by Marni Mann
The paramedic nodded and walked Bella over to me. Her wet nose pressed against my cheek. She licked my tears, drying them as they fell. I pushed myself to my knees, my hands moving to her ears, rubbing the soft, velvet-like hair that covered them. My hands and legs were bleeding, but I didn’t stop touching her or move to give the cuts any relief. I couldn’t let her go…I could smell the faintest scent of Mom’s perfume on Bella’s coat.
She sat down in front of me; the massaging of her ears began to relax her. I held her face in my hands as her tongue reached out to lap my cheeks again. I brushed my nose over hers. “Oh, my girl.” I pulled her even closer, burying my face in her neck and wrapping my arms around her.
She whimpered against my shoulder. She knew. She could sense the emotions that lingered around us, that wafted from me…the loss, the pain, the darkness, the unknown. I had seen nothing but dread in her eyes…the same dread I was sure she had seen in mine.
“I’m scared, Bella…I’m so scared.” My hands circled her face; she kept her snout pressed to me as her breath floated over my skin. Sweat dripped from my forehead, but I shivered from the chill I felt within. “All we have is each other now.”
CHAPTER ONE
MY BODY GLIDED THROUGH THE WATER with hardly any drag. That was due to the Speedo so tight it was practically bound to my torso, the Swedish goggles suctioned to my face, the cap that covered my long locks, and my smooth, hairless skin. In the last few weeks, I had shaved almost two seconds off my fifty-yard freestyle. I wasn’t trying to decrease my time. I wasn’t in the pool for exercise, either. This was for me, and me alone. This was the only part of my day when I could shut it all off and just…breathe. Even if I only took a breath every other stroke.
I hadn’t actually heard my mom’s screams or my dad’s shouting the night of the incident. My mind reproduced their sounds anyway; my brain recreated all of it, every detail from the moment that fucker had entered our house to when he had run out the front door.
Him.
What I didn’t have to invent were the images of my parents lying on the floor. Those came from the pictures that had been taken at the crime scene…the ones I had convinced the detective to show me because I needed closure. I couldn’t bring myself to visit the morgue. But I needed to see their faces one last time before they were cremated.
That’s why I swam: to pause it all, to mute my parents’ noises, to shove those images to the back of my brain until I stepped out of the water again. I didn’t swim for my college team, only in high school. Yet something had sent me straight back into the pool after the incident. Something about it gave me internal silence. Maybe it was how I filled my ears with waterproof buds that blasted pre-set tunes, or how I only concentrated on my breath, my form and how many strokes it took before I reached the other end. Maybe my brain understood that I just needed to disconnect.
The community pool in my parents’ neighborhood was only open from sunrise to sunset, yet no one ever reprimanded me for swimming late at night or for bringing Bella, even though the rules clearly stated that animals weren’t allowed. The residents probably didn’t even know I was here; I snuck in and out pretty quietly. If they had known, they would have most likely bombarded me with condolences—ones that I didn’t want to hear. From anyone. I didn’t need any more awkward expressions staring back at me, more pans of food that I would never eat, more apologies for something that wasn’t their fault. I just wanted a longer pause…and none of them could give me that.
Since I had no intention of ever living in their house again, I decided that I would stop coming here once the reconstruction was done and the place was sold. That would give me enough time to find a new pool to swim in. Gianna, my best friend since elementary school, and her parents had hired a handyman to fix everything that had been damaged in the incident, along with some basic upgrades that were needed throughout the house. Our hope was that the remodel would help the home sell faster.
I just used the pool.
I was submerged when the light in the deep end shone in my face, almost as bright as a flash as I made my way across the twenty-five-yards. Two strokes before I reached the wall, I dove under and flipped, pushing off into a streamline. I did an open turn when I reached the shallow end so I wouldn’t splash Bella as much. She loved the water, but I wouldn’t allow her to get in the pool. Despite all the rules I was already breaking, I figured that would definitely be a reason to ban me from coming here. And I couldn’t be banned; I needed this place. I needed this pause. I’d been staying with Gianna’s parents since the incident, and they didn’t have a pool. Neither did their community. And there was no way I would use the one at my parents’ house. This one was it.
Two strokes. Breath.
As I reached the middle of the pool, I noticed a hand dangling in the shallow end, close to where Bella was lying. The fingers were shaking in the water as though they were trying to get my attention. I drew closer and recognized the orangey-red nails: they were Gianna’s. We’d gotten manicures a few days earlier and she’d chosen the same color for me. Lately, she’d been choosing almost everything for me. And this wasn’t the first time she’d visited me at the pool. She actually came here often, probably making sure I didn’t overheat or swim myself to death, although she never said that.
“Hey, Gia,” I said as soon as I surfaced, lifting the goggles to my forehead. She really was worried about me, I could tell by the look on her face. “What’s going on?”
She was dressed in yoga pants and a white tank, her fiery red hair in a messy knot on top of her head. It was obvious that she hadn’t showered since she left the gym. She stayed huddled next to Bella, petting her, running her fingers down toward the dog’s tail then back up to her neck. “Something came for you in the mail,” she said. “Since you weren’t at the house when I got back, I figured I’d check for you here.”
