind. The angry grumble of surf rolls toward me over the untidy grass. Can I muster the courage to get Uncle Buck down here to mow the lawn? Probably not. Maybe I’ll call him tomorrow, depending on the weather. A squall hits the beach, driving up the shore to the house. I shut myself inside, eat supper, watch a little television, finish a heap of ironing and Skype Julie.

  Julie’s been on Google and come to the staggering conclusion that the sensation of overwhelming love toward one’s newborn baby is not a given.

  “What if I don’t love this baby, Lara? What if I take one look at it and reject it outright?”

  “Of course you’ll love it! Don’t be ridic—”

  “Not necessarily. A high percentage of mothers feel little or no love at all in the first few hours after birth.”

  That figures, but I don’t want to say so. “You will love her, Julie, or him. I love Alice, and she’s not even mine.”

  “You do?”

  I do. I really do, and I tell her again.

  “If I don’t love my baby, will you love her for me?”

  For God’s sake. I close my eyes and speak gently. “Yes. I will. I promise.”

  “You’ll be back in England for the birth, won’t you, Lara?”

  I have no idea. At the moment I can’t possibly think of leaving Lobster Cove. “Julie, you have a husband—”

  “It’s not the same, as you very well know. Derek has absolutely no idea what I’m going through.”

  Actually, I have no idea. “Let’s hope Mum will be back in time.”

  “Mum will be frozen into the Antarctic pack ice, like always. I’m going to need you, Lara. Please make sure you’re here.”

  “I’ll do my best.” And I will. Also, at twenty-eight, she’s three years younger than I am, and I must remember that.

  The call over, I look out of the kitchen windows. The storm’s passed, leaving a chill on the evening air and an untidy straggle of leaves and twigs on the sea porch. I fetch a giant outdoor broom, and pull on, over the top of my clothes, that black tee-shirt of Lucas’s—the one Alice slept in that somehow has never made it back to Lucas’s closet, but ended up in mine. Hair in a tight knot on top of my head, I go outside barefoot and get started on the job. Wow, hard work, and sweaty. The porch is huge and hasn’t been cleaned for a while, never mind the storm. I sweep the leaves into a garbage bag—they blow straight out—and trail wet brown footprints wherever I walk. At last, the main debris out of the way, tied up in bags, I mop the planks several times over until, hours later, the water in the bucket is almost clear.

  “That’ll have to do,” I tell the moon, rolling between windswept clouds over a broken sea. “Phew.” I empty the bucket over the side of the porch railing, and the fright takes my breath away. There’s a dark figure on the lawn. Cold fingers grab my heart. I push fallen-down, damp hair off my forehead with the back of my hand.

  Who is that?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The bucket falls from my hands, into the long grass. “My God, it’s you!”

  “Yeah.” Lucas comes out of the shadows, up the steps and into the house. He walks through the kitchen into the hallway—me on his heels—and drops his bag on the thin rug, looking around like this is the first time he’s seen his own house.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, breathless like I’ve been punched. Clearly not. His hair is shaved really short. He’s ill—hollow-eyed, pale, pinched and hunched.

  “Yeah.” He stares at me, arms at his sides. “I tried the front door but nobody answered.”

  How are your fingers? Is about the lamest question I could ask right now. Also, it would be skirting a larger issue.

  I clear my throat. “The sea’s loud tonight, so I wouldn’t have heard. I’ve been outside, cleaning up after the storm.”

  He nods, eyes on my face.

  “Why didn’t you call?” I ask. “I could have collected you.”

  “Skeet dropped me off.”

  “Right.” We look at each other. His eyes are in shadow, hiding something—at least it seems that way, in the dim light. “I’m so sorry about your colleagues,” I say. “John told me they didn’t…” I swallow, with difficulty. “…didn’t survive.”

  He puts a hand to his face, pressing his forehead hard with his fingertips. “No.” His voice breaks. He rubs his eyes, squeezed shut, with forefinger and thumb.

  I need to lighten this, but carefully. “How are your fingers?” My voice comes out steady, and normal.

  He opens his eyes, looks down at his fingers—not the ones with the scars, the other ones—frowning like he’s trying to work out what they are. “Good,” he says, eventually. “Good.”

  “Good,” I say back. “Well!” The attempt to breathe and smile at the same time turns into a nervous gulp-type laugh. “Welcome home. You certainly gave us a fright.”

  He steps forward, studies me up close for a few moments—no smile, nothing in his eyes whatsoever. He’s merely looking. “I gave myself a fucking fright,” he murmurs, and disappears up the stairs. Up in the gallery, he leans over the bannister and says, “By the way, nice shirt.”

  That’s all he says to me for three days.

  ****

  I’m a spare part. The next morning, Alice abandons me the second I say the magic words, “Daddy’s home.” I get up early anyhow, three days running, and hang around while they do stuff together. This morning is car-wash time. Jay collects the Jeep, and Lucas unlocks the garage to extract a well-hidden vintage “Mustache,” Alice tells me. She has her own bucket of suds and a green rectangular sponge bigger than her head.

