Whispering Waves

by Jamie Berris

  Chapter 33

  Sadie

  Sadie couldn’t flip the pages in her mother’s diary fast enough. It was so much to digest. “This is all so bizarre!”

  “Tell me about it! Did you ever, in a million years, suspect any of this?” asked Jayna.

  “Never!”

  “What are we gonna do? I mean do we keep it a secret that we know, or do we tell Dad that we read Mom’s diary? And what about Nicholas? Shouldn’t he know that Marcus is his dad?”

  Sadie interrupted Jayna. “Slow down. First, we need to get through as much of this diary as possible tonight. Second, you bet I’m confronting Dad. Third, don’t you dare open your mouth to Nicholas. He’s too young and there’s no point in it anyway. The big question is what about Marissa?”

  Jayna waited for Sadie to explain, but she just sat, deep in thought. “You mean should we be nice to her and accept her and Dad?”

  “I mean that and more. Honestly, I can’t imagine why she would want anything to do with Dad, with any of us, especially Nicholas! How can she even look at the kid knowing it’s her ex-husband’s son? How can she not hate all of us?”

  “She is sweet to him too, playing with him on the beach, and even showing affection,” Jayna pointed out. “This also means we share our brother with Paige. He’s her half-brother too!”

  Sadie glared at Jayna. “Paige is the least of my cares right now, Jayna.”

  “You’re just saying that because of Travis, Sadie. Either get over him or dump Dylan and go after him.”

  “Let’s not go there right now, okay, Jayna!”

  Jayna held a hand up. “Fine, I was just saying—”

  Sadie didn’t want to hear it, so she cut in. “Maybe Marissa wants Paige to have a relationship with Nicholas? Maybe Paige knows everything?”

  “No, I doubt it. Paige couldn’t ever keep something like this to herself, and she doesn’t pay Nicholas any extra attention as she would if she knew he was her brother.”

  Sadie agreed with Jayna, but she still couldn’t see why her dad and Marissa would want to date. “I guess this explains why Marcus moved to California—Dad forced him to.”

  “Yeah, what a slime. I knew he had some young, blond girlfriend out there, but what a jerk to be cheating on Marissa and then, you know, do that to Mom.”

  Sadie didn’t want to say it out loud because she didn’t want to plant anything in Jayna’s head, but wasn’t that kind of like rape? He totally took advantage of their mom! “Too bad Dad didn’t get one good punch in!” admitted Sadie.

  July 17, 2009

  I had a breakdown in the middle of the night last night. I woke up soaked with sweat and crying, more like convulsing.

  I have no idea if it was only a dream or if it was an actual memory. I was feeling very loopy and closed my eyes and slumped over on the plush pillows lining the sofa on the deck. Marcus was then kissing my neck. I pulled myself up instantly, saying, “I have to leave,” but Marcus insisted that I couldn’t drive and that I should go below and sleep it off for a bit.

  He carried me below and plopped me down on the bed. My sundress blew up, and I reached to smooth it down, but when I did, Marcus was already crawling on top of me. He started kissing me, hard. At first, I was confused. I kissed back, thinking that it was Kurt.

  Within seconds, I realized it wasn’t him and began to push Marcus off. He was telling me to go with it—no one would ever know—that he had always wanted me. I pulled the back of his hair, trying to peel him off. His hands were all over me, and I was so tired and weak. My eyes closed.

  I woke up shaking, crying, and couldn’t catch my breath. Kurt asked me about the dream, and for some reason, I couldn’t tell him. I felt like he would think I was making it up to try and look like the scared, innocent victim. I felt so dirty. I feel so dirty.

  In the shower, I cried. When I got back in bed, Kurt wrapped his arms around me. It felt phony. I don’t deserve it. Was that a real memory? Was it only a dream? Did I play an active part? Or was I taken advantage of? Does it matter? Will it change anything?

  July 17, 2009

  So here I am again, writing for the second time today and it’s only 9:12 a.m. I’m being foolish, selfish, and cowardish (if that’s even a word). The girls and I are going to the beach with Marissa and Paige today. I can’t tell her yet—I just can’t do it! How am I supposed to tell my best friend that I’m pregnant with her husband’s child? She’s going to hate me. I’m going to lose my best friend!