I’d stopped looking at the mail about a week after the incident. Nothing good ever came in those paper packages, so I only read letters that had already been filtered by Gianna or her parents…and even those usually stayed in our room for a few days before I got the courage to read them.
“You came all the way here to give me a letter?”
“It looks like an important one.” With nothing more than mascara coating her long lashes and gloss that glittered her lips, Gianna was beautiful. She didn’t need make-up. She had sharp features, perfect ivory skin and wildly curly flaming hair, which made quite a statement in the way they all combined. And even though it was late and she had rocked me in her arms on her bed last night, crying right along with me into the wee hours in spite of having to wake up early, she didn’t have any circles or puffiness under her eyes. I was envious. What she did have was concern; it spread through her voice, her posture, even the way she moved her brows.
My heart rate started to increase, and I reached for my goggles to pull them back over my eyes and began to turn to take another lap. “I’ll read it later when I get—”
“No, Drew. I really think you should read it now.” She extended her arm, holding it over the water so I could see the front of the envelope. It was legal size, thick, and stuffed completely full. The pool light and the few streetlamps that glowed onto the deck illuminated my name and address and the word confidential stamped in red ink on the bottom. The top had been ripped open…Gianna knew what was inside and whatever that was had brought her here.
“It came certified mail, and my mom had to sign for it.” She looked down at Bella. “It’s from an attorney…in Maine.”
“Why would an attorney from Maine be sending me something?”
My parents moved to Florida from Maine when they were very young, but we’d lived in Florida my entire life. I’d never been to Maine and didn’t know anyone who lived that far north. My mom’s parents had died a few years after I was born and hadn’t gotten the chance to meet me, and my mom didn’t have any other living relatives. I knew this couldn’t have anything to do with my dad because he was fro
m Florida originally; his parents had both lived here, though they had passed away quite a while ago. Neither of my parents had any siblings, which left me without aunts or uncles. I had no one and nothing in Maine… certainly no need for a lawyer’s letter.
“I think you should get out of the pool,” she said. “We can go to my car and read the letter together.” Her voice had stayed calm but her concern hadn’t faded at all. If anything, it had doubled. And even though my body had been strained from the exercise, it wasn’t the reason I was trembling.
I looked at the envelope. It was so official, so stern. “Gianna…”
“It’s okay,” she said, standing on the deck, giving me her hand to guide me out of the water.
I climbed the steps and wrapped a towel around my wet skin. “I thought all the legal stuff was behind me.” The family attorney in Sarasota had assured me of that. My parents had set up a trust for me many years ago, which had made things much easier to settle…or so I’d been told. I wondered how true that was now.
“It is behind you.” She pushed my flip-flops toward me. “This is… something different.”
Bella stood next to me, licking the drops of water that fell from me. My fingers touched her head as I slipped the sandals onto my feet. “What does that mean?”
“Come on.” Gianna reached for my hand again. “Let’s go to my car.”
I slid my bag over my arm, linked my fingers with hers and followed a few steps behind. Bella climbed into the back and rested her chin on my shoulder as Gianna and I got into the front seat. She flipped on the overhead light and started the engine, turning on the air conditioning so it would cool my body down.
“You want to read, or should I?”
“You.” My nerves had moved into my throat, a knot forming right in the back making it hard to breathe.
“Okay, then.” She opened the envelope and removed the stack of papers, holding them under the light. She quickly read the first few sentences out loud. My eyes watched her rather than the print, trying to interpret her expression. Nothing I saw gave any indication of what this was all about, until she read, “I represent the estate of Bernard and Marilyn Coswell.”
The knot in my throat immediately began to shrink. “The Coswells…”
“You know them?”
I nodded. “They were my grandparents…but they’ve been dead for nearly my whole life. This is probably just some legal stuff that should have gone to my mom—”
“No, Drew…let me keep reading.” She dropped the papers onto her lap. “The Coswell estate is gifting you a house—their house, a property in Bar Harbor, the same town where…”
“My mom grew up,” I finished.
“That’s not all of it.” She closed her mouth, a furrow forming between her brows. “You might think that they’ve been dead for most of your life, but that’s not what these papers say.” She lifted the stack again and tilted the pages toward me. “The dates that they were born and the dates of their death are listed in here.”
I kept my eyes on her. “So…”
“So Bernard died two months ago and,” she paused again, taking a deep breath, “it looks like it happened only a week after your parents’ death. And Marilyn died…two weeks ago.”
I shook my head. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not, Roo,” she said, using the nickname she had called me since we were kids. She flipped the pages until she reached the middle of the stack. My fingers reached out to grab the two sheets she handed to me, but stopped mid-air when I saw what they said. They were death certificates; the date of Marilyn’s death was clearly printed underneath her name…a date from two weeks ago, just as Gianna had said.
“How?” I whispered. Tears began to roll from my eyes.
My mom had lied about her parents.