  “I’m allowed to wash the wheels!” She calls when I bring coffee out to Lucas.

  “What else have you got stashed away in that garage?” I ask Lucas, peeping in.

  “Coupla things.”

  “Is that yours?” I point to a large motorbike, right at the back.

  “My dad’s Harley.”

  “Is the car also your dad’s?”

  “No.”

  Your mother’s? Yours? John’s? Fair enough, he doesn’t want to talk. Lucas is, I suppose, getting back to himself, trying to repair himself. In the sinister depths of the black North Sea, he was working with people who died, and I need to remember that. To stop myself talking to myself, I go inside. Every now and again, I look out of a window to check on Alice. Maybe the car belonged to Bonny. I won’t ask him. No talking about dead people. Not yet.

  I’m checking on Alice, keeping an eye
. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the weather’s warm and Lucas has his tee-shirt off.

  Around noon, Lucas and Alice take off in the car. I go down into the forbidden cove with a book and sit against a sun-warmed rock, my feet in a crystal clear rock pool. I guess I deserve time off, but I feel strange, nevertheless. I didn’t like to ask Lucas where he and Alice were going, but surely, common decency—elementary manners, even—dictates that he could mention where they were headed and, at least, roughly when they might be back?

  After a couple of hours it’s too hot, and I wander back to the house. The remains of lunch are on the table.

  Pizza.

  Lucas and Alice are in the den, watching football on television, arms wrapped around each other. I go upstairs, lie on my bed and read myself to sleep. My phone beeps and wakes me. Holly wants to Skype. I glance through the window and then at my watch. Late afternoon already. I get up, shower, get dressed and open my laptop.

  Holly’s met someone! Mere days ago, at the recycling centre, a man backed his Audi into her Mini, somehow getting his tow-bar stuck on her bumper—giggle. They had coffee together, straight after the incident, and he phoned her the next day to ask her out to dinner.

  “Just at a pub, Jazz, but it was fun!” She tells me all about it: what she ate, what he ate. What they drank. How he kissed her very lightly on the cheek—but fairly close to the corner of her mouth—when he sent her home in a taxi—for which he paid—afterwards.

  “How’s your love life, Jazz?”

  “Still in square one.” Like it’s been all year. Square one and I’ve yet to throw the dice. Am I even on the board?

  “When are you coming home?” she asks, in the middle of our goodbyes—an afterthought, I can’t help thinking.

  “Soon. I’ll be home in the next few days.”

  “Date?”

  “I’ll let you know.” I log out and look up.

  Lucas is standing in the doorway.

  “Yes?” I close my laptop and push it to one side.

  He hesitates. “Uh, I’m going for a run. Is that okay? Alice is downstairs, watching TV.”

  “Sure.” I join Alice, enraptured—again—by Ariel, star of The Little Mermaid, and Lucas takes off down the beach. He’s been gone ten minutes when the sea horse doorbell rings. I leave Alice in the den and go see who it is.

  Alex Campbell, one of the younger local doctors, stands on the doorstep and asks if Lucas is home.

  “He’s out for a run,” I tell him.

  “How long for?”

  “I have no idea. Can I get him to call you when he gets back?”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “Come in. I’ll show you.” He follows me through the hall, into the kitchen and onto the sea porch. I point down the beach and show him where the steps are.

  “I’ll go meet him,” he says. “Thanks.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “He missed an appointment this morning. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No.”

  “Have you, er, noticed anything out of the ordinary? Concerning Lucas, that is?”

  “I can’t say, because I really don’t know Lucas at all. He left the morning after the evening I arrived and, to be honest, hasn’t said much to me since he got back.”

  He frowns, thoughtful. “Okay. I’ll have a word.” He turns his back and walks away.

  Will he get to the bottom of Lucas’s silent distance? Is Lucas suffering the after effects of a harsh wake-up call—like delayed shock? Is he depressed? Or is he feeling his way through some kind of lengthy recovery phase after a head injury? Is this normal Lucas, or Lucas the new stranger?

  An hour later, they’re back. They stand out on the grass and talk for ages. Alex leaves, eventually, and Lucas goes for a shower, and to put Alice to bed and read her a story.

  “Where were you,” I ask, when he’s back downstairs, “after the accident on the rig?”

  He looks at me for a moment, eyes in shadow. “Where was I? In the Royal Infirmary in Aberdeen, then with a, um, friend in Scotland, then briefly with my dad in Florida.”

  So a long time in Scotland. “I didn’t know. Anyway, I guess it’s nice to have a friend in Scotland when you need one.”

  He frowns. “She wasn’t really a friend.”

  “Oh, I thought you said—”

  “Just one of the nurses who was…real kind. She went the extra mile.”

  I bet she did. Bloody hell! “Nurse Nina?”

  He’s taken aback. “How do you know?”