  I need this day with her. Maybe she ‘ll see how much I care about her and that I wouldn’t ever do anything (knowingly) to jeopardize our friendship.

  I’ll do it tonight. Maybe after the beach I’ll see if she’ll meet up with me for a late-night walk. I can offer to go in her neighborhood so she can have the neighbor girl sit with Paige. If we’re walking, I don’t have to look her in the eye. Ugh, I’m a first rate coward!!!

  Sadie and Jayna were too engrossed in the diary to hear the knock the first time, but the second rap, rap, rap, sent them both in a panic.

  “Yeah,” Sadie yelled nervously through the locked door as she scrambled to her feet and threw the diary under the crumpled comforter on her bed.

  Jayna hopped to her feet as well. She swallowed hard, looking at Sadie wide-eyed and panicked.

  “Can you open the door, please?” asked Kurt, his voice smooth, unruffled.

  Sadie glanced at Jayna, mouthed “oh shit,” and slowly pulled the door open. Sadie and Jayna stood dumbfounded, staring at their dad as he stepped in the room and ran his hands through his hair and over his face, looking tired and defeated.

  “I guess this means we need to talk,” he said.

  Sadie could feel herself shaking, and a trickle of sweat ran down her back. She wasn’t sure if she was going to cry, scream, or, weird as it was, laugh. Instead, both she and her sister stood there in silence, waiting for their dad to make the next move, fearing to admit anything.

  “Look, girls. I know you’ve been in here reading Mom’s diary. Jayna, you’re lucky you didn’t get clocked or tackled—it’s a bad idea to sneak in my room when I’m sleeping. For the record, you suck at creeping around.”

  Jayna shrugged.

  “Why didn’t you try and stop us?” asked Sadie.

  “I don’t know, to be honest. I guess, well, you’re old enough, and all these secrets . . . It sucks. It’s hard. I don’t want to keep living a lie. By letting you read it for yourselves, I was taking the easy way out. Let’s get one thing straight right here, right now—it stays in this family. We don’t tell our friends, boyfriends, no one. Not a soul.”

  Sadie and Jayna nodded, and Kurt told them to follow him to the beach. As they stepped off the porch into the cool sand, Sadie glanced up and found the Big Dipper, right where it always was, at two o’clock in the Pentwater sky. She pictured her mother sitting in it, dangling her feet over the scoop, ankles crossed, looking down on them. Sadie couldn’t quite figure out what she felt toward her mom after what she had discovered.

  “How far did you get?” Kurt asked as they sat down a few feet away from the shore.

  Jayna piped up, “August 17th, in the morning, Andrea knows about the baby.”

  It was quiet for at least a full minute before Kurt spoke again. He had finally gotten through the diary and was thankful he had. Not only did he need the confirmation that Lydia truly was not aware of her actions on that night, he was glad he knew exactly what his daughters had read.

  “Marcus took advantage of your mom. She honestly had no intention of doing what happened.”

  “You mean having sex with Marcus?” Jayna blurted.

  Sadie closed her eyes. Leave it up to Jayna to be so insensitive. Would she ever get a clue?

  “Yes, Jayna, that’s correct. She went to see Marcus on his boat because Marissa asked her to go talk to him. They were separated and on the brink of divorce. Anyway, Mom had been taking some medication for anxiety, and when mixed with too much alcohol, it made her
black out.”

  “It was depression medication, right? Why was Mom so depressed?”

  “Seriously, Jayna, cool it already!” snapped Sadie.

  Jayna sneered. “What?”

  “Girls, both of you cool it. Mom wasn’t depressed about any one thing. She just . . . She was an intense person and sometimes felt overwhelmed, or sad, anxious, or even really happy. She described it as being on a roller coaster. Her doctor suggested that she take an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication to help regulate her emotions a bit. You know . . . feel calmer.”

  He sighed in frustration. “Mom loved all of us, and it’s not that she was unhappy . . .”

  “So Marcus was at fault? Not Mom?” interrupted Jayna.