Why? Why wouldn’t she want me to meet them, to have them in our lives? I didn’t know if I was supposed to be angry with my mom for keeping this from me, or sad that Marilyn, a complete stranger, had died so recently…and I only just learned of her existence.
Maybe this was all a big mistake…
“They must have known about you,” she said. She showed me a sheet of paper that was on the bottom of the stack. “Your grandmother signed the deed of the house over to you.”
If she knew about me, then…
“I don’t understand this.”
She dropped the papers and wrapped her arms around me, pulling my wet face into her neck and my soaking suit against her chest. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sense of this.”
Don’t worry? My parents had been gone for almost three months; all I had done since their death was worry. Everything in my life was different now. I tried to speak again, to ask her the questions even though I knew she didn’t have the answers. Nothing came out. No words. No sounds. I was filled with…nothing.
“Drew, say something. I need to know what you’re feeling.”
I sniffled and buried my face even deeper into Gianna’s neck. Her shirt caught everything that fell from my eyes, making a damp circle along the soft cotton of her tank. Bella’s wet nose touched the back of my neck. I wanted to acknowledge her, rub her ears and praise her for being so sensitive.
But I couldn’t move.
“We’ll figure this out,” Gianna said. “I promise.”
CHAPTER TWO
DURING THE YEARS THAT MOM USED TO tuck me into bed, before she would brush the hair out of my face and gently kiss my cheek goodnight, she would tell me a Maine tale. That was what she called her childhood adventures. She never had to read from a book or a journal, never even had to stop to recall a detail. Stories fell from her lips fluidly, the backdrop always Bar Harbor. She described it as having the freshest, cleanest scent she had ever smelled: clothes straight out of the dryer, leaves dampened by a bubbling spring, and a tiny hint of thyme. Before driving into the state, I’d associated clean with the scent of soap. But somewhere between the towns of Ellsworth and Trenton, I rolled down all the windows and found a freshness floating into the car. Maybe it came from the greenery that edged the road or the salty air from the harbor that peeked through the layer of trees. Maybe it was just Maine. But as the wind glided past me, I knew at last what my mom had meant.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed the change in the air. As soon as I opened the windows, Bella stood from the seat and stuck her face out. Her tail thumped against the passenger door as she took in the crispness that breezed past her snout.
“We’re almost there, little lady.”
I watched her from the rearview mirror. She glanced in my direction when I spoke before turning to face the road again. It had taken two entire days to drive up here. She needed to be walked; she’d spent far too much time in the car. We both had.
I’d hoped the long hours on the road would help me sort out some of this new information. There wasn’t a whole lot that I could process, but the quick call I’d made to the Coswells’ attorney had confirmed everything that was in the envelope: Marilyn had died two weeks ago; the deed to their house had been completed prior to her death and she had signed it personally. The attorney added that there wasn’t a mortgage on the house; the estate paid for the taxes and utilities and would continue to do so for a set time frame. I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it: how I’d inherited this house, what exactly that meant about my past, whether I should sell it, or that I’d had grandparents this whole time and hadn’t even known they were alive. I thought about it as much as the incident. Gianna had begged me to wait until the weekend since my complicated life had maxed out her vacation days. She wanted to come along; she knew how much this was consuming me, and didn’t want me to be alone. But the attorney didn’t work on the weekend. I needed answers and I wasn’t willing to wait for them.
Something was pulling me to Maine.
I needed to touch the house, to be in the presence of this secret that my mom had withheld my whole life. I needed to connect Mom’s tales to their source. I needed to feel closer to her.
I hoped Maine would give me that. And that connection was something I needed to find on my own.
I slowed down for the upcoming red light as Bella moved from the window to the center of the backseat, sticking her nose over my shoulder. I nuzzled my cheek against her. “I know,” I said, releasing the steering wheel to scratch her ears. “Just a few more minutes, then I promise a swim in the ocean.” She cocked her head to the side. She knew the meaning of swim.
From the pictures the attorney had emailed me, it appeared that the house sat directly adjacent to the ocean. I didn’t know how warm the Atlantic got, especially at the tail end of the northern summer. I figured it wouldn’t be even close to the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico, which was where Bella usually swam. But cold didn’t bother her. She was used to jumping into the pool at my parents’ house, even in the dead of winter.
My phone rang. The screen changed from the GPS app to a picture of David. I was sure it was one of his weekly calls…the ones where he tried to convince me to hang out with him. It was also possible that he’d bumped into Gianna and was making sure I’d gotten to Maine safely. Either way, I wasn’t answering it. We’d only seen each other once since the incident, so I could tell him I wouldn’t be hooking up with him anymore. I couldn’t. I had chosen him over my family that night. Had I been in that house, there was a chance both of my parents would still be alive. The constant objections I voiced and texted to him didn’t seem to deter him. They were doing just the opposite, actually. I’d suddenly become even more of a challenge and he was determined to have me. He just didn’t realize yet that he never would.
No one would. They wouldn’t want my mess.
The arrow turned green, and I cut into the first plaza and parked in a spot right in front of the attorney’s office. I clipped Bella’s leash to her collar, and we both got out of the car, stretching our legs as we made our way to the door.