  “John told me.”

  “What did he say?” Lucas’s eyes are shrewd, his mouth curling into an almost-smile like there are happy memories to be had.

  “Nothing.”

  “She had time off, and nobody to spend it with. She took me to the Highlands. We drove around the lochs, ended up in Edinburgh. Awesome. You have a beautiful country.”

  Hmph! “I do. However, I am not Scottish.”

  He grins at my peevish tone. “Ah, Great Britain, British Isles, United Kingdom, I never did get all that.” He holds up his hands in apology.

  “Well, I’m glad she, Nina, got you through all…all that.”

  “She didn’t,” he replies, taking his phone out of a pocket. “This is what got me through.” He holds up the phone. There’s my photo. The selfie I took of me and Alice when Lucas was so cross with me over the blue pyjama crisis.

  “Do you want something to eat?” I ask, adventures with Nina fading to insignificance.

  “Not hungry, thanks.” He goes into his studio and closes the door.

  After I’ve eaten and watched a re-run of Goodwill Hunting, I clean up the kitchen, put in a load of washing and go upstairs, stopping halfway. I’m the wallpaper on Lucas’s phone. That’s meaningful, but Alice is there too. He didn’t have to use that picture. I’ve sent loads of Alice by herself, or with Buster.

  I go back down the stairs. “Lucas?” I knock on the door and open it. He’s sitting at the other desk, back turned to the window, facing me, head down, drawing in a sketchbook. Even at this distance I can see it’s an excellent drawing of a house. I go closer. “That’s brilliant. Is the closet architect at work?” I smile.

  He closes the book. “The what?”

  “Angie. She told me you’re a closet architect. I’ve been to Little Harbor. It’s beautiful.”

  The silence bulges. What’s going on with this man?

  “So,” I say. “Anyway. I think, perhaps, my job here is done, Lucas. What do you think?”

  He stares down at the sketchbook for a moment, picks it up and tosses it onto a pile of papers on the far side of the desk. He looks up at me, blinking, coming back from the faraway place he’s been to. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re home now, and I should move on.”

  “No need. What’s the rush?”

  What does he mean? “I thought I’d stay for Alice’s birthday party, and leave after that.”

  “Birthday party?”

  “On Saturday, this Saturday, in five days’ time. The day of her actual birthday. I’ve invited her friends—the ones who aren’t away on holiday—and some of the parents are coming.”

  He gazes past me, totally elsewhere, not listening. “Okay.”

  Although I talk about the party in the following days, and even go as far as reminding him about it, he tells me two days before that he’s going away.

  “You can’t, Lucas.”

  “I have to be on a rig in the Gulf by tomorrow evening.”

  “The Gulf?”

  “Mexico.”

  I’m so disappointed I can’t stand up any more. We’re standing face to face in the hall, but I flop onto one of the window seats, close to tears. “Lucas, everything is planned. Barbecue lunch for the parents, the birthday cake, the games, everything. Alice has a new dress. She’s so excited.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Please, Lucas.”

  “It’s an emergency.”


  “Like last time? And look what happened? You almost died!”

  “I won’t be diving. Not yet. I have to pass a medical—two medicals actually—before I dive again.”

  Well, isn’t that something? “You know, Lucas, to me, sometimes the diving sounds like the safe part. Why, why on earth do you risk your bloody neck in this stupid bring-your-own-body-bag job when you have Alice and—” I look up into the double volume space above the handsome staircase—“this magnificent place to live in?”

  He’s looking at me, but I’m not going to look back at him.

  “You have other talents,” I go on, glancing at the study door. “You have it all.”

  “Bring-your-own-body-bag job?” The amused tone of voice, like he’s about to burst out laughing, doesn’t upgrade my mood.

  “You told me you put on a body bag before you get into the helicopter—”

  He laughs. He actually laughs. “Body bag is a nickname for the rubberized submersible suit we wear on the helicopter in case it crashes, and we all land in the water, or in case we get blown into the water when we land, or merely fall into the water. Without that suit, we’d freeze to death in seconds. Average surface water temps are pretty low in the North Sea, even in the summer.” For the first time since his return, he sounds positively animated.

  “I can’t imagine anything worse!”

  “Working in a shark cage is worse, even if the sharks aren’t particularly hungry.”

  “You’re not normal, do you know that? You’re mad. Stark, staring mad.”

  He smiles. “I’ll be okay.” Somehow, this macabre subject has cheered him up.

  “But what about Alice?”

  The smile turns to a grin. “She won’t miss me.”

  I’m so angry I can’t speak.

  However, come the day, Alice’s birthday is a huge success in Alice’s eyes, and that’s what counts, what matters most. Everyone comes—not a single cancellation. I’m convinced most haven’t been to Blue Rocks before. It’s something about the way they look around the hallway, wide-eyed, as they come through the sea horse door. Lucas is so not here it’s unsettling and awkward, though everyone is super polite and diplomatic.