  Even though the question was quite shallow and pure Jayna, Sadie wanted to hear her dad agree that it was all Marcus, that their mother was nothing more than a victim. She wanted badly to blame it all on Marcus. The thought of a tainted picture of her mom wasn’t what Sadie wanted to remember.

  “Mom wasn’t herself that night. She had way too much to drink, and along with her medications, she, well . . . Marcus took advantage of her.”

  “So Nicholas, he isn’t even your son? He’s Marcus’s kid?” Sadie knew the answer to this question, but she needed to hear it point blank from her dad.

  “He is my son, maybe not biologically, but I was the one in the delivery room, who held him as he took his first breaths. He is Mom’s flesh and blood too, and so he is just as much a part of our family as we are to each other.”

  “And Marcus, he doesn’t want anything to do with him?”

  “Marcus wasn’t really given the choice, but no, he didn’t ever put up a fight about wanting custody or even visitation rights. Nicholas’s birth certificate has no mention of Marcus. I’m listed as his biological father.”

  “Isn’t that illegal? Like kidnapping or something?” asked Jayna.

  Kurt gave Jayna a look that told her to never raise that question again. “Someday Nicholas will know the truth. If he wants a relationship with Marcus, well, that will be for the two of them to figure out. I had hoped to wait and tell all of you when Nicholas was an adult, but part of me wanted to talk to you two sooner. I feared you would find out the wrong way somehow.”

  “Is that why you’ve been reading Mom’s diaries, to see if she wrote about it?” asked Jayna. “I’ve seen you at night, for a long time.”

  “I can’t pinpoint any one reason why I decided to read through some of Mom’s diaries. In part for more understanding, and partly because I can hear her voice, and I feel close to her when I’m holding her words. I miss her too, girls.”

  This brought tears to both Sadie’s and Jayna’s eyes, and they all sat in silence under the Pentwater stars with the dark Lake Michigan water at their feet. The girls had so many more questions that needed answering, but instead, they relished the moment, sitting in peace and feeling Lydia watching over them.

  Chapter 34

  Marissa

  Marissa woke in a sweat and a fury. Her emotions were definitely getting the best of her. In her dream, she was seething, yelling at Lydia, even clawing and shoving her.

  She was crying in her dream and began to cry in her sleep, which woke her up. As she walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, she could feel herself still shaking. The feelings of being so upset at Lydia all came rushing back: the stomach aches, crying fits, and sleepless nights. She hadn’t had a dream like that in years.

  Fresh air was what she needed, so she made her way to the front porch and cozied herself on the comfy new cushions she bought for her rocking chairs.

  The night was warm, and she wasn’t chilled the least bit, wearing only a silky shorts and tank pajama set. She leaned her head back as she rocked and gazed at the stars, finding the Big Dipper. Beautiful. Simple. Peaceful.

  She remembered how finding the Big Dipper with the girls when they were little was such a big deal when they were in Pentwater. A smile spread across her face as Marissa remembered she and Lydia taking Paige, Sadie, and Jayna up in the dunes to stargaze one summer. They had brought their dried-out beach towels, still smelling of coconuts from that day’s sunscreen.

  The girls had flashlights to navigate the trails through the dunes, and as they lay on their backs staring up at the stars, they used the flashlights as pointers, making up constellations because their sorry mothers didn’t know any.

  Marissa closed her eyes, and she could still hear the girls giggling, the rustling of the dune grass in the breeze, and the faint sound of the waves rolling to shore below them. The kids always smelled of summer: sunscreen, the lake, ice cream, popsicles, and camp fires.

  Those were the best years of her life, thought Marissa. They were young, she and Marcus were still in love, and everyone was healthy.

  Please give me a second chance, prayed Marissa, and then she even went as far as singing, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight,” just as she and Lydia had with the girls that night.

  That night she had wished so badly for another child. At that point, there was still a chance.

  Chapter 35

  Sadie

  The next morning came sooner than later. The conversation with their dad had lasted only a few more minutes. Kurt had suggested they all get some sleep and talk again over breakfast, followed by some morning fishing.

  By the time Sadie and Jayna stopped talking, it was after three in the morning, so when she heard Nicholas scream, “Nooo . . . Pop Tart!” and saw that it was already 9:42, she figured she might as well get up. She snuck out, letting Jayna sleep, and heard her dad bargaining with Nicholas that he could have another Pop Tart after he finished his bowl of blueberries.

  “I hate blueberries,” she heard Nicholas say as she rounded into the kitchen.

  “You loved them yesterday,” her dad said in response. “And please don’t use the word hate, little buddy.”

  Nicholas huffed. “I’m NOT little.”

  Sadie surprised Nicholas from behind and nuzzled his head with her nose. He turned around and had an instant smile on his face at the sight of his sister. Sadie loved Nicholas like crazy, no matter if Marcus was his father—nothing was going to change that.

  She felt a sudden protectiveness come over her. She would do anything so that Nicholas would never have to know that Kurt wasn’t his real dad, and at the same moment, she realized something herself. She realized why her dad was so adamant about her not knowing the real reason behind her mom and Marissa’s falling out. It was a protective thing, a love so great that he would do everything in his power to protect. It wasn’t just Nicholas he was protecting either; it was his entire family, his wife, her friends, and so many others.

  Sadie scooped a handful of blueberries from Nicholas’s dish. “I’ll help you out, little buddy. I love ’em. They’re brain food, good for your memory, and they’ll make you smart.”

  At the sight of his sister, Nicholas grabbed a handful of blueberries and gobbled them down too. “I’m already smart, Sadie. Dad is the one who should eat them, so he’ll remember what I don’t like to eat.”

  Sadie snickered and saw her dad behind Nicholas raise his arms and shake his head in defeat. She knew nothing, or no one, could break the bond that held their family together.

  Sadie’s head was pounding from lack of sleep and the fact that there was so much on her mind.

  One of the biggest burdens was Marissa. Realizing it was her own mother who caused their fall out, and not Marissa, changed everything. It didn’t make it any easier to figure out why her dad and Marissa had a thing going on. If anything, it seemed even more twisted. And Paige . . . well, they shared a brother. Did this mean she would find out too? And what about Travis and Paige?

  Just as Travis popped into Sadie’s head, she saw him out the kitchen window, heading towards their cottage. Sadie panicked a bit as he knocked on the door. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet, she w
as still in her pj’s, and she knew she looked like crap. It had been a long night.

  At the sight of Sadie, Travis pushed open the screen door, letting himself in. “Hey, morning.”

  “Good morning,” Sadie said, taking two steps back, hoping she didn’t have the worst morning breath ever. She scrambled over to the cupboard to grab a glass and quickly got herself some water. “Want something, water, juice?”

  “Nah, thanks, I just came to grab Nicholas. Cody and I are taking him mini golfing. Your dad asked if he could hang with us for a while so you could go out to breakfast.”

  Nicholas scrambled from the table faster than he could scream Pop Tart. “I’ll get my flip-flops, Trav!”

  Travis and Sadie watched Nicholas run to the porch and then looked at each other. Sadie felt the unspoken tension and she hated it, so before she knew it, she was rambling nervously.

  “So . . . meet up with you on the beach this afternoon? The waves are supposed to be big. It will be a good day for boogie boarding. That’s waaay easier than skim boarding, if you ask me.” She laughed nervously.

  “Actually, we were thinking about heading over to Silver Lake. My dad brought his Jeep up so we can take it on the dunes. Do you want to go with us? We have an extra spot. Liz was going to go, but she has to do something with her grandma now.”

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to wait for me. I think my dad wants to do some fishing after breakfast anyway. You two go ahead.”

  Sadie saw Travis shift uncomfortably, and she instantly knew why. One spot in the Jeep was reserved for Paige. The extra was now available since Liz couldn’t go.

  Travis couldn’t seem to look Sadie in the eyes. He took his baseball cap off and spun it around, placing it backwards on his head. Why did he have to do that? He looked so incredibly hot with his hat on backwards. “Paige is driving up around one-thirty, so we have to wait for her anyway. It’s no big deal, we can leave whenever, and it’ll be fun if you come with us.”